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RayGarrison
11-22-2010, 10:13 PM
Hi there.

A bit of background. I've been an audioholic since the late 70's. I'm one of those guys who constantly reads reviews, goes to audition stuff, likes what he hears, buys it, listens to it happily for a while, then starts to notice shortcomings in one aspect of the music or another, gets frustrated, sells what he has and starts over again. Sometimes this works out okay (financial impact aside), sometimes I kick myself pretty hard 'cause what I get doesn't match up to what I had. Just to give you an idea, over the years I've had everything from Acoustic Energy AE-1's (original series, little bitty boxes) to VMPS SuperTower II A/R Special Edition towers (6'4" 300 pound monsters with 3 15" woofers, 15" mass loaded passive radiator, 4 midrange, 4 inverted dome tweeters, 1 Phillips ribbon supertweeter) and all sorts of stuff in between. Amps ranged from little Rotel 30 watt integrated to a pair of bridged Adcom GFA-555 (also original series), 600 some odd watts into 8 ohms. Up 'till today I've been listening to a pair of Klipsch La Scalas with an REL sub in our rec room with a Jolida integrated amp (2 X 6550 tubes per channel, class A/B not single ended.) Wanted to set up a system in the living room, wife doesn't like the rec room (converted basement, kind of uncomfortable). La Scalas didn't have a prayer of fitting in living room, so I was forced to go looking for an entirely new system. Rats. ;)

Obviously, given the fact that I'm posting here and the post says "New Sierra Owner", that's what I am. Spent a *LOT* of time researching smaller speakers, reading reviews, reading forums, etc. etc. etc. and decided to give Dave's speakers a try. Just got them today (recert naturals). I'm driving them with a Cambridge Audio 640A rev 2 integrated (75 watts per, demo unit from Audio Advisor) and using a Cambridge DVD89 as source (CD/DVD/SACD/DVD-Audio, also demo from AA), Blue Jeans cables and interconnects, Sanus wooden stands. Whole system cost less than my sub did. I went into this kind of skeptical, I have after all had the pleasure of owning a bunch of different Audiophile-Approved® speakers from companies like B&W and Theil over the years, and up until a few weeks ago I'd never heard of Ascend Acoustics. However, everything I read sounded promising, and given th 30 day option how could you lose?

When the speakers landed today, my first reaction was Wow, this is the best packaging I've ever seen. Don't listen to the shipping carton, of course, but the care and thought that went into this was obvious and quite encouraging. Second thought was the speakers are magnificently constructed. Seriously. I have no idea how he can sell the *cabinets* for this price, let alone a complete speaker. So, let's set 'em up and see how they sound. Now, my room is not large (14 X 20 or so as I recall, had a couple glasses of wine last time I measured it, but that's probably close) and it's full of wifely furniture. To give the Sierras a fair shake, I moved a few chairs out of the way, and positioned the speakers where experience tells me they ought to sound the best - few feet out from the front wall, couple feet away from the side walls, on the short wall firing down the longer length of the room, listening position about 2/3rds back, speakers making about a 80 degree angle from listening position, slightly toed in, tweeters at ear height. Started with a CD my wife and I enjoy, one that we've heard many, many times on every system we've owned. Michael Bolton, Said I Love You, But I Lied (okay, okay, but I like it, so shoot me.) Well, uh, hummm... color me underwhelmed. Speakers sound okay, I guess, but Michaels nose seems to have grown a couple sizes since the last time I heard him. Don't know what to call the opposite of "nasal" - it literally sounds like he's singing through his nose. Imaging is good, bass is better than I expected... but there's no depth - everything is sort of 2D stretched from left to right. Maybe they're not broken in? But these were recerts, one of the reasons I got them was so I wouldn't have to worry about a break in period. Maybe I just had too high an expectation. Fiddled with positioning a little, moved and inch or so this way and that way, tried different toe in, didn't seem to make any real difference. Wife thought they sounded "nice", which isn't really condemning with faint praise, she's not as nutty as I am about this stuff. She did have a real problem with the fact that I'd screwed up the living room furniture to position these, though. I promised her I'd only pull them out into the room like this when we were doing "serious listening" - most of the time, I've have the chairs and stuff back where they belong and move the speakers back against the wall out of the way.

Spent a couple hours listening, trying to convince myself I was happier with the sound than I was, eventually decided to call it quits for the day and try again tomorrow. Moved the speakers into the "idle not in use" position, put the furniture back, went to fix dinner. Just for the heck of it, put a CD on (Elton John 2nd album, SACD version), queued up Border Song, started to head into the kitchen.

Holy Moses.

This sounded *FANTASTIC*. I turned around with my jaw dragging on the floor. The whole front end of the room was gone, there was just this music filling the space where the wall used to be. I mean, for real, I felt like the chorus was someplace 15 or 20 feet on the other side of where my house used to end, stretched from side to side, with Elton standing way forward of them, and he sounded like, well, like Elton John singing in my living room. Forget airyness and transparency and imaging and soundstaging and fleshiness and every other adjective I can think of except for one - human. I stood there and listened to the rest of the album, then noticed my wife had come back into the room and was standing there with her eyes closed kind of swaying back and forth. I'll shorten this up a bit and just way we spent the next couple hours playing favorite cuts from a lot of different groups - Ronnie Milsap, the Stones, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Judy Garland, and they all sounded more real than I remember hearing on any other system I've had (except maybe the B&W 801f's, but they're, like, $8K these days).

And the thing is THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING. I've attached a few pictures of the way the speakers are set up. Here's looking at the left speaker from our couch:

http://www.deedcast.net/RaysStuff/Images/LeftSide.png

Here's the right speaker:

http://www.deedcast.net/RaysStuff/Images/RightSide.png

and here's the straight ahead view:

http://www.deedcast.net/RaysStuff/Images/StraightOn.png

There are so many things wrong with this setup I hardly know where to begin. The left speaker is right beside a 35" TV, which will reflect right into the room. Both speakers are flanking a big china cabinet with glass sides and front. There's a *CHAIR* in front of the right speaker (well, the tweeter is well above the arm, and the woofer is just clear of it, but still :eek: ). Both speakers are shoved as close to the wall as I can get them, given the banana plugs on the speaker posts. They're not centered on the wall - closer to the left side than they are to the right side. The left speaker is way too close to another glass china cabinet.

But - this setup sounds FANTASTIC!

I have absolutely no idea why. If anyone has a clue I'm all ears. I'll try to write more about the way this sounds over the next few days after I've had more time. For now, all I can say is I'm loving the music these play, I'm really glad I happened to play something after I'd "moved them out of the way", and I am seriously wondering if I know anything what so ever about stereos.

If you have a pair of Sierras, I can't encourage you strongly enough to experiment with placement. You might get a big surprise.

Color me baffled,

Ray Garrison

Mag_Neato
11-23-2010, 12:51 PM
Awesome write up, Ray! Welcome to the Ascend family!

Now I will have to play with the positioning of my Sierra's to see if it brings any welcome changes.:cool:

soundseeker
11-23-2010, 01:24 PM
Congrats Ray. The problem now is, you can't move anything. :D

markie
11-24-2010, 12:22 AM
What a fantastic story, and fascinating to boot. Thank you Ray! (So well written too, you must be a writer of some sort!)

I can't wait for more of your findings as to what specific factor(s) is causing the Sierras to sound so differently - whether it be distance from rear wall, sides walls, toe in, source material or what. Your inner scientist must be chomping at the bit. Mine is. :D

Mark

RayGarrison
11-27-2010, 12:07 PM
Quick update.

I haven't had much chance to listen to my new setup at the sound level I've traditionally used, which I consider somewhat loud. Just to give you a baseline reference, I once hooked a CD player's output (Denon 1520) directly into the inputs of a pair of GFA-555 amps bridged into mono (600 watts into 8 ohms, no attenuation between CD player and amp) which were driving a pair of Klipschorns in a not-so-big room (maybe 15 X 25) with sliding glass doors that were open to the deck facing the beach, and put on a CD of Michael Murray playing Bach organ music http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61SUpScgpzL._SL500_AA240_.jpg on a really big pipe organ in a large church. It was sortta loud, but I really enjoyed it. When the CD finished, I heard noises outside, went out on the deck, and there was a small crowd of people outside clapping and saying "Thanks, Ray, that sounded AWESOME..."

Anyway, back to the Sierras. I've mostly been listening late at night, after the rest of the family is in bed, so I have to keep the volume way down. I recently added an SACD/DVD-Audio compatible DVD player (Cambridge DVD-89) as my source, which I'm loving, and I've been buying SACD and DVD-Audio discs of music I'm familiar with (Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road on DVD-A, Roy Orbison Black and White on DVD-A, Dark Side of the Moon on SACD, Days of Future Passed on SACD, Elton John [2nd album] on SACD) plus listening to plain old CD's by the boatload. (Turntable is still downstairs on the other system.) I don't have a meter available so I don't know the actual dB level I'm using, but it's somewhere between really low and low. Have to turn off all appliances, humidifier, etc. or they mask the music. I have never listened to music that such a reduced volume level and enjoyed it before. Every other system I've ever had has always sounded better and better as you turned it up louder and louder. Or maybe that's just me...

I have *NEVER*, *EVER* heard a system anyplace (dealer demo, friend's house, Stereophile show, whatever) or, for that matter, live music ( :eek: ) that sounds this good at low volumes. The Sierras, even at really low volumes, play music that sounds alive, vibrant and realistically "sized" - that is, the soundstage doesn't shrink - back to front depth (if on the recording) is still deeper than I can believe, and the music extends out past the speakers to fill the whole front of my room. Bass (surprisingly deep bass, at that) is clear, articulate, and again, for lack of a better word, real. Acoustic bass sounds like someone plucking strings on a big wooden thingie in my room, electric bass sounds like it sounds in a club (only not so loud), drums - now, this is hard to articulate - drums still "thump" the air when hit, but its a quiet "thump". That is, the impact isn't diminished, it's just turned down. I wish I could describe it better... sort of like I've moved further away. Ya know how if you're at a football game way up in the bleachers and someone is playing a bass drum in the band, and the sound is not loud like it would be if you were close to it, but you still feel the "thump" in your chest? That's what I mean.

I never enjoyed playing music at quiet, low levels before. Even when I tried to force myself to because it was late at night or whatever, I invariably wound up edging up the volume control, because it just didn't sound good until it was a little louder... then a little louder...

Not with this system. With the Sierras I can listen for hours, turning *DOWN* the volume as it gets later into the night, and I just find myself falling into the music.

Please don't take from this that I'm implying that the Sierras don't sound as good when played loudly - that's not my point. I hope to have some time to rock out with the system over the next few days, and as I do I'll post some more thoughts. But for now, let me sum up this way.

If you have ever wanted a system for your study, or wherever it is that you spent time deep in thought late at night when the rest of the house is snuggled in bed sleeping, but you've always been disappointed at the amount of enjoyment your were able to experience listening to music played down low when all is quiet, you have *GOT* to hear the Sierras.

I *LOVE* these speakers.

Ray Garrison
the old guy from Connecticut

soundseeker
11-27-2010, 01:38 PM
Ray,
What speaker stands are you using?
Jan

RayGarrison
11-27-2010, 03:01 PM
Hi Jan.

I'm using Sanus Natural Foundations Speaker Stands from Audio Advisor - http://www.audioadvisor.com/images/SANNFC_000.JPG

These are 24 inches high, which is perfect to position the tweeters at ear level given the height of my couch. First let me say I'm not a big believer in things like speaker stands and such affecting the sound of a system - I didn't get these because I thought they'd "sound better" than some other stands. I got them because my wife wanted something that wouldn't look ugly in the living room, and because they were on sale as a demo pair. :D Cherry finished wood stands, they have (really cheap) cable dressing thingies on the back that keep the cables hidden until they come out from under the base on the floor, and they do what they're supposed to do - hold the speakers up off the floor, don't fall over, and don't "ring" like some metal stands I've used. I don't really think they contribute to the sound I'm getting, in any sense other than they're the correct height. They sure look nice, though.

Note that in the above pictures the (birght white) speaker cables are lying on the floor. Wifely input suggested that wasn't such a great solution, so I've managed to shove them (gentle application of flat bladed screw driver and large hammer) under the baseboard trim at the foot of the wall. Between the stands hiding the cables from floor to speaker, and the electronics hiding in the corner cabinet, and the really, really nice cabinets of the Sierras, system looks pretty good. Not as good as it sounds, but pretty good.

Jeez, what a long answer to a short question.

Ray

soundseeker
11-29-2010, 10:32 AM
Cool. Thank you Ray.

davef
12-02-2010, 10:54 PM
Ray,

Thank you so much for the wonderful review. I am very happy to hear that you are enjoying the speakers!

RayGarrison
12-06-2010, 09:42 PM
Hi again.

Very busy these days, haven't had nearly as much time to simply listen to music as I'd like. Will continue to post snippits and bits as I can.

I've noticed something really cool, thought I'd post it and ask if anyone else has a similar story, and ask Dave if he's got any comments on why this is so.

Short summary - the Sierra's make bad recordings listenable, by separating the music from the sound.

I haven't had any sleep to speak of in a couple days, so I may not be too coherent, but let me give a specific example of what I mean. One of my favorite recordings is the London cast recording of the Phantom of the Opera, Polydor 831 273-2 Y-2, with Michael Crawford as the Phantom and Sarah Brightman as Christine, particularly the first half dozen songs on disc one. For a lot of personal reasons, this music really, really reaches deep into me each time I hear it. Unfortunately, this is one of the *WORST* recordings I own. Holt's law (the better the performance the worse the recording, and vice versa) in full bloom. There are a few phrases sung by Sarah where the awful hissy piercing high frequency whistling will drill holes in your teeth. I don't know if the gain on the main mic was jacked way up, or there was some kind of weird feedback problem or resonance in an input tube (?) or what. Doesn't matter - the sound has always been so bad that I had a hard time getting past it to enjoy the performance. Very much like trying to relax and enjoy the show while someone's blowing a dog whistle in your ear.

Last night I listened to this on the Sierra's, at a volume level a bit above where I've been the past week or so. I have never enjoyed this performance so much, including when I saw the original cast on Broadway. The piercing, hissing "SSSsssssssssssss" still rang out every time she sang anything with an "S" in it, but somehow the Sierra's managed to set it aside, apart from the music. If anything, it's unwaivering and unyielding awfulness was even more clearly articulated and presented via the Sierra's than any other system I've heard. But. somehow, it was set apart from the music. If you listen to a lot of LP's you know what I mean - even records with a scratchy surface with lots of pops and ticks can be enjoyed, because the pops and ticks are clearly not part of the music, they exist on a different plane and, given the right circumstances, can be ignored. In this case, I was listening to her sing, and some part of me registered this annoying extraneous noise accompanying her like an uninvited bagpipe player, but that's all it was - extraneous, disconnected, disjointed noise. The music and the emotion carried by her voice came through clearer and with more life and, uh, sorry... the gestalt of music and voice and pain and longing and hope and fear was here, with me, and the noise and annoyances and distractions were separated out like chaff from the wheat, and dumped over there in the corner...

Okay, I'm really sorry, it's like seriously late and I'm really tired and I have no idea how to say what I'm trying to convey. For anyone reading this who is wondering about getting a pair of Sierra's, and if you're reading this you really need to get a life, let me make this simple.

Buy The Speakers.

Going to bed now...

markie
12-07-2010, 04:48 AM
Very interesting information, thanks for sharing! I wish I could write like that when sleep deprived. I need to get a life. And some Sierras of course. :D

RayGarrison
12-28-2010, 12:19 PM
Just another brief update.

While prepping the house for Christmas, which involves moving massive pieces of heavy furniture around in the living room per wifely instructions, I had to move the Sierras to make room for the tree. While doing so, late at night a few days before Christmas, I decided to take advantage of the general state of chaos and try listening to some music with the speakers positioned in a variety of places they couldn't normally go - at least, they couldn't go there if I were attempting to maintain some sense of domestic tranquility. One option I've heard great things about but never tried myself is extreme "near field" setups. In this case, I had the Sierras sitting on the room diagonal, about 6 feet apart, facing the corner, slightly toed in, with me sitting about 5 feet in front of them.


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This positioned the speakers well away from the side walls, and is supposed (according to many manufacturers and a bunch of industry pundits) to give you the best soundstaging, imaging, stage depth, etc. etc. etc., at the expense of losing some bass reinforcement at the lowest end.

Well, this sucked. Not only did I have *NO* bass whatsoever (I mean, response fell off higher and faster than my Klipsch La Scalas, so I'm guessing someplace between 50 and 60 Hz, below which it dropped like a stone) - the wonderful imaging and "open window on the performance" illusion that I'd been used to in the (theoretically way sub-optimal) setup I've been using (see previous posts) was just destroyed. Flat, uninvolving, narrow shallow stage, yuck.

Once again I question my understanding of basic audio principles. I have no idea whatsoever why the sound fell apart the way it did with this setup, but it totally ruined the music. No life, no rythm, no beat, no bounce, no joy.

I now have the speakers wedged into a corner behind a large chair, one on either side, close the walls. Sounds much better - still not as good as the setup with them a third of the way in from the side walls and with their little backs shoved up against the wall behind them as close as the banana plugs, binding posts and cables will permit, but not bad.

Once again, please experiment with placement with the Sierras. I have no idea what makes them respond so dramatically to changes in positioning within the room, but respond they do. Positions that "should" sound ideal just don't work (at least not for me in my room), positions that aren't supposed to let the speakers sound their best actually sound wonderful, and the more I experiment the less confident I feel that I can predict how any particular arrangement is going to sound. Move 'em, groove to 'em, and move 'em again. You might find a magic spot where the room just melts away and the music is in your house.

:cool:

Ray Garrison

PS - Someday I'm gonna add a subwoofer just on the general principle that if you mess with a thing long enough, you'll break it. I have no idea where to even begin with that adventure.

krs
12-28-2010, 05:26 PM
Hi Ray,

Thanks for relaying your complete experiences with your Sierras.

May I ask if you have the NrT tweeter upgrade installed?

RayGarrison
12-29-2010, 07:06 AM
Nope, no upgrades. Bone stock Sierras in natural finish.

markie
12-29-2010, 07:14 AM
Ray does not have the NrT tweeter upgrade.

I'm fascinated that the Sierra sounds so good up against the wall - in Ray's room at least. The scientist in me would like to know if this is an anomalous quality of Ray's room. Would other speakers comparable to the Sierras also sound much better where the Sierras are placed, or is this a property fairly unique to the Sierras? Have others experimented with Ray's findings? This is important information for Sierra owners to know. Experimentation with placement can be critical.

Relatively very few speakers are designed to be placed right next to a wall. The only ones I know is the Guru and the newer Clue speakers from Sjohn HiFi.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/clue-sjofn-hifi

I've always thought this was a smart idea, and if the Sierra can pull it off, definitely the more power to it!

Mark

krs
12-29-2010, 11:32 AM
Nope, no upgrades. Bone stock Sierras in natural finish.

Thanks Ray,

I asked that question because of your initial comments about poor Michael Bolton's beak having grown, or his sound having become nasally in comparison to your prior experience, so I was kinda' hoping it was because of the upgrade tweeter..

I have a new set of B-stocks and opted to have the NrT upgrade done at factory because of the favorable pricing doing it that way and because I figured that it'd be inevitable that I'd want to do it eventually anyway.

However I don't have the advantage of comparison as I'd never heard a pair of Sierras before receiving these.

Now I'm not sure if I didn't make a mistake by not following my initial plan to buy the speakers and THEN decide to try the upgrade. Some of my oldest favorites are coming out with a sound that I'd have to call grating, even intolerable at times. I guess the best way to describe succinctly it is to say that it's digital.

I only received the speakers Dec. 24th so I've been plugging in every amp in the house (four seperate ways to drive them) in turn to see if something will warm up the sound but so far I don't know what to do about whether they stay. I really like their precision - the clean no resonance way they play the mid and low ranges but the high ranges are just too 'tweety' or something.

I guess I'll try asking if I can buy the take-out tweeters and do an in-house "downgrade".

curtis
12-29-2010, 11:45 AM
I guess I'll try asking if I can buy the take-out tweeters and do an in-house "downgrade".
Not just the tweeter...but the crossover as well.

Is the problem with older recordings vs newer?

krs
12-29-2010, 12:13 PM
Hi Curtis,

Ya, I knew the crossover would be a part of the change.

The age of recordings doesn't seem to be a factor, and I'm only playing CD's for the time being.

I very much like the sound of the speakers - make no mistake about that.

It's only the highest range notes that grate me. I think a part of it is how cleanly they play - precise notes without the sort of deep note resonances that can smooth an overall sound. I get the distinct feeling that I'm listening to three seperate drivers even while knowing that there ARE only two in the enclosures.

RayGarrison
12-29-2010, 08:17 PM
krs -

You mentioned trying a bunch of different amps, but didn't say whether you'd tried moving the speakers to various locations. Even if the room doesn't lend itself to alternate placements, and you're stuck with putting them wherever they are, take a little time when you have the chance and try moving them around to different positions, even if they can't stay there, just to see what happens.

Are they on stands? On bookshelves? On the floor? Are they close to the wall behind them? Move them out. Are they well out from the wall behind them? Move them back. Are they close to the side walls? Move them away. Are they away from the side walls? Move them close. Are the pointed straight ahead? Toe them in. Are they toed in? Point them straight ahead. My point is, I expect you'll find much more opportunity to change the sound by moving the speakers, even in small increments, than you will by driving them with different amps. Unless one of the amps is seriously compromised.

Curtis - couple of speakers designed to be close to the wall.

Linn Isobariks
http://www.gz008.cn/sa/gallery.php?id=52

Roy Allison's speakers
http://www.positiveimagenews.com/image_library/jpg/allison_one.jpg

Klipschorns
http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t71/sleauxone/Klipschorn2.jpg

I had a pair of Allison 1's and a pair of Klipschorns at one point... remember them fondly, but don't miss them so much now that I have the Sierras...

pegleg
01-03-2011, 09:57 AM
Ray--
Great writings. Not only the information but the style! I only wish I was young enough to keep moving them the way you obviously are. Plus, my wife likes them off the floor--up on top of our entertainment units.

I had a Sierra experience with the film version of Phanton, which I hated until we got Sierras. Suddenly it sounded wonderful. I need to try playing more music softer; my wife is already thanking you!

Pegleg

Funambulistic
01-04-2011, 07:55 PM
Ray,

I have really enjoyed reading about your experiences as a new Sierra 1 owner (as am I). A while back, I had to set up my kit in the corner because of the shape of the room, furniture, etc. It was not as near field as your diagram so eloquently explains ;) but more of an isosceles triangle: the entertainment center in the corner set at a 45 degree angle; speakers 10" in front of the plane of the rack and 66" apart; the listening position 78" from the plane of the speakers (and the subwoofer centered in the corner behind the rack - I know common "wisdom" is that low bass notes cannot be localized but it really did make a difference). The result was the most realistic imaging and dynamic presentation I have had in any of my systems (this was three stereos ago). I believe it was because there were no parallel surface reflections, but what do I know? The living room opened up into the breakfast area which connected to the kitchen and both of those areas were separated by a couple arches from the two-story entry hall, which opened up to the game room upstairs (whew!). The configuration as a whole acted as a house-sized megaphone and I could enjoy music from anywhere inside the home.

I have not tried this with my Sierras as of yet (which, by the way, are the best speakers I have ever owned and I have owned my fair share [Wilson Audio, I thumb my nose at thee]). Right now, I am between permanent residences (huzzahs for the economy!) and have my Sierras set up on 18" rickety stools in front of a dresser (my integrated and CD player are on a $7 particle board shoe rack from Walmart) and I listen from the bed in my sister's house. Not the best layout imaginable (the speakers are way too low and off center) but it sounds heavenly! I guess that is the whole point...