Sierra Towers + Sierra 1 NrT Center vs Sierra 2 LCR

I'm planning on ordering three Sierra 2s for use as an LCR in a 60:40 Home Theater:Music Setup. I do 3.1 for HT and 2.0 for music. However, I was just reading the tower thread and some people have said they're just in another level to the S1/S2 being a 3-way.

Out of curiosity I spec'd out what it would cost to do a pair of towers (with the NrT tweeter) and a Sierra 1 with the NrT upgrade and it was $380 more (that's factoring in stands to use with the S2 LR channels).

What would the differences be between these two setups? The RAAL towers are out of my price range, and I don't ever plan on going to 5.1+ so if I buy the S2s I won't someday just use them as surround speakers. But for $380 I am certainly considering this option as I'd say I'm generally biased towards tower speakers in general.

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Originally Posted by kingcrowing

I'm planning on ordering three Sierra 2s for use as an LCR in a 60:40 Home Theater:Music Setup. I do 3.1 for HT and 2.0 for music. However, I was just reading the tower thread and some people have said they're just in another level to the S1/S2 being a 3-way.

Out of curiosity I spec'd out what it would cost to do a pair of towers (with the NrT tweeter) and a Sierra 1 with the NrT upgrade and it was $380 more (that's factoring in stands to use with the S2 LR channels).

What would the differences be between these two setups? The RAAL towers are out of my price range, and I don't ever plan on going to 5.1+ so if I buy the S2s I won't someday just use them as surround speakers. But for $380 I am certainly considering this option as I'd say I'm generally biased towards tower speakers in general.

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Since you don't like using the sub for music, the towers probably make more sense, but I'm still an addict for RAAL sound, so I'm biased in that direction. I think you'd be fine either way you want to go, just matters if you want the silky-smooth-yet-super-detailed sound of the RAALs or the more visceral, slightly less detailed sound of a dome tweeter.

I think, in your situation, I'd still probably opt for the Sierra-2. You're only losing about 20 Hz of low end at the most, and with room gain you'll probably get most of it back.

If I'm reading you right and the choice is between

NrT Towers + Sierra 1 (as center)

vs

3 Sierra 2's

I would absolutely go with the three Sierra 2s.

The biggest reason is because the 3 way Towers really need the 3 way horizon as a center to present a cohesive front sound stage. If you want to go phantom center, that might be do-able depending on where your MLP is. But another thing you will lose is the more precise imaging of the bookshelves.

The Rhythmik is supposed to be a very musical sub. The three S2s + Rythmik would make for a killer, compact system that sounds MUCH larger than it is.

Yes, that's what I'm considering (with the NrT upgrade for the Sierra 1 center). I sadly just don't have room for a Horizon center (and that just brings the price up too much), and since I don't have an ideal seating layout I can't really do a phantom center very well for home theater so I definitely want one.

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Originally Posted by kingcrowing

Yes, that's what I'm considering (with the NrT upgrade for the Sierra 1 center). I sadly just don't have room for a Horizon center (and that just brings the price up too much), and since I don't have an ideal seating layout I can't really do a phantom center very well for home theater so I definitely want one.

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Three Sierra-2's is the way you want to go, then.

Ok cool, that was my plan but since the price was so close I figured it was worth getting a couple opinions!

That said would the S1 NrT be pretty well timbre matched to the NrT towers? For movies how would the S1 be lacking as compared to the Horizon? Just less volume or would it being a 2-way negatively impact it?

I've been running a mismatched center for 8 years (B*se 601 Towers with a BIC America 2-way center) and it hasn't bothered me too much so I'm wondering how much I'd notice and if the improved performance of the towers would outweigh the sound stage not being perfect.

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Originally Posted by kingcrowing

Ok cool, that was my plan but since the price was so close I figured it was worth getting a couple opinions!

That said would the S1 NrT be pretty well timbre matched to the NrT towers? For movies how would the S1 be lacking as compared to the Horizon? Just less volume or would it being a 2-way negatively impact it?

I've been running a mismatched center for 8 years (B*se 601 Towers with a BIC America 2-way center) and it hasn't bothered me too much so I'm wondering how much I'd notice and if the improved performance of the towers would outweigh the sound stage not being perfect.

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All of Ascend's speakers are pretty similar in timber and accuracy, from what I've seen. I mean, my HTM-200-SE's match really well with my RAAL towers, so I think the NrT Sierra-1 will be totally fine as far as matching goes.

The Horizon is just a stellar center channel design. It anchors dialog very well, and it projects a very authoritative sound. Three way center designs can also sound a bit meatier and natural when it comes to how voices come across. I haven't heard the S1 so I can't really comment on how it sounds compared to the Horizon, but I do know how fantastic the Horizon sounds.

To me, a key design feature of the Towers and Horizon is that the internal cabinet volume is the same and the drivers are an exact match across them, so the sound that they put out is completely seamless. Effects that pan across the screen seem like they're happening in front of you, and surround music sounds like a real, live band in front of you. I haven't heard that same kind of performance from systems with 2-way centers or systems with mismatching drivers unless you EQ the crap out of it, but that isn't ideal at all.

Going with three S2's will give you that same kind of effect in movies, where everything sounds completely natural. It'll sound so natrual that you'll barely be able to tell that the center channel is even on, because everything will be so seamless. The toss up here is that you're doing mixed music and movie watching and you don't use a sub for music, so the towers would be a better choice for 2.0 listening. Do you want music to have a little more low-end and impact with the Towers, or do you want a completely seamless soundstage with flawless imaging for 3.1 movie viewing and music? With that said I'd still go with the Sierra-2's. You'll lose a very slight amount of soundstage and impact, but you'll gain RAAL tweeters, seamless soundstage, great imaging, and unbelievable levels of detail. I really think the RAALs are worth it.

It also sounds like your setup might not be completely ideal, and the Sierra-2's are easier to place and less picky about placement than the Towers.

Unfortunately my setup is far from ideal in my current apartment so my placement options are fairly limited. Again all this info is making me lean more towards the Sierra 2s, and with the 30 day trial period I can always upgrade if they don't carry enough oomph for me. Also since I can get the natural Sierra 2s for 15% off still that makes that setup ~$700 cheaper than the towers even with the TP-24 stands...

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Originally Posted by kingcrowing

Unfortunately my setup is far from ideal in my current apartment so my placement options are fairly limited. Again all this info is making me lean more towards the Sierra 2s, and with the 30 day trial period I can always upgrade if they don't carry enough oomph for me. Also since I can get the natural Sierra 2s for 15% off still that makes that setup ~$700 cheaper than the towers even with the TP-24 stands...

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That is a very strong case for going with three Sierra-2's. I really think you're going to be wowed by them. I highly doubt they won't carry enough oomph, it's just that the Towers are going to have a little more of it. The Sierra speakers are so easy to drive it's not like you need a cadillac 1000 watt amp to get good slam from them anyway.

You can always upgrade your L/R speakers to Towers in the future and put the Sierra-2's in surround duty as well, especially if you move into a more ideal space in the future.

When people say the towers are harder to setup than the bookshelves what does that mean?

I don't really want to do 5.1 so I want to buy one set that will last me a long time. In the future I'm hoping I'll only have a bigger living room not a smaller one, so I'm thinking towards the future.

All that said, I haven't been dreaming of new bookshelves for the past half decade, I've been dreaming of new towers. I'm sure the S2s sound amazing but I already feel like I'm going to want towers before even ordering them. I spent some time reading NrT tower reviews and people seem very happy with them and coming from 30 year old B*se towers with disintegrating woofer surrounds I think anything from Ascend will be a big upgrade.

I totally think having three matched speakers is ideal for HT, but when watching movies or TV (mostly comedies/dramas on Netflix, not the type of content that gets awards for audio production) I'm not so focused on the audio as long as the dialogue is clear. I'm more concerned with being able to put on a rock record and jam out with a beer and I just feel like the extra bass & mids on the towers will make that part more fun.

What about NRT Towers with a Sierra-2 center? The 2 will be a little clearer for dialog and will still blend well with the towers.

I could definitely consider that, but my thought was the NrT tweeter & woofer of the S1 center would match the timbre of the towers better?

True, it would be the same tweeter, but the S2 is clearer sounding in the midrange which I would think would match the towers midrange better.

Here's my experience at Dave's shop. I don't have a lot of audio experience btw. My buddy and I listened to the S2 and the sound was so natural and real. Then Dave put in the NrT towers. They had a bigger soundstage and more bass than the S2, but it sounded as if I had ear muffles on (sorry I can't think of a better analogy). The music didn't sound as detailed or natural compared to the S2. I knew right then that only RAAL will satisfy me.

My setup has two S2, and after eight months of living with them, I still have moments when I think the sound is coming from outside. That's how real they sound to me. Can't wait until I get the Horizon and Lunas for a complete setup. Thank you Dave for your great service and products. I hope this helps in your decision.

It really sounds like the RAAL towers are the best I just don't think I can quite justify the price! I'm already going past my budget!

With good loudspeakers, centers are overrated imo. I replaced Polk rt800i towers + center with 2 ascend s2s and just use a phantom sub. I think the new setup is better. The center never really made it sound like the sound was more from the tv, just under the tv. With the imaging and sound stage of the s2s it sounds like voices are coming from the tv. Just my opinion, but the raals are great and if you really want towers go with towers and skip the center. If you really want I'm sure you could add one latter, but you may be happy without.

Hmm, that's actually worth considering. The towers with RAAL are about as much as towers with NrT + S1 NrT center. I could do that and maybe be totally happy and if not I could add an S2 center in the future.

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Originally Posted by kingcrowing

Hmm, that's actually worth considering. The towers with RAAL are about as much as towers with NrT + S1 NrT center. I could do that and maybe be totally happy and if not I could add an S2 center in the future.

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It's a good idea. I've seen a lot of people going phantom center these days. Hopefully it sounds natural in the room that you have, but since it's secondary to music I'm sure it'll be fine. When I have to run my setup in stereo it still sounds great and the voices are totally centered, the Horizon just gives them more presence and oomph, but that's not worth it to everyone.

Phantom center is fine as long as you sit in the middle. If your seating position is to the left or right of the TV, then the voices will sound like they are coming from the side instead of the middle.

The heart wants what it wants, and it's clear you really want the towers foremost.

In that case, just go with the RAAL towers and forego any center for now. As long as the set up is primarily for your use you can fairly easily get a centered image for HT/video needs, even if your seating is off axis.

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Originally Posted by mikesiskav

Phantom center is fine as long as you sit in the middle. If your seating position is to the left or right of the TV, then the voices will sound like they are coming from the side instead of the middle.

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Not necessarily.
If the OP is the only one who uses it 90% of the time, then all you need to do is orientate each speaker to hit your MLP. One will be toed in dramatically and the other closest to you almost not at all. Then run the room correction software or, if you don't have any, adjust the individual speaker levels so that the one closest to you is balanced with the farthest.

It may look aesthetically a little off as the set up won't be symmetrical, but it should be the sound that counts anyway.

The only real problem with a phantom center is when you have multiple people viewing and the seating is spread out. In those situations someone will always get stuck with a bad seat.

To many people focus on lower bass extension when comparing bookshelf against towers and thats easy to fix with a sub. Regardless if you have a sub or not there isn't many bookshelf speakers on the market that are going to have the same mid bass impact that a good set of towers do. They sound great at first listen because the highs and voices are good and if you have a sub with them all the low bass is there too but the drums just don't hit like they do with towers. Now you could get a couple f8s to go with the bookshelves and cross them much higher than normal to get that impact back but now you have to place them close to the bookshelves but that defeats most of the benefit of not having towers in the first place.

I have not heard any of Ascends speakers yet so I really don't know how their bookshelf compares to their towers, I have some RAAL towers coming to replace my axiom m80s (three way towers). I also have a pair of Axiom m3s their 6.5" bookshelf model. With an SVS SB13-U in a room that is about 24x26 mixed living room kitchen dining room combo there is just no comparison between the drum impact and fullness of the towers compared to the bookshelf. When I decided to replace the Axioms I really wanted to get rid of the towers and that was my excuse for getting the wife to be ok with me buying new speakers lol. As I was looking for a new set of bookshelves I kept remembering that I never liked the drums on the bookshelves in my big room so I pulled them back out of storage and tried every way I could to get them to sound like the towers and they just couldn't. That night I took the wife out for a few drinks and broke the bad news to her that she wasn't getting her floor space back and ordered the towers the next day :)

We also don't run a center channel and really haven't missed it but we mostly listen to music / watch concerts or tv on it. The wife doesn't like watching tv / movies at high volume because she is usually reading something and not really paying attention anyway... Someday when we move to a different house I might try a horizon right now we don't really have the room for the equipment we already have :)

GL with whatever you choose!

I have similar thoughts about bookshelves vs towers which is why I've pretty much decided on the towers. Dave said that many people (himself included currently!) use the Sierra-1 NrT as a center, and since I do watch a fair amount of TV/Movies I'd like to have a matching center. Having multiple subs just wouldn't work in my space so towers it is. And personally, I like the aesthetics of towers on the side of my TV, and honestly they take up just about the same amount of floor space since I'd need stands for the bookshelves and the Sierra Towers have a fairly similar footprint to the bookshelves.

We were seriously considering setting up two really beefy shelves and getting two Horizons to run as bookshelf L/R since they're front ported and it would of kept the floor clear (we have two big labradors). In the end I thought the towers would look better and be much less work and money. All the shelves the wife liked that would of worked were coming out to about another grand on top that we just didn't need to spend with the towers.

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Originally Posted by Mose Harper

The heart wants what it wants, and it's clear you really want the towers foremost.

In that case, just go with the RAAL towers and forego any center for now. As long as the set up is primarily for your use you can fairly easily get a centered image for HT/video needs, even if your seating is off axis.



Not necessarily.
If the OP is the only one who uses it 90% of the time, then all you need to do is orientate each speaker to hit your MLP. One will be toed in dramatically and the other closest to you almost not at all. Then run the room correction software or, if you don't have any, adjust the individual speaker levels so that the one closest to you is balanced with the farthest.

It may look aesthetically a little off as the set up won't be symmetrical, but it should be the sound that counts anyway.

The only real problem with a phantom center is when you have multiple people viewing and the seating is spread out. In those situations someone will always get stuck with a bad seat.

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In another thread, kingcrowing said this:

"I have seen a few others say that as well... the big question I have that I was hoping Dave could maybe chime in on, is which speakers is better in a less than ideal listening setup? Many people sitting outside of the "sweet spot" and speakers being closer to the wall than ideal, etc."

As you said yourself, room correction will not provide a proper center image for multiple viewers. For kingcrowing, there is a benefit to having a center channel for TV/Movies.

Yup! Someday I may have an ideal setup where a phantom center could work for 2+ people but not today. Dave did respond to me via email saying he uses a S1 NrT for a center and it works great.

Followup:

I decided on the NrT Towers with a Sierra-1 NrT Center! I placed the order last night all in black satin bamboo domestic made cabinets! Looks like about a 6-8 week lead time, so I'll be patiently waiting and will report back with a little review comparing to my current system once they arrive in the next couple months!

Thanks to everyone for your help, I think I'm going to be very happy with this setup, I'm already beginning to think about my sub upgrade later this year!

Congrats on your decision and pulling the trigger finally. Hope you love it as much as I love mine. It's a difficult wait, but well worth it.

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Originally Posted by kingcrowing

Followup:

I decided on the NrT Towers with a Sierra-1 NrT Center! I placed the order last night all in black satin bamboo domestic made cabinets! Looks like about a 6-8 week lead time, so I'll be patiently waiting and will report back with a little review comparing to my current system once they arrive in the next couple months!

Thanks to everyone for your help, I think I'm going to be very happy with this setup, I'm already beginning to think about my sub upgrade later this year!

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I am anxious to hear your impressions! Post some pics too!