well hello everybody (i sound like Vin Scully don't I?)

MY name is Steve and I live just over the hiil from Ascend Acoustics in Sun City, which explains my screen name which I use here because I use it on other sites (Poker, which makes players shake in their boots because they think I'm from Las Vegas) and it just makes it simpler for me.

I have had my Sierra One's for over three years now and have averaged about 15 hours of listening time a week since then. They might be broken in now lol.

Anyway about a month ago I got in a huff about something and I wanted awnsers and I wanted them now, so I thought of you all. The trouble was it was a friday night when I joined in here and it took several days to finalize. By that time it didn't seem to matter any more. But here I am anyway and I will redress my dilemma in the appropriate forum, if there is one.

I will listen to anything or anyone I think has quality or talent which pretty much leaves neuvo country and rap out. Oh well, my loss.

what sounds good on my Sierra 1's (regardles of tastes) :
Jaz Colemans ode to The Doors in Chinese musical scale (sleep inducing but much better than you'd think)
Dave Brubeck Quintet's Take five (Paul Desmonds alto sax is transperent)
Red Hot Chili Peppers best of ( move the Sierras back)
2001 music based on the movie but not the mainstream one (lost the jewelcase)
Jean Michelle Jarre (Avant Garde I guess)
B-Tribe spirtual spirtual
Starbucks 40th anniversary cd's ( the engineers did a great job with the analog sound of the older music)
John Mayer Born and raised
Jessie Cook's best of
Bob Dylan's Modern Times

what sounds bad: Adele 21 (this is a big dissapointment and the reason I am here)
Eric Clapton and Wynton Marselis (in it for the money I guess)


what I am listening to now: Bonny Raitt's Slipstream (I can't get enough of this cd, great covers but compression problems on the second Dylan tune)
Stevie Ray Vaugn's best of (great music, bad recording)
Nils Laufgren's What the Funk (very versatile guitarist)
The Beach Boys's That's Why God Made The Radio ( As a native southern Californian a heartbreaking trip down the PCH)

my favorite music: a man or woman and their guitar (truly hand made music)

Hi Steve, :)

Thanks for stopping by. I agree with you about the Sierra-1s. They are very revealing and present the music for what it is: well-recorded albums sound fantastic, while poorly-recorded albums sound like ****!

I was going through some tunes tonight, tracks that I haven't played in years, and found myself saying "this stuff sounds like ****!" out loud. :D One thing I've found is a vast majority of modern music sounds "loud" and overly compressed. Even remastered albums can sound worse than their originals. If I find myself "fatigued" with a new album, I'll open up the waveform for a look. Sure enough, there's no dynamic headroom and everything is compressed to hell.

Sometimes I want to shoot these mastering engineers for destroying what could have been a great album. I often skip purchasing albums from otherwise talented artists (even music I would like) just because I couldn't bear to listen to the whole thing.

I'll tell you one thing, Ascend speakers makes one want to seek out well-recorded music. :cool:

Thank you for the kind words Dark Ranger. Yes, the amazing thing about the Sierra 1s is that they reveal and therefore "teach" the listener about their music. I can't remember having a speaker that did that for me before.

I know there is a wealth of knowledge on this board so i look forward to learning some of it. See ya down the trail.

Hi Steve,

Someone posted this link on another thread the other day and I remember Adele's recordings getting poor marks. I do not have the expertise or understanding to lend credibility to the measurements or techniques used, but your findings confirm what is stated on this site:

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/inde...&search_album=

I'm not an Adele fan, per se, but would have thought that style of music would incline the producer/artist to record it well. Not so, it appears.