Col
11-03-2012, 04:31 PM
Hi All,
I have been meaning to write a message for some time. My foray with Ascend started here in New Zealand nearly 2 years ago. Just a bit of background on me, music is a huge passion for me and has taken me down many roads. My early years saw me play cello, my father drummed and his Dad was a professional violinist. To say its in the genes is an understatement. I guess I started out being strongly influenced by my Dad, deep purple, early Genesis, PFM, Rainbow. My early teens were 80's dominated and living in the UK was influenced by bands like Simple Minds, Ultravox, Human League. Late teens was the rebellion.....Led Zeppelin, Cream, Black Sabbath, Randy Rhodes, Metallica. Twenties my wife and I moved back to London and it was the height of technco, trance clubs. Paul Oakenfold, Fatboy Slim, John Digweed and electronic music was becoming a big part of my life. This evolved over the years to drum n bass and eventually took me down a dubstep path. At the same time indie was a large part of my life and bands like Blur, Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian were a huge feature Throughout this evolution there has been dabbles of female vocalists, classical, blues.........this isnt supposed to be me waxing lyrical about my musical journey. I wanted to paint a picture of the diversity of my playlist. Any given day can include leftfield, mozart, the back keys, white stripes, nero, benga, lana del rey or coldplay.
To me an audioholic, audiophile, muso whatever you call it has to have a love of music first and foremost. If you cant put a track on that envokes emotion, hairs on the back standing up, welling up, a big cheesy grin then what's the point of it all. I see too many people caught up on on the gadgets, gear, adjectives on what they hear in a system and when asked what they listen to or what music they love it is met with a blank stare..............a small piece of me dies.
My background has taken my into IT which I guess has combined my colourful past with geekiness and a love of researching, understanding all things technical which at the top of the list is of course audio. Why wouldnt it be after all :-)
My first setup was a pioneer seperate power/pre and some wharfedales. I then dabbled with Kefs and had some K160's and again a pioneer amp. These were quickly sold and missions entered the frey. I couldnt quite find anything that made me smile, they all sounded ok. Now back in NZ I spent any spare minute listening to everything the audio stores had to offer. All very limited by our geographical location. Again, nothing gave me "the feeling".
We had a rather quirky chap called Tony start at my company. We started talking one day about our love of music, valves, analog v digital, speakers and the scene was set. Although very different people in many ways, there was another one of us in the office :-). We talked about our setup and he mentioned these bamboo speakers he owned called sierra 1s from a company in the states. I must admit I didnt know what to expect, this guy is from left field. He invited me over and my love affair began. He showed me his setup which included a transcend valve pre amp he had built himself, a holfi solid state 150 watt amp(a largely unknown swedish company) and a cherry set of sierra 1s. He sat me down in the listening chair and what ensued was nothing short of a revelation. I felt as though I had been baptised. I had to own these speakers.
I researched(as I do), read every review. Went back to his place with the wife, we all need to get final approval after all(WAF). Dave was so helpful as shipping to NZ was a big deal so I had many questions. I ended up with the sierra 1's in piano black LRC and the HTM-200 surrounds. At the same time I pulled the trigger on an Anthem MRX-500 AVR. I like the fact this had such good reviews from a musical perspective as I had to try and combine home theatre(my wifes love for movies) with music. After all this was the basis for the business case;)
They arrived, I fell in love again. The honesty, transparency, detail and ability to present everything in a fashion that never makes you want to turn it off or are left wanting. I had them setup with the sub woofer intially but have found myself moving to 2 channel more often. My old M&K sub whilst having a nice tone struggles to keep up and I feel the bass response on them is pretty darn good. I found the Anthem AVR being a digital AMP, using the IPAD as a source of lossless files and the HRT Istreamer good but it did suffer a little from digitalitis. A tube buffer added between the HRT DAC and the AVR sorted that out nicely. Here we go again with the research. Within a day and a half I knew every 6J1 chinese tube equivalents and was on ebay buying Tung Sol 6AK5's, Mullard M8100's and Russian Vokshod equivalents. What amazed me about the sierras was the blinding difference any new tubes made, testiment to how revealing they are.
A have set the Ascend wheels in motion here in sleepy little NZ. They have been packed up taken to houses where that infectious smile has also occured. There must be a medical name for it. The latest victim Andy after a listening session on Friday has already contacted Ascend and is about to pull the trigger on Sierras or the new towers. Watching him mutter expletives with a tear in his eye after each track and then furiously start pulling out his collection to hear what it would sound like on the sierras was a joy to watch. The whole time Tony was texting me for a full update. Its like a small underground club that we are a part of that noone else in NZ really knows about.
Where to from here........I love my Sierras but the thought of Andy buying the towers has put me in a spin. Why do I have to live at the bottom of the world!! I've read every review on the NRT upgrade and this would be something that would be fairly easy taking shipping into account. My only concern has been the fact I wouldnt want to the speakers to sound much more forward than they do but I read about the sparkle they give the top end and I just dont know. What if Andy buys the towers and I fall in love with them too. Long term I would love to have a seperate 2 channel setup in a listening room that consists of a valve pre amp, nice solid state power amp and maybe the towers :-) On one hand it questions my choices in the future but I know 2 things for sure. 1) I am enjoying Andy going through the initial excitement and journey I did. 2) I still goddam love my Sierras to bits.
I know this was some hefty reading but I feel that I needed to set the scene to give you guys an understanding of me, my journey and what the future holds for Ascend in New Zealand. I feel proud and honoured to be part of this community and Dave I thank you with all my heart for your hard work and passion.
I wait with baited breath to see what the future of this amazing bookshelf called the Sierra-1 is.
Cheers All,
Colin(Auckland, NZ)
I have been meaning to write a message for some time. My foray with Ascend started here in New Zealand nearly 2 years ago. Just a bit of background on me, music is a huge passion for me and has taken me down many roads. My early years saw me play cello, my father drummed and his Dad was a professional violinist. To say its in the genes is an understatement. I guess I started out being strongly influenced by my Dad, deep purple, early Genesis, PFM, Rainbow. My early teens were 80's dominated and living in the UK was influenced by bands like Simple Minds, Ultravox, Human League. Late teens was the rebellion.....Led Zeppelin, Cream, Black Sabbath, Randy Rhodes, Metallica. Twenties my wife and I moved back to London and it was the height of technco, trance clubs. Paul Oakenfold, Fatboy Slim, John Digweed and electronic music was becoming a big part of my life. This evolved over the years to drum n bass and eventually took me down a dubstep path. At the same time indie was a large part of my life and bands like Blur, Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian were a huge feature Throughout this evolution there has been dabbles of female vocalists, classical, blues.........this isnt supposed to be me waxing lyrical about my musical journey. I wanted to paint a picture of the diversity of my playlist. Any given day can include leftfield, mozart, the back keys, white stripes, nero, benga, lana del rey or coldplay.
To me an audioholic, audiophile, muso whatever you call it has to have a love of music first and foremost. If you cant put a track on that envokes emotion, hairs on the back standing up, welling up, a big cheesy grin then what's the point of it all. I see too many people caught up on on the gadgets, gear, adjectives on what they hear in a system and when asked what they listen to or what music they love it is met with a blank stare..............a small piece of me dies.
My background has taken my into IT which I guess has combined my colourful past with geekiness and a love of researching, understanding all things technical which at the top of the list is of course audio. Why wouldnt it be after all :-)
My first setup was a pioneer seperate power/pre and some wharfedales. I then dabbled with Kefs and had some K160's and again a pioneer amp. These were quickly sold and missions entered the frey. I couldnt quite find anything that made me smile, they all sounded ok. Now back in NZ I spent any spare minute listening to everything the audio stores had to offer. All very limited by our geographical location. Again, nothing gave me "the feeling".
We had a rather quirky chap called Tony start at my company. We started talking one day about our love of music, valves, analog v digital, speakers and the scene was set. Although very different people in many ways, there was another one of us in the office :-). We talked about our setup and he mentioned these bamboo speakers he owned called sierra 1s from a company in the states. I must admit I didnt know what to expect, this guy is from left field. He invited me over and my love affair began. He showed me his setup which included a transcend valve pre amp he had built himself, a holfi solid state 150 watt amp(a largely unknown swedish company) and a cherry set of sierra 1s. He sat me down in the listening chair and what ensued was nothing short of a revelation. I felt as though I had been baptised. I had to own these speakers.
I researched(as I do), read every review. Went back to his place with the wife, we all need to get final approval after all(WAF). Dave was so helpful as shipping to NZ was a big deal so I had many questions. I ended up with the sierra 1's in piano black LRC and the HTM-200 surrounds. At the same time I pulled the trigger on an Anthem MRX-500 AVR. I like the fact this had such good reviews from a musical perspective as I had to try and combine home theatre(my wifes love for movies) with music. After all this was the basis for the business case;)
They arrived, I fell in love again. The honesty, transparency, detail and ability to present everything in a fashion that never makes you want to turn it off or are left wanting. I had them setup with the sub woofer intially but have found myself moving to 2 channel more often. My old M&K sub whilst having a nice tone struggles to keep up and I feel the bass response on them is pretty darn good. I found the Anthem AVR being a digital AMP, using the IPAD as a source of lossless files and the HRT Istreamer good but it did suffer a little from digitalitis. A tube buffer added between the HRT DAC and the AVR sorted that out nicely. Here we go again with the research. Within a day and a half I knew every 6J1 chinese tube equivalents and was on ebay buying Tung Sol 6AK5's, Mullard M8100's and Russian Vokshod equivalents. What amazed me about the sierras was the blinding difference any new tubes made, testiment to how revealing they are.
A have set the Ascend wheels in motion here in sleepy little NZ. They have been packed up taken to houses where that infectious smile has also occured. There must be a medical name for it. The latest victim Andy after a listening session on Friday has already contacted Ascend and is about to pull the trigger on Sierras or the new towers. Watching him mutter expletives with a tear in his eye after each track and then furiously start pulling out his collection to hear what it would sound like on the sierras was a joy to watch. The whole time Tony was texting me for a full update. Its like a small underground club that we are a part of that noone else in NZ really knows about.
Where to from here........I love my Sierras but the thought of Andy buying the towers has put me in a spin. Why do I have to live at the bottom of the world!! I've read every review on the NRT upgrade and this would be something that would be fairly easy taking shipping into account. My only concern has been the fact I wouldnt want to the speakers to sound much more forward than they do but I read about the sparkle they give the top end and I just dont know. What if Andy buys the towers and I fall in love with them too. Long term I would love to have a seperate 2 channel setup in a listening room that consists of a valve pre amp, nice solid state power amp and maybe the towers :-) On one hand it questions my choices in the future but I know 2 things for sure. 1) I am enjoying Andy going through the initial excitement and journey I did. 2) I still goddam love my Sierras to bits.
I know this was some hefty reading but I feel that I needed to set the scene to give you guys an understanding of me, my journey and what the future holds for Ascend in New Zealand. I feel proud and honoured to be part of this community and Dave I thank you with all my heart for your hard work and passion.
I wait with baited breath to see what the future of this amazing bookshelf called the Sierra-1 is.
Cheers All,
Colin(Auckland, NZ)