Sierra 1 vs. CMT-340 For Older Music Lovers...

I am replacing 30+ year ESS HD1000 speakers; the woofers are literally disintegrating. (I still have the original receipt from Pacific Stereo from 12/3/1982; I paid $299.90 but if I remember correctly I got a refund check for $100 when the speakers went on sale within a month of my purchase. I definitely got my money out of those speakers!)

Several years ago I did a lot of online research about replacement speakers and came up with the usual suspects in the sub-$1000 price-range. I auditioned the CMT-340SE speakers. When I did the A/B thing with the two sets of speakers I found them to be virtually identical sound-wise. The Ascends were a touch "brighter" than the ESS. Since I have always enjoyed the ESS I see no reason to look any further. And the Ascend customer service was so fabulous I resolved to do business with the company in the future.

I am not an audiophile and next week I turn 59, so my hearing has lost a bit over the years... I did an online hearing test a few years ago and a high tone that is commonly missing in elders' hearing was totally kaput. (I blame it on an over-amped CSNY concert in Portland around six years ago; even the acoustic set was way too loud. It was the loudest concert I've ever been to and I've attended a lot of rock concerts over the years...)

I have around 750 CDs and a couple of hundred LPs. But I do most of my listening via iTunes streaming AAC files encoded at 320kbps/44.100 and a fair amount of streamed music via MOG at 320kbps.

When I finally tossed the Outlaw 1050 into the trash after the right channel went out for the third time, I went with a Harmon Kardon HK3390 because I couldn't settle on a higher-cost 2-channel receiver with a built-in phono preamp. The HK was downright cheap at Amazon and while I don't like the sound quite as much as the 1050 and the ergonomics are terrible, it suffices for the time being. (I have to boost the bass to get it closer to the 1050's "warmth.")

The HK has 80 watts/channel 20Hz-20kHz at 8 ohms and 100 watts at 4 ohms. I'll probably be upgrading in the future but I'll be sticking with two-channels; I got the Outlaw AV receiver thinking that I would get into multi-channel music but that went nowhere since the music selection was so limited. We don't give a hoot about movie soundtracks; except for PBS most of our video comes via Netflix streaming. (DVDs are rare around here.) We tend to listen at low to moderate volume levels so I want a speaker that doesn't sound good only at higher volume levels.

My dilemma: I already know that the CMT-340s meet my expectations. But I do like the bamboo Sierra 1 cabinets and from what I have read they sound like great speakers. My wife tells me to go with what I want since after our experience with the ESS speakers, whichever Ascend speakers I choose will probably outlive us. :eek: She considers them a lifetime investment.

So are the Sierras overkill for us?

I don't think the sierra's are overkill. I love mine. They sound good with everything. They sound detailed and realistic. I've never heard the CMT340's but the Sierras are supposed to be more musical. The Sierra-1's are detailed enough that I strongly prefer the sound of FLAC over MP3. Hard drives are cheap enough that space shouldn't be an issue for lossless music files.

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Originally Posted by natetg57

Hard drives are cheap enough that space shouldn't be an issue for lossless music files.

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I've toyed with the idea of going to lossless files but the likelihood of my re-ripping 700+ CDs is remote. (I wore out the optical drive in my 2006 iMac...) I don't even have an optical drive for my Mac Mini, although our 2011 MacBook Pro does have one... I also think that our musical future is going to be MOG-centered; I may never buy another CD. $5.99/month and we have access to a wide variety of genres and new releases seem to immediately appear on MOG. Natalie Maines's "Mother" just came out and I was surprised to find it on MOG the same week it was released.

When I first began ripping CDs the research I did led me to decide that 192kbps was the point where most humans wouldn't notice a huge difference in sound quality. When drives became larger and less expensive I upped it to 256kbps and later to 320, but the majority of our music is 192. But even my ears can immediately tell the difference between a 192kbps AAC file and a well-mastered CD. Unfortunately, I don't have many CDs that fall into that category...

I would never consider any of Ascend's speakers to be "overkill". It's more just a matter of how much money you are able to spend, the size of the room you are trying to fill, the distance from your seat to the speakers that you are trying to cover, the acoustics of your room with which you must contend, whether or not you are using subwoofers to handle the deep bass, what content you listen to, and what electronics will be driving your speakers.

Many variables :) But, for example, you mentioned wanting to be able to play your music at lower volume levels while still getting all of the detail and clarity. That is something that the Sierra Towers with the RAAL ribbon tweeter upgrade absolutely excel at better than almost any other speakers out there! But those are also the most expensive pair of speakers in Ascend's standard lineup ;) Worth paying almost $3000 for (depending on finish and shipping)? I'd say, yes! But that's quite a lot of money, especially if you were looking to pay more in the $500-$1000 range. And it's also diminishing returns. The Sierra Towers with RAAL are phenomenal, but it's not as though the standard NrT Towers sound terrible by comparison or something. Far from it! You're paying an extra $700 for the RAAL tweeters to inch yourself closer to perfection, that's all :)

Assuming you want to keep the price tag closer to the range of the CMT-340SE and standard Sierra-1, there's definitely no "overkill" choice. But one might better meet your needs than the other.

If you are not using a subwoofer, this might be surprising, but the Sierra-1 do a better job, IMO, of playing full range than the CMT-340SE. Even though the CMT-340SE are physically larger, they really are BIG bookshelf speakers, and shine best when used along with a subwoofer. That said, if you have a very large room and a far seating distance, the CMT-340SE can really belt out the loudness better than the Sierra-1. Not by a huge margin. But if maximum output is a priority, then the CMT-340SE are champs :)

It sounds like quieter output is more of a priority for you, though. And it seems, from your description, that you might be using this pair of speakers all on their own - no subwoofer. If that's the case, I'd recommend the Sierra-1 more highly. And I'd even say that the NrT tweeter upgrade would be worthwhile for those lower volume listening sessions. But if price is a bigger concern, the standard Sierra-1 is still a great speaker for music.

Thanks for the feedback. I ordered natural finish Sierra 1 "B stock" speakers. They are arriving Friday.

Congrats!

I think you will be very happy with the Sierra-1. I'm really glad we could be of some help to you.

Enjoy your new speakers!

:cool:In a small to Medium room, the Sierra-1's will be beyond your wildest dreams.

Rock On!

If these are "B Stock" the "A Stock" speakers must glow in the dark... I haven't looked at them with a magnifying glass but I didn't notice any defect(s). It may be behind the front speaker cover but since I don't plan on removing it it's a moot point...

My wife and I spent the weekend listening to a variety of music to see what the amazingly small boxes could do... Most of the music was on CDs that I consider to be well-mastered vs. the CDs we own that were released without any perceivable digital tweaking to take advantage of the new format. Here is (most) of what we played:

American Beauty/Workingman's Dead The Grateful Dead from the remastered The Golden Road boxed set. I hear instruments on some of these CDs that I never even noticed on the LPs and earlier CDs...

Exodus Deluxe Edition Bob Marley and The Wailers.

Rhythms of Peace Nawang Khechog. Tibetan flute.

Love's Illusion Anonymous Four.

Ravi Shankar- Carnegie Hall 2000

Live Anthology Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

We also listened to some music via MOG and iTunes. While the 320kbps MOG music sounded very good (except for rare streaming glitches...) the 192kbps iTunes album (Graceland was definitely missing something... I think that I will be listening to a lot more CDs and I may just have to re-rip some iTunes files.

To make a long story short, the Sierra 1s are fantastic. We played 'em loud and soft and in-between and they surpassed our expectations. My wife was blown away; she didn't want to let go of our old speakers but after a few hours she wasn't missing them one bit. An added bonus: The Sierra 1 speakers look really good in our living room. I'm glad that we passed on the black 340s and as far as the faux walnut ESS cabinets go, it's simply no contest. We are not going to miss those large dark-brown boxes that dominated the living room...

I do have a question that hopefully someone can help with: My wife asked if it is possible to replace the damaged woofers in the ESS speakers so we can put them in our spare room? It seems like it would be a simple thing to do but I don't know where to find replacement speakers. I'm going to pull one of the ESS woofers so I can see what brand of speaker was used.

I'd appreciate any advice about the feasibility of doing this and reputable speakers suppliers.

I think that covers it. Two more very happy Ascend Sierra 1 speakers owners to add to the list!

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Originally Posted by Mojo

If these are "B Stock" the "A Stock" speakers must glow in the dark...

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That's funny! I've been around Dave when he was looking at speaker enclosures/cabinets. His perfectionism evident in all aspects of his products.

Glad you are enjoying the Sierra-1's! I still love mine too!

What part of the woofer is damaged on the ESS's?

Congrats!

It's so great to read that you're enjoying your new Sierra-1 speakers, and finding them to have met and exceeded your expectations! Certainly makes it easier to feel good about the purchase and the (very slightly) higher price. Definitely worth the money, yes? :D

parts-express.com would be a good starting point for looking for replacement woofers for your old ESS speakers. They have a pretty healthy and helpful forum over there, so I would definitely hit them up for advice about specific woofers that might fit and work well in your existing ESS speakers.

And getting back to your Sierra-1: another great thing about them is that they are upgradeable, should you ever decide you want to eek out even a tiny bit more detail and tighter transient response. It's diminishing returns, for sure. It's not as though the improvement in going from the stock Sierra-1 to the upgraded NrT Sierra-1, or the soon-to-be-released Sierra-2 are as huge as the improvement in going from, say, some HTiB speaker to the stock Sierra-1! But it's nice to know that if you ever decide you want to "tweak" your sound and improve it even further, you can! And you can do so at a greatly reduced cost vs. buying entirely new speakers! So that's very cool, IMO :)

Long before you ever consider upgrading to the NrT or the Sierra-2, though, I would highly recommend adding a subwoofer (or two ;) ) to your speaker system. Adding a subwoofer will make a much larger difference than any other upgrade. I think you'll agree, the Sierra-1 produce a surprising amount of bass for such relatively small speakers! Enough that they are really quite satisfying for music, even all on their own. But it can be a rather transformative experience if you hear them mated with a great subwoofer. The Rythmik brand subwoofers offered by Ascend are an ideal match. The exact size and model really have more to do with your room size than anything else. But if movies are a low priority, I do believe you'd be happiest with one of the sealed Rythmik models.

Happy listening, and enjoy!