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mikesiskav
08-11-2016, 09:33 PM
After several years of trying other speakers, I've finally made way back to Ascend. I was one of the very first people to purchase the Sierra 1 when they first came out. I was very happy with them, although after a couple years I felt the need for a little more detail in the highs. I ended up switching to some Salk bookshelf speakers which I've had now for a couple years (going to be selling soon). I also have some Martin Logan Frescos (planar magnetic speakers). The Frescos have very detailed highs and mids, but the bass is non-existent and the cabinet construction is pretty flimsy.

I don't know why I waited so long to try the Sierra 2, but I'm so glad I finally did. I auditioned the Sierra 2 along with the Raal towers at Ascend's showroom. The towers were awesome, but the Sierra 2 were not far behind at all. Since the towers are backordered and don't come in piano black, I decided to go with the Sierra 2.

Now that I have them home hooked up to my Onkyo SR805 along with my new Rythmik F8, I can't stop listening to music. As soon as I get home from work, the music is on till I go to sleep. Everything about the Sierra 2 is just amazing. The bass is solid, tight and textured, the highs have so much air and detail, yet smooth at the same time, and the mids are just right.

I do custom installation for audio/video equipment and I have access to many brands of speakers at wholesale prices including Klipsch, Martin Logan, JBL, Revel, etc... And even at my discounted prices there is nothing I would purchase over the Sierra 2.

vicky
08-16-2017, 11:09 PM
I too bought sierra 2 recently and i have taken day off from work couple of times to listen to music.. its so addictive .. best sound i have heard till date ..

mikesiskav
08-17-2017, 01:07 PM
I too bought sierra 2 recently and i have taken day off from work couple of times to listen to music.. its so addictive .. best sound i have heard till date ..

I can't believe it's already been one year since I bought the Sierra-2 and I still enjoy listening to them every day.

SONDEK
09-03-2019, 10:14 PM
After several years of trying other speakers, I've finally made way back to Ascend. I was one of the very first people to purchase the Sierra 1 when they first came out. I was very happy with them, although after a couple years I felt the need for a little more detail in the highs... I don't know why I waited so long to try the Sierra 2, but I'm so glad I finally did...

This charts our path exactly. As passionate former users of the wonderful SIERRA-1, we sold them in the hopes of finding something similar, but with greater extension in the tops.

We followed the development of the SIERRA-2 with great interest. But because we cannot audition this gear at all, we figured we would wait for a professional reviewer (that we trust) to do a big reveal on the SIERRA-2.

Sadly, its been years and we are still waiting...

Are we alone in this camp - or have others also been patiently waiting for some positive press on the SIERRA-2?

white_darren
09-04-2019, 05:00 AM
http://positive-feedback.com/reviews/hardware-reviews/ascend-acoustics-sierra-2-loudspeaker/

If you understand how Dave does business, you'll understand why you rarely if ever see "professional reviews" of Ascend's products. If you enjoyed the Sierra-1, you will love the Sierra-2 or new Sierra-2EX.

mjlav
09-04-2019, 11:46 AM
I just started auditioning my new pair of S2EXs (swapped after demoing S1s)....my Marantz AV7705 Audyssey declared them full range! I did a lot of listening and while adding the sub back into the mix was clearly better - the S2EXs held their own for an awful lot of music in a medium sized room. I've got a lot of listening still to do, but bass extension here is impressive so far.

SONDEK
09-04-2019, 03:12 PM
http://positive-feedback.com/reviews/hardware-reviews/ascend-acoustics-sierra-2-loudspeaker/

If you understand how Dave does business, you'll understand why you rarely if ever see "professional reviews" of Ascend's products.

I'm sorry Darren, but this is just nonsense.

I originally found my way to the Sierra-1 via many positive Professional Reviews available on the web.

Furthermore, Dave has a special section on the Ascend Acoustics website - just for Professional Reviews!

In that section, prospective buyers can find a ton of very positive Professional Reviews on many successful Ascend Acoustics models - not just the Sierra-1 - all of which will have been essential in driving (direct) sales of these products.

[Google grabs those professional reviews and presents them as Page 1 options on any applicable search...]

All VERY good for sales of these excellent products. So, why would the Sierra-2 be the exception.

What are you on about?

SONDEK
09-04-2019, 04:22 PM
I agree this is a really excellent review of the SIERRA-2, BTW...

http://positive-feedback.com/reviews/hardware-reviews/ascend-acoustics-sierra-2-loudspeaker/

Ironically, the reviewer is comparing the SIERRA-2 to the very same loudspeaker that is currently at the very top of my own short list... the highly acclaimed British-made ATC SCM11.

According to the reviewer - who owns both - the SIERRA-2 comes off better AND is easier to drive!

:o
Hmmmmmmmm!

davef
09-04-2019, 10:46 PM
I'm sorry Darren, but this is just nonsense.

I originally found my way to the Sierra-1 via many positive Professional Reviews available on the web.

Furthermore, Dave has a special section on the Ascend Acoustics website - just for Professional Reviews!

In that section, prospective buyers can find a ton of very positive Professional Reviews on many successful Ascend Acoustics models - not just the Sierra-1 - all of which will have been essential in driving (direct) sales of these products.

[Google grabs those professional reviews and presents them as Page 1 options on any applicable search...]

All VERY good for sales of these excellent products. So, why would the Sierra-2 be the exception.

What are you on about?

Hi Sondek,

Happy to hear that you enjoyed your Sierra-1!

With regards to your question about reviews, do you realize that the majority of those publications that reviewed our Sierra-1 are no longer in existence? The entire audio review landscape has dramatically changed in the last decade. In the good old days, magazine reviewers were paid by the magazine to review product. Magazines had income from their subscription base and the companies that paid to advertise within the magazine. Reviewers looked for products that they found interesting and that would compel people to purchase the magazine, generating revenue for the magazine. Sometimes the company whose product was being reviewed would also purchase advertising space. These were true professional reviewers; they placed no demands on the company providing the product other than the company paying for shipping. Often times reviewers would purchase a product they liked, but mostly the products were returned in perfect condition.

Magazines then gave way to audio review websites, which became the new medium. More convenient for consumers, especially since they were free – who would buy a magazine when one can just browse to a website for free? Qualified reviewers still need to get paid so revenue for the site was generated by companies purchasing advertising space. For many of these sites, their advertising rates were absurdly high.

Ascend does not pay for advertising and we have developed a reputation as such – so few sites have been interested in reviewing our products.

This new review medium is also failing, many of these sites failed to generate enough revenue to support their staff. Keep in mind, websites that rely on advertising for revenue must have tens of thousands of visitors every month, as advertising rates are directly related to monthly viewers. Some of these sites have managed to stay in business by expanding to other forms of revenue, by selling products or maintaining an active forum which keeps viewers coming. However, it then becomes challenging to remain truly impartial.

Fast forward to today and it is a real mess. We now have dozens and dozens of YouTube reviewers out there, some are somewhat knowledgeable, others have no idea what they are doing. These reviewers’ goals are to generate enough traffic on to become incentivized, whereby YouTube then sticks ads in the video and the reviewer might earn a few bucks. Problem is, many truly think that recording the speakers so that the viewers can actually hear them somehow represents the speaker’s performance. It’s ridiculous, but unfortunately – there is no way to control it. We don’t know who these reviewers are, they often don’t publish their real names and they then go and buy product, review it without permission hoping to generate visitors and then simply return it. We try to stop it, but there is really no way.

Then we get YouTube reviewers who ask to review product and then expect to get paid from us, or keep the product for which they then sell to generate revenue for their time spent. When a reviewer is compensated by the manufacturer of the product, the review itself becomes inherently biased – or worse… There was a prime example of this documented on AVS forum recently.

Ascend will take no part in this. If you see a review on YouTube of our products, it was done without our permission and without our awareness. I had a rather large email fight with a popular YouTube reviewer who approached us to review one of our speakers. I hesitantly agreed and asked for the reviewer to provide a CC to secure the safe return of our speakers. He was offended by this. It is almost impossible to verify a name and address of a YouTube reviewer so anyone could pretend to have been this reviewer (fraud is rampant these days) Eventually he convinced me to take the chance but when I asked him when could we expect the speakers to be returned, he then stated that he intended to keep them. No way was that going to happen.

So here is where we are today, the state of audio reviews has pretty much dissolved into complete unprofessionalism and it is getting worse and worse.

Instead of looking for “professional reviews” – ask yourself the question, how could a speaker like the Sierra-2 become so popular without even a dime spent on advertising and without many professional reviews? Personally, I think that says so much more than any review these days possibly could…. Think about that…..

SONDEK
09-05-2019, 01:59 AM
Hi Sondek,

Happy to hear that you enjoyed your Sierra-1!

With regards to your question about reviews, do you realize that the majority of those publications that reviewed our Sierra-1 are no longer in existence? The entire audio review landscape has dramatically changed in the last decade. In the good old days, magazine reviewers were paid by the magazine to review product. Magazines had income from their subscription base and the companies that paid to advertise within the magazine. Reviewers looked for products that they found interesting and that would compel people to purchase the magazine, generating revenue for the magazine. Sometimes the company whose product was being reviewed would also purchase advertising space. These were true professional reviewers; they placed no demands on the company providing the product other than the company paying for shipping. Often times reviewers would purchase a product they liked, but mostly the products were returned in perfect condition.

Magazines then gave way to audio review websites, which became the new medium. More convenient for consumers, especially since they were free – who would buy a magazine when one can just browse to a website for free? Qualified reviewers still need to get paid so revenue for the site was generated by companies purchasing advertising space. For many of these sites, their advertising rates were absurdly high.

Ascend does not pay for advertising and we have developed a reputation as such – so few sites have been interested in reviewing our products.

This new review medium is also failing, many of these sites failed to generate enough revenue to support their staff. Keep in mind, websites that rely on advertising for revenue must have tens of thousands of visitors every month, as advertising rates are directly related to monthly viewers. Some of these sites have managed to stay in business by expanding to other forms of revenue, by selling products or maintaining an active forum which keeps viewers coming. However, it then becomes challenging to remain truly impartial.

Fast forward to today and it is a real mess. We now have dozens and dozens of YouTube reviewers out there, some are somewhat knowledgeable, others have no idea what they are doing. These reviewers’ goals are to generate enough traffic on to become incentivized, whereby YouTube then sticks ads in the video and the reviewer might earn a few bucks. Problem is, many truly think that recording the speakers so that the viewers can actually hear them somehow represents the speaker’s performance. It’s ridiculous, but unfortunately – there is no way to control it. We don’t know who these reviewers are, they often don’t publish their real names and they then go and buy product, review it without permission hoping to generate visitors and then simply return it. We try to stop it, but there is really no way.

Then we get YouTube reviewers who ask to review product and then expect to get paid from us, or keep the product for which they then sell to generate revenue for their time spent. When a reviewer is compensated by the manufacturer of the product, the review itself becomes inherently biased – or worse… There was a prime example of this documented on AVS forum recently.

Ascend will take no part in this. If you see a review on YouTube of our products, it was done without our permission and without our awareness. I had a rather large email fight with a popular YouTube reviewer who approached us to review one of our speakers. I hesitantly agreed and asked for the reviewer to provide a CC to secure the safe return of our speakers. He was offended by this. It is almost impossible to verify a name and address of a YouTube reviewer so anyone could pretend to have been this reviewer (fraud is rampant these days) Eventually he convinced me to take the chance but when I asked him when could we expect the speakers to be returned, he then stated that he intended to keep them. No way was that going to happen.

So here is where we are today, the state of audio reviews has pretty much dissolved into complete unprofessionalism and it is getting worse and worse.

Instead of looking for “professional reviews” – ask yourself the question, how could a speaker like the Sierra-2 become so popular without even a dime spent on advertising and without many professional reviews? Personally, I think that says so much more than any review these days possibly could…. Think about that…..

@davef
@white_darren

Hi Dave [& Darren]

Many thanks for clarifying your position on all this, Dave.

Good on you for taking the high ground; I'm sure it does ultimately cost you in sales volumes, so you're paying the price for playing it straight with a very high quality product. Unfair.

I sympathise with both you - as a manufacturer of quality goods - but also with the unsuspecting audiophile seeking unbiased and expert opinion on those same quality goods. As you have quite rightly pointed out - it's all a bit of a mess.

It seems that there is a lot more going on behind the Audio Review scenes than most of us would be aware. On that note, it was wrong of me to dismiss Darren's viewpoint outright, as nonsense.

[I apologise for simply dismissing your viewpoint as nonsense, Darren. There is indeed more to this than meets the eye and I stand corrected... -SONDEK]

I will address one final point with you however, Dave.

Above, you suggested to me "ask yourself the question, how could a speaker like the Sierra-2 become so popular without even a dime spent on advertising and without many professional reviews?

My response? I don't know that it is that popular! How could I know?

I get that with SIERRA-2 Total Sales Numbers at your fingertips, you might see the SIERRA-2 as being "so popular" . But by contrast, I have absolutely no idea how popular this model is, compared to (say) its predecessor - so your question is largely lost on me.

Here in New Zealand, lurking through forums and reading reviews is still the only method by which one can form some kind of meaningful (perhaps incorrect) opinion on a new speaker design. And as stated above - rightly or wrongly - after reading so much positive press on the SIERRA-1, I gathered by the total absence of reviews - and the general absence of SIERRA-2 web banter - that this ambitious design had somehow missed the mark.

Being brutally honest, discovering now that the SIERRA-2EX has ushered-in a whole new woofer design - rightly or wrongly - only reinforces my previous assumptions about the SIERRA-2. I.E. That the all-new woofer was designed to restore to the SIERRA-2 the kick-ass bass that the SIERRA-1 was rightly famous for!

Based purely upon my web-based research, I'm left with the impresson that the SIERRA-2EX has solved this bass problem with the SIERRA-2 and predict that the latter will be ultimately phased-out as a result - long before the SIERRA-1 disappears from the scene.

As I say, I might be totally wrong about this - but no matter how you slice it, it does leave the SIERRA-2EX looking like a real winner!

Let's see...

N Boros
09-05-2019, 01:24 PM
Being brutally honest, discovering now that the SIERRA-2EX has ushered-in a whole new woofer design - rightly or wrongly - only reinforces my previous assumptions about the SIERRA-2. I.E. That the all-new woofer was designed to restore to the SIERRA-2 the kick-ass bass that the SIERRA-1 was rightly famous for!

Based purely upon my web-based research, I'm left with the impresson that the SIERRA-2EX has solved this bass problem with the SIERRA-2 and predict that the latter will be ultimately phased-out as a result - long before the SIERRA-1 disappears from the scene.

As I say, I might be totally wrong about this - but no matter how you slice it, it does leave the SIERRA-2EX looking like a real winner!

Let's see...

I'm not sure if categorizing the Sierra 2EX as a way of fixing the "bass problem" of the Sierra 2 is all that accurate. From what I was able to grasp parsing through the Sierra 2 Development thread is that the Sierra 2 was designed with the goal of having the Raal ribbon tweeter available in the Sierra 1 cabinet, so that an upgrade in drivers and crossover is all that is needed, for those interested. This is to help make it as easy as possible for those with the Sierra 1 to upgrade to the Seirra 2, if they would like to do so. A new woofer was needed to match the improved capabilities of the Raal ribbon tweeter, so the Curv woofer was what was designed to work well in conjunction with it. This was all completed around 2011 to 2012 (from what I remember).

Then Dave was approached by a guy from Seas within the past couple of years about a diamond tweeter. Dave was at first skeptical, if anyone at all would be interested in such an expensive tweeter being integrated into a design of a new speaker either in a bookshelf or tower speaker design, so he started a thread posting pictures of the new tweeter and then eventually some of his thoughts of the improvements of using it in the design would be after spending much time listening to a concept speaker with that tweeter. It did appear, that at least some on the forum, were interested in purchasing such a speaker. But, due to the high cost, he was making them completely custom to what each person wanted. It sounded like each speaker would be voiced to taste in the crossover, and such. In that same thread people began to notice that a new woofer was used with the diamond tweeter, when used in a bookshelf design. So several started asking if it could be made available as an upgrade to the Sierra 2. Dave went through the effort of making this upgrade available.

This happens all the time with speaker designers. As they make more and more speaker designes they let some of their design strategies from the more higher end (cost no object designs) trickle down to the lower cost models. Sometimes they will even use some of the same components, like we see here. What is unique here with Ascend is that those with Sierra 2's don't need to sell the entire speaker to upgrade. There is an upgrade path that exists by simply replacing the woofer and crossover. There is more money to be made by Ascend to NOT do things this way.

I would be more concerned if a speaker designer, never went back and ever improved any existing models. It seems to only be the case at Ascend when Dave feels that the upgrade is enough, to be noticeably better. This seems to be a much better approach than manufacturers who upgrade each product every year or two and those that hear the speaker have a hard time hearing any difference at all. Just as bad, would be if there is a huge and noticeable difference heard with each iteration, that is done that frequently. In both cases it brings into question the competence of the speaker designer.

theophile
09-05-2019, 02:15 PM
...Based purely upon my web-based research, I'm left with the impresson that the SIERRA-2EX has solved this bass problem with the SIERRA-2 and predict that the latter will be ultimately phased-out as a result - long before the SIERRA-1 disappears from the scene...

Sondek,

Being brutally honest with you, I assure you there was No problem\issues with the Sierra-2 Curv Woofer. I had the Sierra-2's side by side with the Sierra-1 NrT's (which included the original Sierra-1 woofer) playing full range for 30 days, and at No time did the S2 woofer bottom end Ever bow down to the Sierra-1's bass!!! Actually, I always found the S2 Curv woofer was more dynamic, hit harder and had better, faster and more accurate bass tonality transients, no matter what genre of music we were listening to! The differences weren't huge, but discernible and repeatable.

The Curv woofer keeps up with and matches the RAAL top end of the S-2, just as Dave has designed it to. However, none of these findings mean it was the best...there Is no Best! Performance improvements are always the future and Dave's design endeavor into a "Very Heavy Duty Hitting" 6" for the S-2Di Diamond Dome system ultimately became a logical step to "enhancing" the full capabilities of the S-2 RAAL! If this all sounds too simple or logical, that's because It Is!

IMHO, I'd forget about any "professional reviews" and dig into the member S-2 forums here...They are the real-world experiences of audio\music lovers that Own the Sierra-2's and who intimately know what they are talking about!! :)

Ted

mdriggs
09-05-2019, 02:23 PM
"Being brutally honest", it is flawed thinking to assume if a designer or manufacturer evolves a product, that the previous iteration of that product is somehow problematic !!!

SONDEK
09-05-2019, 04:40 PM
Sondek,

Being brutally honest with you, I assure you there was No problem\issues with the Sierra-2 Curv Woofer. I had the Sierra-2's side by side with the Sierra-1 NrT's (which included the original Sierra-1 woofer) playing full range for 30 days, and at No time did the S2 woofer bottom end Ever bow down to the Sierra-1's bass!!! Actually, I always found the S2 Curv woofer was more dynamic, hit harder and had better, faster and more accurate bass tonality transients, no matter what genre of music we were listening to! The differences weren't huge, but discernible and repeatable.

Ted

BRAVO TED! This is exactly what I needed to know.

Thanks for all the great responses guys... Seems I was way off-track here with my conclusions above.
(Symptomatic of this brave new online world that we are all making best efforts to navigate...)
I'm looking at the SIERRA-2EX Impedance measurements and thinking this could be the one!

white_darren
09-05-2019, 07:07 PM
...[I apologise for simply dismissing your viewpoint as nonsense, Darren. There is indeed more to this than meets the eye and I stand corrected... -SONDEK]...


No worries. I made a statement contrary to your point of view but didn't take the time to back it up so completely understand why you would be dismissive of the statement.

And on the subject of reviews, professional or otherwise, please do come back and post your own review when/if you get the EXes.

davef
09-17-2019, 01:10 AM
Being brutally honest, discovering now that the SIERRA-2EX has ushered-in a whole new woofer design - rightly or wrongly - only reinforces my previous assumptions about the SIERRA-2. I.E. That the all-new woofer was designed to restore to the SIERRA-2 the kick-ass bass that the SIERRA-1 was rightly famous for!

Based purely upon my web-based research, I'm left with the impresson that the SIERRA-2EX has solved this bass problem with the SIERRA-2 and predict that the latter will be ultimately phased-out as a result - long before the SIERRA-1 disappears from the scene.

As I say, I might be totally wrong about this - but no matter how you slice it, it does leave the SIERRA-2EX looking like a real winner!

Let's see...

Hi Sondek,

This is interesting to me. The Sierra-2 woofer is a significantly more advanced woofer in every possible performance characteristic than the Sierra-1 woofer. The S2 woofer gives up a few Hz in ultimate bass extension to the Sierra-1 woofer, but it dramatically improves upon the transient accuracy, detail and linearity of the Sierra-1 woofer. I could have changed the design of the S2 woofer such that the moving mass was higher, which would have provided deeper bass, but that would have been at the cost of the other performance characteristics I mentioned. For a woofer that is meant to match with a RAAL ribbon tweeter, transient accuracy, detail and the ability to cross at a higher frequency are of the utmost importance.

To assume there was a problem with the bass response in the Sierra-2, a speaker that we have been selling for the past 5 years with sales numbers that eclipse Sierra-1 sales, is a completely wrong assumption.

The EX woofer in the Sierra-2EX was developed as a cost no object woofer by SEAS to be matched with their diamond tweeter, tweeters that retail for over $7200 for the pair. Turned out that the performance of this woofer was simply remarkable - significant improvements over the Sierra-2 woofer and many leagues beyond the Sierra-1 woofer, so why not match it with the Sierra-2 ribbon tweeter?

Most companies upgrade / change their models every year, offering what they claim is improved performance when in reality, they simply look to reduce manufacturing costs for the model as raw material pricing continually increases every year. With the Sierra-2EX, we are offering a very significant performance improvement for the Sierra-2, the first change to the model since its introduction over 5 years ago....

SONDEK
09-17-2019, 05:06 PM
To assume there was a problem with the bass response in the Sierra-2, a speaker that we have been selling for the past 5 years with sales numbers that eclipse Sierra-1 sales, is a completely wrong assumption.

Hi Dave! Interesting information. News to me and very good to know!

I'm very happy to have been wrong in my assumptions above. I just wanted to share my journey, leaving ample room for correction. As I'd hoped, you've brought me around.

Apologies if my skewed thoughts through this process have in any way tainted an otherwise overwhelmingly positive thread - as it relates to both SIERRA-2 and SIERRA-2EX...

rifmon
12-14-2019, 06:25 AM
Very interesting and informative topic. I missed it simply due to my habit of going almost exclusively to the Loudspeakers, Subwoofers, Electronics discussions.

I can confirm the Sierra 2's bass performance as being very articulate and dynamic. I owned the Sierra 1's for over 5 years. Last March I bought the Sierra 2's and sold the Sierra 1's. But I had a great opportunity to (crudely) A/B them and the bass performance of the 1's had nothing over the 2's. In fact, I am astonished by the dynamics and speed of the 2's woofer during movies and TV programing, not to mention music!

I love the 2's and am now in the process of upgrading to the 2 EX so I am thrilled to have the upgrade path opportunity.

I never worry about "professional reviews". I've owned Ascend speakers since 2002 and I've always been amazed at the transparent developmental discussions on the forum that allow one to look under the hood so-to-speak, giving the buyer of these speakers way more information, knowledge and assurance of the model's quality and performance, than main stream speakers with lots of marketing dollars ever can!

Jaybeez
12-14-2019, 10:55 AM
This has been a great thread to read. When I bought my S2s, I auditioned the entire line. Dave let us A/B whatever we wanted, and budget ultimately led to a choice between the S1s and S2s. We alternated back and forth between the two over a wide range of music, using the exact same songs for each. I never felt the bass in the S2s was lacking in comparison to the S1s, and the amount of detail in the RAAL tweeters made for an easy choice. I've yet to hear the EXs, but plan to stop in someday soon to A/B them vs. the S2s.

MDinno
02-04-2021, 03:31 PM
Hi Sondek,

Happy to hear that you enjoyed your Sierra-1!

With regards to your question about reviews, do you realize that the majority of those publications that reviewed our Sierra-1 are no longer in existence? The entire audio review landscape has dramatically changed in the last decade. In the good old days, magazine reviewers were paid by the magazine to review product. Magazines had income from their subscription base and the companies that paid to advertise within the magazine. Reviewers looked for products that they found interesting and that would compel people to purchase the magazine, generating revenue for the magazine. Sometimes the company whose product was being reviewed would also purchase advertising space. These were true professional reviewers; they placed no demands on the company providing the product other than the company paying for shipping. Often times reviewers would purchase a product they liked, but mostly the products were returned in perfect condition.

Magazines then gave way to audio review websites, which became the new medium. More convenient for consumers, especially since they were free – who would buy a magazine when one can just browse to a website for free? Qualified reviewers still need to get paid so revenue for the site was generated by companies purchasing advertising space. For many of these sites, their advertising rates were absurdly high.

Ascend does not pay for advertising and we have developed a reputation as such – so few sites have been interested in reviewing our products.

This new review medium is also failing, many of these sites failed to generate enough revenue to support their staff. Keep in mind, websites that rely on advertising for revenue must have tens of thousands of visitors every month, as advertising rates are directly related to monthly viewers. Some of these sites have managed to stay in business by expanding to other forms of revenue, by selling products or maintaining an active forum which keeps viewers coming. However, it then becomes challenging to remain truly impartial.

Fast forward to today and it is a real mess. We now have dozens and dozens of YouTube reviewers out there, some are somewhat knowledgeable, others have no idea what they are doing. These reviewers’ goals are to generate enough traffic on to become incentivized, whereby YouTube then sticks ads in the video and the reviewer might earn a few bucks. Problem is, many truly think that recording the speakers so that the viewers can actually hear them somehow represents the speaker’s performance. It’s ridiculous, but unfortunately – there is no way to control it. We don’t know who these reviewers are, they often don’t publish their real names and they then go and buy product, review it without permission hoping to generate visitors and then simply return it. We try to stop it, but there is really no way.

Then we get YouTube reviewers who ask to review product and then expect to get paid from us, or keep the product for which they then sell to generate revenue for their time spent. When a reviewer is compensated by the manufacturer of the product, the review itself becomes inherently biased – or worse… There was a prime example of this documented on AVS forum recently.

Ascend will take no part in this. If you see a review on YouTube of our products, it was done without our permission and without our awareness. I had a rather large email fight with a popular YouTube reviewer who approached us to review one of our speakers. I hesitantly agreed and asked for the reviewer to provide a CC to secure the safe return of our speakers. He was offended by this. It is almost impossible to verify a name and address of a YouTube reviewer so anyone could pretend to have been this reviewer (fraud is rampant these days) Eventually he convinced me to take the chance but when I asked him when could we expect the speakers to be returned, he then stated that he intended to keep them. No way was that going to happen.

So here is where we are today, the state of audio reviews has pretty much dissolved into complete unprofessionalism and it is getting worse and worse.

Instead of looking for “professional reviews” – ask yourself the question, how could a speaker like the Sierra-2 become so popular without even a dime spent on advertising and without many professional reviews? Personally, I think that says so much more than any review these days possibly could…. Think about that…..

The worst that's out there is audioscience.com. I'm not sure how they got their hands on Ascend speakers but they totally trashed them. Some competitor must be behind them because it's not just Ascend but many well respected, high end speakers have gotten bad reviews.

Pogre
02-06-2021, 07:22 AM
I don't trust youtube reviews. Period. And the guys offering sound demos for yt viewers to compare for themselves is utterly ridiculous. There's no way you can do a proper comparison listening to a yt video.

Robert
02-09-2021, 06:06 PM
The industry has definitely changed over the years, some good, some bad....I've seen some great Youtube reviews that I take into some consideration. However, my preference is on full transparency: Did they buy them or were they sent to them for review? Did they receive compensation for the review? All of these items factor into my decision.

In addition, some audio review sites have sort of turned into a gamer-like culture of just benchmarks. It's no different than processor or GPU reviews. Is 5 FPS really going to matter when it already pushes well beyond what is visibly detectable? Some get caught up just in the specs and forget the real world factors that can make or break a system in a big way (speaker placement, room acoustics, etc). In computer talk....it's sort of like making the mistake of buying a huge GPU only to really cheap out on the power supply. Again, there’s some good and bad to that process as well. Benchmarks can be helpful, but when not taken into the correct context, it may also hurt. In the end, listening is done with our ears and as a hobby, we need to take time to actually enjoy it too!

Hopefully we'll find that happy middle ground.