Sierra 2s vs. Aperion Grand Centers vs SVS Ultra Bookshelfs

Here is a long-winded three way comparison between one pair of speakers from Aperion, Ascend and SVS. Hopefully this will be helpful for those trying to decide between the three speaker lines, like I was. The comparison isn’t the fairest it could have been, since there is quite a bit of price difference between the different lines of speakers. During the Aperion summer sale I could have purchased the floorstanding Verus Grands, for the same price as the Ascend Sierra 2s. However, I have some unique needs, where a tall tower speaker just won’t work. It would have been a very interesting comparison though. Instead I ordered the Verus Grand Center speakers to use as a stereo pair. The SVS speakers in the comparison were the Ultra bookshelf. SVS was at the biggest disadvantage in terms of price, though I am not sure going to the towers would have changed my decision. Marshall Guthrie, at Audioholics, pointed out in his review of the SVS bookshelf speakers that, “They retained the best of the towers, including composed and natural response even at high volumes, while sacrificing only the lower register in frequency response.” So going with the SVS towers will likely just give you more output capabilities (which I don’t need), probably a larger soundstage and a bit deeper extension (which I don’t need).

Background: I stared out with a Boose Acoustimax cubed surround sound setup and then added a real subwoofer, the Outlaw LFM-1 a couple of years later. When I realized how much I was missing (the gap between the sub and bass modules, and the bass module and the satellite speakers, etc. ) I started looking for some real speakers and came across the Axiom line of speakers. I finally settled on the M22v2s for fronts, VP150v2 for the center and Qs8v2 for surrounds. This was an enormous step up in performance. M22s were great, brutally honest speakers and the Qs8s worked very well as surround speakers. The VP150 is a poorly designed speaker. Off axis response is poor. Dialog in the sweet spot is muffled and hard to hear, sitting off center is worse. I was considering just swapping out the VP150 for a real center speaker, the VP160 which I bet would be a huge improvement, however the Axiom speakers to my ears were fatiguing. I have had the speakers in three different houses over the last 8 years and if I watch movies for 2 or more hours with the volume set just so that I can clearly hear dialog, then my ears would ring for the rest of the day and sometimes into the next day. It was sort of like when you go to a concert and everything is too loud, but to a somewhat lesser extent. This happened if I was listening to 5.1 material or just stereo material. All speakers were level matched with an SPL meter and often I even ran Audyssey MultEqxt and I would still get fatigue. I even tried trimming the high frequencies by 1,2,3 and 4 dB (thinking the speakers were bright) and it didn’t help. I liked the sound coming from the speakers (except the VP150), but they were fatiguing. Finally I broke down and just sold them all. I had enough.

Top list of my replacements were SVS Ultra bookshelves, Aperion Audio Verus grand three way center speakers (as a stereo pair) and the Sierra 2s. The sales associate at Aperion Audio agreed with me that the Verus grand center should be a step up from the Verus grand bookshelf. However, at SVS I was told the Ultra bookshelf has a better woofer than the ones in the Ultra center and he said he would recommend the bookshelf over the center speakers in a stereo setup. I would like have compared the Sierra Horizon with the Raal tweeter, but it is too far out of my budget and would not be at all a fair comparison with the other two brands. I am planning to have a home theater setup with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio screen in a 12 by 23 foot room with 8 foot ceilings. I am planning to have the screen take up nearly the entire 12 foot width of the room mounted to a false wall. So the speakers need to be of the form of a bookshelf or 3 way center with the tweeter over the midrange driver (I have had enough of poorly designed center speakers where all of the drivers are in a line horizontally) to easily center the tweeter vertically behind the screen and not worry about some of the woofers firing right into part of the false wall frame . As is probably clear, home theater is a priority to me, though I can’t get enough concert Blu-rays, when I can find artists I would like to listen to.

The number one trait of the replacements for the Axiom speakers I was looking for is it must be non-fatiguing at reasonable listening levels. By reasonable listening level, I mean that the volume is set so that I can hear the movie dialog is clearly discernable. I am also interested in an accurate reproduction of the material being played, flat frequency response, even off axis so that each seat in my future 2 row home theater is a good seat. I also would like the speaker to have good transient response, since that is a characteristic which goes along with accuracy. Anything on top of that is just a bonus. If the highs are airy, then great. If the midrange is choclately, then fantastic. ;)

Equipment: Onkyo 805, Oppo bdp 83, Roku 3, Outlaw LFM-1, Pioneer Kuro PDP 5080HD, Monoprice HDMI cables, Parts express oxygen free 12 gauge speaker wire (Soundking is the brand if I remember correctly), and the Sanus SF30B speaker stands.

All auditions are done in stereo audio, with a mixture of Blu-ray movies and TV shows, streamed Netflix content with stereo audio selected (it seems a little more dynamic and lifelike than the 5.1 mix on most content) and a few concert Blu-ray’s to see how various instruments and vocals (male and female) sound. Crossover set on my Onkyo 805 set to 80 Hz and Outlaw LFM 1 subwoofer handling the bass, with the distance to the main seat adjusted so that the phase is in line with the main speakers (procedure described at http://www.rythmikaudio.com/phase3.html ). I spent about two weeks listening to the SVS speakers, five days listening to the Ascend speakers and 4 days listening to the Aperion speakers, in that order.

Thoughts on speakers

SVS Ultra Bookshelf (price approx. $1000 per pair):
• I chose the piano black finish. It is a gorgeous finish and look to speaker.
• Seems to be designed and built solidly. Speaker has a bit of heft to it.

Placement
• Speakers setup in golden triangle with relation to the main seat. I toed in the speakers a bit. I noticed a slight bit of difference with the toe in in the main seat, but did this mostly to help with the far off axis seats. It appears, as many other reviews have mentioned, these speakers have quite good off-axis response (probably somewhat like the Ascend Acoustics Sierra 1s).

Sound
These speakers produced a very neutral and uncolored sound. Movie and TV dialog comes across pretty clearly at listening levels that are not fatiguing, but sometimes it doesn’t sound sharp, or well defined. I even listened to a few scenes from Dark Night Rises to see if I could easily discern what Bane was saying without the need for subtitles. He came across quite clearly at a reasonable volume level. The sound seems to not emanate from the speaker, in other words, they disappear. When watching movies and TV shows conversations and dialog are just kind of there (not moving outward into the room, just up front like they should be). Background music comes out into the room, perhaps because it is ambient material. I did not notice this with surround effects, like rain, etc. though. These effects and sounds came out into the room about 3 or 4 feet. When the background music comes forward into the room it seems slightly disconnected from the rest of the sound which are right up front. Almost like when watching 3D content(outside of the well implemented kind like in Avatar) and it is like looking at a pop-up-book 3 or 4 discrete depths, rather than a continuous gradual transition in depth from one thing to the other. Listened to a few songs from the following concert Blu-rays: Joe Bonamassa: An Acoustic Evening at the Vienna Opera House, Elton John 60: Live at the Madison Square Garden, Jewel: The Essential Live Songbook. So I was ale to hear both male and female vocals, guitar and unplugged guitars, piano and several other instruments (mandolin, bongos, etc. on Joe Bonamassa disc). Everything sounded natural and uncolored, but I didn’t notice anything coming forward into the room, like the ambient crowd as surround effects, like I did with background music on movies and TV shows.

Ascend Acoustics Sierra 2 Bookshelf (price approx. $1500 per pair):
• I chose the natural finish. I absolutely love the look of the natural bamboo, which is also used to lower the cabinet resonance. AND it is a renewable material.
• Seems very solidly built

Placement
• I placed the speakers in exactly the same place the SVS speakers went. Same toe-in. I only slightly changed the level matching so that they blended with the subwoofer using my Radio Shack SPL meter.

Sound
The first couple hours I watched the Killing streamed over Netflix and an episode of True Blood on Blu-Ray. Nothing really jumped out at me as a difference between the SVS speaker I had been listening to for a couple of weeks. The speakers disappeared just like the SVS, dialog was clear and easily discernable at a reasonable volume level and some background music came forward into the room. The background music which comes out into the room when watching TV shows and movies didn’t quite come out as far as the SVS speakers, but it did so continuously, rather than in discrete steps like the SVS speakers did. Then I watched another episode of the Killing, and there was a plane taking off, I could have sworn I had surround speakers hooked up because I heard it BEHIND me. These speakers can image very well. I had heard such an effect behind me with my Axiom M22s on very rare occasions, like once every couple of months, but this was daily occurrences with the Ascend speakers, when the material called for it. I then started to realize that dialog, which was easy to hear and discern on the SVS speakers had a couple of extra layers of clarity, all of the time on the Ascend speakers. In comparison, the SVS sounded slightly muffled, though it really became clear after listening to the Ascend speakers afterwards. The SVS and Ascend compared to my previous Axiom speakers are a huge step up in performance. Everything on Netflix sounded pretty bad through the Axiom speakers, whereas it sounded quite good on the SVS speakers and very good on the Ascend speakers. I thought it was only possible to hear improvements in good quality material, like Blu-rays, not lossy compressed audio streamed from Netflix. This was something I did not expect at all. Turning to music, again, things sounded quite good on the SVS speakers, but those same concert Blu-rays sounded even better, just more realistic and natural, rather than trying to make up adjectives. Female voices, male voices and the various instruments all sounded great. I loved listening to the attack and quick decay of various drums and how they often just come out into the room at you. So far, it was a very easy decision to send back the SVS speakers. The Ascend speakers seemed substantially better to me in all respects. Now, it is not the fairest comparison since the Ascend speakers cost substantially more, but I wanted to justify for myself the reason for spending the extra money.

Aperion Audio 3-way Verus Grand Center (price approx. $1600/pair $1300/pair during summer sale):
• I chose the piano black finish and it looks beautiful. Nice rounded edges. However, I don’t like the look of a center channel in comparison to a bookshelf or tower speaker though and it kind of stands out a bit more when you have a stereo pair of them. This is just a personal preference for me.
• Seems very solidly built. It is pretty hefty. It weighs about as much as either pair of bookshelves that I am comparing to.

Placement:
• I placed the speakers in the exact same location and toe-in as the other bookshelf speakers. However, the Sanus SF-30Bs don’t have as big as a base for the speaker to sit on as some other stands I had sitting around. The extra speaker stands I had were from Parts express and they are very solidly built (I can stand on them comfortably) metal stands at a height of 18 inches. I don’t remember the brand of these stands. I used the supplied curved door stopper-type wedges that came with the speakers to angle them up to about the same height the bookshelves were firing at in the main listening seat. I would have preferred having these speakers at the same 30 inch height, but this was the best I could do for comparison. I slightly changed the level matching so that they blended with the subwoofer using my Radio Shack SPL meter.

Sound:
The first thing that leapt out at me when I first listened to the speakers, demoing an Elton John song from his Blu-Ray concert, was the size of the soundstage seemed a bit larger than that of the bookshelf speakers. I thought this is one factor that might make things interesting between the Aperion and Ascend speakers. I think the Ascend has better parts from top to bottom (including the cabinet), while the Aperion has the advantage of being a larger 3-way speaker, likely with more output (which I don’t think I will need). Next up I watched an episode of the Killing. The Aperion speakers seemed to do as good of a job as the Ascend speakers at pulling more material outward into the room and it could even get the depth of getting behind you, tricking you into thinking you have surround speakers setup. Again, the soundstage seemed a bit bigger (horizontally and vertically) than the bookshelves, while doing this. Dialog sounded much like the SVS speakers, somewhat muffled. Thinking more about it, muffled isn’t the right word. The Ascend speakers just make it much sharper and more etched out, whereas the other two brands have dialog that sometimes sounds more vague, but is still easy to clearly hear and discern. The best analogy I can think of is the difference in sharpness of the picture between a very good DVD transfer and a Blu-ray transfer on say a 50” high definition set sitting 8 feet away. The DVD looks great, until someone shows you the Blu-Ray and you realize how much sharper the picture is in comparison (This is where we are trying to ignore the differences in color that would also be part of the big differences you are also noticing). The Ascend and Aperion speakers can both image very similarly, in terms of the depth of the soundstage in the room. Also, when the sounds came forward into the room they were both equal in doing so continuously where it didn’t feel slightly disconnected from the rest of the sounds (like dialog) it did on the SVS speakers. Overall, the Aperion speakers are seem to be much easier to drive. The SVS and Ascend speakers I would normally set at about the same volume level with similar material. However, the Aperion speakers I could set about 5 dB lower in gain on all material.

Other Much More Interesting Comparisons I Wanted to Consider:
The main difficultly in not being able to compare all speakers I wanted to is that my wife was due for delivery of our second child right about 30 days after I began listening comparisons in my house. Though even if this were not the case, I am not sure if I would have bothered with these comparisons due to the reasons given below.

RBH SX-61/R Bookshelf Speaker – Seems like a great speaker, designed very well with high quality components. The problem with these is that they are only available through dealers, and my local dealer in Chicago didn’t seem to have these on hand (at least according to their website). It would have been a much more interesting comparison pricewise and in terms of the components used with these RBH speakers and the Ascend speakers.

Philharmonic Philharmonitor – This would have been a very interesting comparison, since they use very similar parts. I guess I would have mostly heard the differences between the extra work Dave did getting custom Seas drivers and having a bamboo cabinet to reduce resonance, etc. I may pick up a pair of the Philharmonitors just to see how close they match the sound of the Sierra 2s. I don’t like the look of these nearly as much as the Ascend speakers, but they do seem to have some quality components for a low price.

XTZ 99.36 – These are tower speakers with a Raal ribbon tweeter for the same price as the Sierra 2s and they look about as good in terms of the finish. The only thing that gave me pause with these is it seemed like the in home trial was only 14 days, you pay shipping back, it wasn’t clear where they were shipping from (I don’t want to pay shipping both ways if it is out of the country). I guess this has just been changed and they are now doing better with in home auditions.

Conclusion:
The Ascend speakers were best in all regards, except the size of the soundstage created. This only points me to possibly wanting Ascend towers up front with Raal tweeters. As I mentioned previously, I would need a custom designed “short” tower to fit my needs. The nice thing about Ascend is that Dave has already shown he is open to doing such things. I would put the Aperion speakers in second place for me and the SVS in third. I imagine the Aperion bookshelf speakers, if they keep all of the same aspects as the bigger 3-way speakers except a smaller soundstage, would still be in second place, making them a very good value speaker. The depth of the soundstage on the Aperion speakers was equal to that of the Ascend speakers. The SVS speakers seemed to be lacking in both depth of soundstage and having it done continuously. The big selling point for me with the Ascend speakers is that dialog, sound effects and music just sounds clearer, more natural, and more sharply defined. Ascend also has many more speaker options for finishing out my surround speaker setup. I can inexpensively finish out a 7.1 system with a Sierra 2 in the center and some HTM200s as surrounds. Dave seems to be open to doing custom speakers, so I could even get three way speakers for the front 3 (short towers from a horizon squashed down and oriented vertically, which I may use behind my AT screen). My Sierra 2s could be repurposed as wide speakers. He seems open to possibly making an on-wall Sierra 2, which would be perfect for surround speakers, if I want the ribbon tweeter all the way around me (the Sierra 2s are just too deep for me to use as surrounds). It just seems like there are more of options for speakers from the Ascend line, which will work in my situation. I can do so rather inexpensively (utilizing HTM 200s in surround duties and Sierra 2’s up front) all the way up to maybe ribbon tweeters all around and short towers up front. And in all cases, the speakers will fit in my tighter space requirements. What surprised me about all of the speakers though, was how they could pull information out of lossy (likely overly compressed) streamed audio over Netlix and make it sound good and interesting and clearly easy to hear. This in addition to the fact that they are much less fatiguing during longer listening sessions, were what surprised me the most. The standout characteristics of the Sierra 2s are the ability to image very well. If you are sitting in the sweet spot, there is no big hurry to get surround speakers, since they can fool you into thinking you already have some quite frequently. Also, they just bring this extra level of clarity with music and movies that many other speakers just cannot do.