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Why we made a Whiskey Barrel into a Speaker.

It is all about the sound

A Pioneer engineer with the responsibility of developing new products had a unique idea about capitalizing on the maturation of wood from a whiskey barrel by making it into a speaker cabinet. “When I tapped a piece of this timber to get an idea of the sound it would make, it produced a soft, mellow tone that lingered in the air.”

There were those in his product development team that were skeptical but he proceeded forth with his project. “The sound spoke for itself. Once I had fashioned a prototype and compared its sound to that of a conventional speaker, my detractors were finally convinced that I was on to something. This was the mysterious product of nature, a sound that a piece of timber was only able to produce after 50 years of contact with whiskey.” So began Pioneer's pure malt speaker.

The maturing of the wood

The oak spends the 50 years of its life helping whiskey mature. As the wood ages it releases ingredients such as tannin and lignin that give whiskey it's amber color. As the ingredients are released, the barrel absorbs the whiskey and over time develops a gentler and deeper sound. After 50 years of service in aging whiskey, select barrels are picked to become our hand-made speaker cabinets.

How a round barrel becomes a flat speaker cabinet

Once a whiskey barrels is selected the curved wood from the barrel is flattened out and dried out. The strips are then put together by hand and shaped into individual speaker cabinets. It takes one whiskey barrel to produce a pair of speaker cabinets. Each pair of speaker cabinets has its own unique wood grain and color. In addition, this high quality oak will continue to change to a splendid deeper color as time goes on. A brand authentication logo appears on the rear of each speaker.

First Time Available in the US

We have sold these speakers in Japan for years and are finally making them available in the United States. So now you too can enjoy the sound that took years and years of maturation to develop.

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