A couple questions...

[bombadil67]

Sounds like there's an ACI in your future.[:D] Well, maybe.

I have a Titan wich is rated down to 20hz. While it may get there, I'm not sure how many db's at that point . . . never measured it.

More importantly though, I think this sub sounds awesome! When playing music the Titan simply sounds like an extension of my CBMs. It handles HT very nicely as well. Yep, it'll shake the walls when necessary.

I doubt, however, there's very much info below 20hz. Moot point for me; this baby's more than adequate for my 14x20 room.

There may be other options, including DIY (maybe not), but I'm not familiar with other commercial offerings (sealed).

You didn't mention your budget. The Titan isn't cheap, around $1300. You might also consider a dual Force set-up, about $1500-1600. Hey, if you have $2000 or so, there's the 15" Maestro with some very nice electronics to go with it.

www.audioc.com

Have fun with your search.

Cliff

[curtis]

Hey Picus....welcome to the forum. No head scratching from me...all is good.

From what I understand, if the speakers were legitimately purchased from Ascend, the warranty is transferable. Just get the serial numbers and check with Ascend.

I have no experience with a sealed sub that gets below 20hz. In fact, I doubt know of a sealed sub that gets that low. Which Hsu subs did you own before? Is there a way you can demo the VTF-3 so you can get a feel for how it sounds compared to the UFW-10? Is it a VTF-3MK2...or the older VTF-3? Some of the stuff from Adire looks good. And as Cliff mention, ACI makes good stuff too.

If you ever get a chance to compare the CMT-340m to a Ref1, I think you will be quite surprised...or even the 170's and a good sub. From your descriptions of the CSe on AVS, I think you will find that the Ref1 sounds more like the Ascends than the CSe. It seems as though the CSe follows the traditional Rocket sound with emphasis on the mids.

Once again, welcome to the forum.

-curtis

[Picus]

Hey guys thanks for the replies. Sorry about not mentioning a budget, I am pretty flexible. If I find a sub I like I'm pretty willing to spend the money to buy it unless it's obscene like $5k. :D I'll check into the ACI subs, they sound promising. I know I'm asking a lot talking about 20Hz with a sealed sub so I may end up going ported to get good SPL below 20, we will see. The Hsu subs I owned were the STF-2 and a VTF-3 (orignal), the VTF-3 my employee has is the original not the mkII. I mentioned my Hsu subs a long time ago and I think you responded to me, Curtis - I always found they were a little too boomy and single note sounding to me especially when I had the VTF and the UFW in the same room. It's possible I was doing something wrong but I didn't do anything differently with the UFW-10 and I think it sounds fantastic. Maybe I will have to demo one out again. That will be funny my wife will definitely scratch her head.

On the ref1 and 340+sub, I've heard the ref1 and the 170's+the UFW-10 (not in the same room, not the same equipment, so take this with a grain of salt), and I found musically I liked the ref 1 much better. You're right when you say it is sort of 'in between' the Cse and 170 sound. The upper and misbass isn't as accentuated as on the Cse's (I like that about the Cse's), but I thought it was still less 'thin' sounding during musical playback than the 170's. Also I thought the ref1's had a more tangible sound you could feel as well as hear the instuments. They were very dynamic and 'smooth' in the bass through the upper mids. On the other hand the highs were a little too revealing for me and I really liked the high end of the Ascends, although during music it was a little shrill for me at some points. I'm super sensetive to that so most people probably diagree. Honestly I don't know that I would pick either for a 2-channel system. I am much more apt to like something like a Dynaudio 52SE or 72, which sounds similar to the Cse but is an obvious upgrade. I'm definitely into the 'warmer' sounding speakers for music.

Of course for HT I really liked the Ascends, and since I wouldn't be using them for music (which is why I want a sub that will go low, and am not overly worried about how 'musical' it is), I don't have to worry about that.

[curtis]

Will be very interesting to read what you think of the CMT-340m in two channel. When I had them at Mad Dog's house to compare directly to the Ref1's, surprisingly close for the cost differential, in fact, I thought the Ref1 was a tad thinner in the mids. You are right, the Ascends and Ref1's are not a "warm" speakers, the Ascends are neutral....the Ref's may be a little hot on top.

I can tell you if I put my VTF-3 in the available corner of my room, it does sound boomy. It is not about 4' from that corner on the side wall...sounds great.

Good luck....and feel free to keep posting here.

-curtis

[Picus]

Oh maybe that was it - the VTF-3 was almost always in a corner in my room, maybe 2 inches away max. Maybe I can convince Steve (the guy who is selling them) to let me try the VTF-3 in my room again and I will try putting it somewhere away from the wall.

Switching gears - I think maybe our definitions of 'mids' is different. This is the second time we've disagreed about one speaker being more substantial than another in the mids and it makes me wonder if we're talking about a different thing. A good example is our respective assessments of the ELT LRS's compared to the 170s - while I generally prefer the 170's when taken as a whole I found the upper bass and mid bass of the LRS's to be more substantial by a fairly wide margin. The 170 sounds more 'neutral' to me all the way up from 69Hz-20Khz or wherever it cuts off, on the other hand the ELT LRS (and to a greater extent the Cse) sound like they have a hump in the upper bass and mid bass. Maybe it's just the environment or the equipment we used, but it's totally weird that the one area we seem to be unable to agree on is the mids. I'm not saying fuller mids are better or worse than less full mids, just that usually it's easy for people to agree which set of speakers is more full in the mids and which isn't.

A good example is someone comparing say, B&W and Klipsch. Obviously some people like one more than the other based on personal preference but I think almost anyone will agree that something like a B&W 603 has much deeper fuller mids than say, a Klipsch Synergy 3.

Just seems like we heard something totally different.

[curtis]

Yeah...we are not on base here at all. I felt the mids/mid-bass of the LRS was lacking compared to the CBM-170, and they did not have the bass extension of the 170 as well. I also thought the tweeters in the LRS to be "scratchy".

Mids for me are voices...guitar...horns...etc. Mid-bass would be bass guitar, lower men's voices, etc. To me, on the LRS, they sounded less substantial to me than on the 170's. The LRS is more akin to the HTM-200. Also felt the tweeter in the LRS was "scratchy" at times. The 170 definitely sounded fuller.

I think the mids on the B&W 600 series are a bit sloppy, although I did not do extensive listening.

One of these days maybe we can get together for some listening and straighten this all out. [:D] It is very weird how far off we are.

-curtis

[Picus]

I agree on the 600's being sloppy, they are all over the place and somewhat muddy when they get to the low mid/upper bass. I was just using them as an example of a speaker with a db pump in the midrange area. Listening to the 600/700 series B&W reminds me how lucky we all are that we found such good internet direct brands.

I agree with your assessment of where the upper bass (male vocals) and midbass (bass guitar) and mids (guitar, low piano, horns) are, I guess we just heard differently. I guess as a 'for example' I would say that if you listened to any Norah Jones disc her voice is in the midrange but dips into the midbass, and the piano is almost always squarely in the midbass, since it's primarily low notes. When I listened to Norah Jones on the 170's she sounded comparitively thin and raspy and the piano sounded 'pingy', there was no weight to the notes. I believe BSOD would agree. Perhaps it was the room or something. Or it could be that he wasn't 100% convinced the Ascends were broken in all the way.

I'd very much like for you to hear the Cse's because if there was any question about the LRS's mids there certainly isn't about the Cse's. Odds are you won't like them overall since you seem to like a more neutral sound (which I totally understand), but I don't know if anyone would call them 'thin' in the upper bass/mid area.

But again this is all musical playback and I don't plan on using the Ascends for music anyway since I prefer the Cse's and will probably move up to Dynaudios or someone similar in the future.

In any event it looks like I will be getting the Ascends, I am going on vacation this weekend but hopefully I will have a chance to set them up before then. When I get back I'll do some serious listening and let you guys know if my initial impressions about them being great for HT are met. I think they will be. :)

[curtis]

LOL...yeah, we are totally off on our thoughts....almost the exact opposite on those frequencies. Very strange. Maybe they weren't broken in all the way...but I still can't imagine us being that far off.

I did notice that in a picture you posted, that you have the speaker sitting in the middle of the table/shelf. Maybe reflections off of the table caused a issue? I know moving speaker the front edge of a table/shelf cleans up sound a fair amount. Also, using stands also does wonders as well.

I would love to hear the CSe's one of these days. How does it sound compared to the ELT Center....is the sound changed at all? The time I heard the ELT Center, I did not think it was warm.

Oh...the VTF-3 needs at least 3 inches of port clearance.

You would not be happening to be in LA on that vacation, would you?

-curtis

[Picus]

We moved the speakers forward for the comparison, and I actually leave all three pushed forward when I'm at home. I just had them moved back in that picture because my wife gets on my case about it! :D

The Cse's are identical in every way to the ELT center, aside from the finish. You could turn one horizontally and replace the ELT center and it would be exactly the same in every respect. Actually I believe Mark originally recommended the Cse's stay horizontal, but it's ok to have them vertical with the tweeters in. It's possible you didn't really hear it's 'warmth' since you probably were listening to a DD 5.1 or DTS track during a movie, right? If that's the case you wouldn't really notive the upperbass/midrange warmth I'm talking about. A good way to hear it with only one is to play music using Dolby PLII or PLIIx, since the voices are pumped through the center channel using that you are more likely to hear it it. As a matter of fact before I got the Cse's I found myself doing that a lot because I really like it's reproduction of vocals.

My vacation is actually to the East Coast, so even further away from you - but if you're ever in NorCal or I'm in LA we're going to listen to some speakers together. We're obviously not on the same page or something, which is totally weird. I'd think I was crazy but I'd bet money that if you asked BSOD he'd say the same things I did about the comparison (170's had better detail and were more trasparent overall and were both are pick for HT, LRS's and Cse's had stronger mids and were smoother during musical playback and were both our picks for music, Soundstage was similar for all three with the LRS being the smallest, Ascend being middle and Cse's having the largest). There was actually only one thing we sort of 'disagreed' on and it was a preference issue - he liked dialogue out of the 340 better than the ELT center and I was leaning slightly towards the ELT center. At one point we even put an ELT center in between the 170's to hear the difference between dialogue at a specific part in the Matrix: Revolutions movie. Otherwise we were almost totally on the same page about the whole midrange/ht/music thing. I'm sure having read this you can understand how much I want to hear the 340's in a 2 channel arrangment!

[curtis]

Actually....when we compared the ELT Center to the CMT-340c, we just used one channel during 2-channel playback.

Everything was level matched...right?

Very interesting...would love to get sorted out. Some of the comaparing I did was mono source, speakers side by side right in front of me about 10 feet away, with an A/B switch. Made it very easy to hear differences.

One thing I have found is that DSP modes from receiver to receiver are not created equal.

I am due to visit friends in the Bay area....maybe I can swing something. Maybe you can take the ELT's to an Ascend owner's place...ez-v.

-curtis

[Picus]

Everything was level matched, and all music was done in direct mode, no DSP's (I really don't like them, and BSOD mentioned that he wanted to hear direct mode). We didn't have an a/b switch. Ya, it sounds like try as we might the best bet is to just hear them together. Maybe I will have more insight when I hear the 340s in a 2-channel config. I'd definitely be shocked if you didn't think the Cse's were warm.

I'll let you guys know what I think after I get the 340's here. We're working out the detail now.

[JohnnyCasaba]

Hello Picus,

Welcome to the board. I was going to respond to your posts in the BSOD thread on AVS about your thoughts that the LRS and the 170's sounded the same, but since you were getting together with BSOD, figured you would find out for yourself. They do not sound the same, and you can now see how trying to compare speakers when not doing direct A/B's is pretty difficult.

In my session with both speakers just comnparing them with music in 2 channel, I came away with the impression that the LRS were somewhat brighter than the 170's, and were also smaller and thinner sounding in comparison. I also noted the same thing with the tweeter that Curtis did, like a hissy sound. I will say that when the LRS were hooked up to the owners B&K separates (prior they both were on a Denon 1804), the hiss was cleaned up.

My session with both was only a couple of hours, and I have never heard the CSe's, and don't have the 340 mains, so I look forward to your thoughts on all of them. Enjoy your vacation.

[BradJudy]

I found it interesting (when I compared the CBM-170, GR AV-1 and Ref1 at AV123 HQ) that the CBM-170 and Ref1 were 'voiced' similarly. It may only have seemed that way because the AV-1 was 'voiced' noticably different. I definitely noticed that the Ref1 was more detailed/less forgiving and certainly does 'play big' (as Mark likes to say), but for the price the CBM-170 is fantastic (and if DF ever gets nice wood cabinets going...).

I'm interested in checking out the RS250 MkII at the AV123 event in August - could be an interesting in-between speaker.

[craigsub]

We will be testing the ACI Maestro, the purpose being to see what it can do in comparison to subs like the SVS B4+ for extension... and does it do music "better" ? It is rated to 19 Hz - 3 dB, and starts at $2050, up to $2400... An interesting quote from Mike D. "It has the same output a four Titans, with at LEAST as good sound quality.

[curtis]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Arial, Verdana, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by BradJudy

and if DF ever gets nice wood cabinets going...

I'm interested in checking out the RS250 MkII at the AV123 event in August - could be an interesting in-between speaker.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Hey...I thought you were going to start your own Ascend veneering shop. [:D] You've got the best looking CBM-170's.

I am also interested in hearing what the new RS250 and RS550 sound like.

-curtis