I wanted to write this for people who may be in the same boat as me, so I thought I would review my entire speaker quest in detail (well, not TOO much detail ;)). The first part is what brought me to seriously consider the internet. The second part is what convinced me to purchase from Ascend Acoustics without ever having heard them for myself. The third part is the actual (finally!) review of the products I purchased. Ok, on with the review:
Part 1 Why Internet
Well, like a lot of you, I never make any significant purchase any more without first doing a ton of research on the internet. I weigh out pros and cons from various manufacturers for the product I’m interested in, try to gauge a fair selling price, if possible try out the product (viewing a TV, test driving a vehicle, listening to a speaker, etc. etc.) and at the same time save enough money so that when the time comes I’m ready to buy and suffer almost zero buyers remorse. So naturally, I turned to the same source when it was time to upgrade to new speakers. I started with my Sub, and after much reading (mostly on AVS) and researching various on line and B&M options, I decided my best choice was a Paradigm PW-2200 for the price (purchased December, 2003). At the time of my sub purchase, I had also auditioned the Paradigm Studio 100 v.2 and V.3. At the time, I pretty much decided I was going to go that route. But back to what I said earlier, I had money to save first, so I kept reading and researching.
I also auditioned speakers like Athena, JBL, Polk, Paradigm, JM Lab, Jamo, and a few others. My current setup of Polk’s (older RT line RT800i and RT400i) were doing OK for me (for H/T anyway) and I was in no big rush unless something REALLY stood out, and for the price nothing was.
But then I thought to myself about all those ‘wonderful’ speakers available on line. I was reading all the posts about them, and had even emailed a few of them (including David here) for some general information, but I was always leery of not being able to ‘hear’ them for myself ahead of time. But with the strength of the Canadian dollar, coupled with some incredible deals beginning to surface, I thought why not!
Part 2 Why Ascend
So, now that I decided the internet route, I needed to decide which brand of speaker. It had to fit into my room physically, and it had to look good but I didn’t want to draw too much attention with them. As well, since I had a great subwoofer already, book shelves were looking like a real good option to me. I narrowed my list to three companies based on reviews and pm’s with owners of various equipment, not to mention pm’s with the owners of the companies as well. The final three were AV123 (Rockets), The Audio Insider (Swans), and Ascend Acoustics.
My original plan was to order the Rocket 550’s MKII’s from AV123 (with a great deal at the time for Canadians – we only paid for the speakers (in US$’s of course), no shipping, duties, or taxes), the 5.2 Swan Divas, and a pair of 340 CMT’s from Ascend.
Since I had read that the Ascends were a neutral speaker, using phase plugs and aerogel cone woofers (and I was intrigued by the technology), and since I never read a ‘bad’ comment about these speakers from anyone – I pretty much decided to throw caution to the wind and order the whole enchilada from Ascend and forgo the other two companies! But two things in particular tipped the scales in Ascends favor – the quality component (as stated in the ‘About Us’ section of the website) since David and his staff inspect EVERY SINGLE speaker produced! Not just cosmetically either, but for frequency response as well. That level of detail left me very confident that outside of a shipping mishap, the speakers would arrive in 100% condition (although whether I liked the sound or not was yet to be determined). The second thing was the product line itself – there were no 5.2’s or MKII’s and ‘classics’ or up an coming newer models on the horizon. Just the plain old butt-kicking, award winning CBM-170’s, being made the same way for 3 or 4 years now, and 1 year old (?) 340 CMT’s and a two year old(?) 340 center (all dates approx – this is the impression I came away with from reading). I emailed David (probably for the 30th time) and he responded promptly (as always) and I ordered via phone the 340’s for my front end, two stands for the 340s, the CBM 170’s for the side surrounds, and a pair of the Omnimount 20 brackets for the 170’s.
Part 3 the Ascend Speaker review
My speakers arrived via UPS on Dec 10, 2005, 12 days after I placed the order (Nov. 29) and 8 days after the order was processed (Dec. 2). The speakers arrived in fantastic condition and were all double boxed and well foamed inside. I did have a close call with the center channel though. The outer and inner boxes were punctured through. Luckily though, whatever punctured it did not get to the speaker so all is well.
The TP24BM2 stands were very easy to put together. My basement floor is bit uneven but with a level and the supplied spikes it was easy to adjust the stands to level. I am using 10AWG Belden 5T00UP speaker wire from Blue Jeans cable to all speakers – single wire only. Overall, it took me about 1 hour to get my CBM 170’s mounted on the side (about 5 feet off the ground, pointing down so the tweeters are aimed at the center of my couch , my main listening area). I have a love seat along the left wall, and I have the 340’s L / R speakers toed in, but the right speaker I have toed in about an extra 5 degrees then the left speaker to try and give people seated on the love seat a better sound experience. The center channel is placed below my DLP TV (the TV won’t support it) on a glass shelf. I am using foam underneath (2 ½ inches in height, 1 ½ inch depth at the front of the speaker, and ½ inch height and 10 inches depth behind that ( to angle the speaker up to the main listening area). The couch is 12’ from the TV. The Front L/R speakers are about 6 feet apart; the surrounds are 11 feet apart on either side of the couch. My PW-2200 Paradigm sub is about 1 foot behind and 1 foot to the left of my Left speaker, (corner loaded) with the volume level at about 10:30.
I’m driving my speakers with an H/K 520 AVR, using an H/K PA2000 bridged for two-channel for the L/R 340cmt mains., with the 520 handling center and surround duties. I’m currently using a Samsung HD-841 Universal player for all (SACD, DVD-A, all movies) but for two channel music I use a cheap Kenwood five-disc carousel (analog connection). I have calibrated the speakers using a Sound & Vision DVD setup disk and a Rat Shack analog SPL meter.
Now for the good stuff:
Sound – neutral, detailed: What I mean here is that the speakers don’t have to my ears any real ‘sound’, it just plays the sound it receives from the source without ‘adding’ anything. It does not sound like it is coming from inside a cabinet (like a lot of other speaker brands do). A great example would be an acoustic guitar. I listened to Peppino D’Agostino ‘Desert Flower’ (A DVD-A available from AIX records) and the guitar sounded just like my buddy’s acoustic guitar which I had borrowed. It had the same sound qualities with no added resonance or exaggeration of the tone. Note though that I am NOT a guitar player by any stretch (I enjoy listening a lot more than playing) so I am only talking tone here. Plus, Peppino’s guitar was tuned differently then mine was – so the notes were not played EXACTLY – but the tone was pretty much bang on. The same song, with my buddy’s guitar at HIS PLACE (he owns another famous on-line speaker brand) was not even remotely close. The Speakers he had made the guitar sound as best as I can describe it – as if you put your ear to the back of the guitar while it was being strummed (but not as loud ;)). It was not natural at all and for me not very enjoyable.
Soundstage – When listening to music you can close your eyes and pinpoint exactly where each musician is standing. Some speakers tend to blend it all in so that not one sound ‘jumps’ out at you, but that IMO is just plain wrong. For example, when you’re listening to a Led Zep track, Robert Plant does not stand in-between John-Paul Jones and John Bonham while belting out a song, and Jimmy Page isn’t letting loose with his amazing riffs from a corner of the stage! Rather the opposite happens, Jimmy and Robert are always up front and center – with JP and John Bonham in behind. The Ascends project that sound exactly. Another example would be Norah Jones – Come Away With Me SACD – it’s her voice and Piano that stands out on the disc, with the rest of the music in behind her. For classical music though, you know where the Cello’s and Violins are on stage in relation to the Oboes, Clarinets and French Horns, all blending in when playing together as they would normally be. Truly amazing!
Imaging – Best way for me to describe this would be what happened to me the other night while watching Matrix Revolutions. I’ve seen this movie about 4 times in my H/T now, but just watched it for the first time with the Ascends. The scene was where Neo visited the ‘new’ Oracle for the last time and in the background I could hear a radio playing upstairs. Here I thought my son was fast asleep, god knows what kind of trouble he got into (again). So I paused the movie, and voila – no radio. I then realized of course where the sound was coming from, and I’m sure I had heard it when watching the movie on my previous 5 channel setup. With the Ascends it literally sounded like it was coming from another room!
Another great review I got was from my wife – we were watching a movie we both were familiar with (LOTR – FOTR) and about a 1/3rd of the way through the movie she said “Does this ever sound better than the old setup”. She never comments on speakers (other than it being too loud ;))
