Official Signature Edition owners thread

[Eddie]

I was surprised by the brightness of the Ascend, as everything I read led me to believe that it would be neutural, or even on the warmer side. Is it possible that the Ascend's are just revealing the brightness of the Yamaha? Has anyone else had this experience?

I think it's the Yamaha, though the 1x00and 2x00 models are supposed to be more neutral than bright, it's the cheaper entry level Yammies that are notoriously bright.

My Ascends sounded different with NAD separates, a Marantz 5400, and now a Panny 55 so I think they very much reflect the power source as well as the music source. What kind of CDP are you using?

[Galwin]

It's a SONY - not the ES version. Could that be a big contributor?

[curtis]

I think it is the differences in what you are acustomed to and the Ascends. What others speakers have you heard and enjoy?

On the Yamaha, are you using the YPAO eq feature? Did you re-run the setup after hooking up the Ascends?

[Galwin]

I've been intentionally running the EQ flat to have an uncolored frame of reference for my comparison. It may be interesting run the YPAO with the Ascends - good suggestion. Thanks.

[curtis]

I've been intentionally running the EQ flat to have an uncolored frame of reference for my comparison. It may be interesting run the YPAO with the Ascends - good suggestion. Thanks.

When you say "EQ flat" does that mean YPAO is off? If not, I would shut off YPAO and see how you like it.

[curtis]

My suspicion is that you ran YPAO with your old speakers to have a flat frequency response in-room......and that with the old speakers, it boosted the treble response. Now with the Ascends that have a flat anechoic response already, you are using the same EQ settings as you did your old speakers, thus boosting the treble response which is not needed.

just a hunch.....

[Galwin]

I went in maually and set the EQ to flat - I presumed the YPAO was off, but I should double check that. Also, the direct setting bypasses all EQ and processing, but does not allow you to run the sub.

My prime frame of reference are my ADS speakers that I've used since 1990. ADS made some outstanding speakers from the late 1970's to late 80's. I've recently auditioned Paradigm (Studio and Signature) and found, at least to my ears, that I'd have to spend 3K or more to best my ADS. But I have not done extensive auditioning since I bought my current pair 16 years ago. Back in those days, I remember Snell, Boston Acoustics, and Theil sounding good to me. Everything I read about the Ascends sounded like my kind of speaker. What the Ascends do in the mid range for the money is amazing - a level of musical reality that is fully engaging. Perhaps with detail and warmth you have to give up some of one to get the other?

[curtis]

Ahh....if you ran them direct, then I'm pretty sure you got the proper taste.

As for a trade-off between detail and warmth, my thinking is if a speaker is "warm" then something in the frequency response is diminished or enhanced, thus possibly causing some detail to be overshadowed.

The Ascends are certainly no brighter than any Paradigms I have heard.

You may also want to try using your CD player and compare differences with it connected via digital vs. analog.

[Galwin]

Curtis,

Thanks much for the suggestions. I will try them out this evening and report back. I am also looking forward hooking up my new amp, but I've got to wait for a healthy back to get it racked - at 70lbs. it's like lifting a cinder block!

My ADS's sound bright with the Yamaha in direct mode too, but less so than the Ascends. With the ADS's I had bumped up the mids on the eq manually, by ear, till I wamed it up a bit. But needless to say, the Yamaha sound is not for me.

I hope I can get this right, because when listening to familiar discs, the sound of the 340's was like removing a veil by comparison - and those ADS towers are no slouches.

[BradJudy]

I wouldn't have called Ascends 'warm' myself. They might seem a tad more 'forward' or 'bright' compared to some other options, but definitely not to the level that some speakers are.

At the last RMAF, I spent about a half-day hanging out with Phil Bamberg from BESL (formerly from Klipsch and currently doing some freelance work with some other folks). He had strong feelings that the higher frequency ranges are more difficult to 'get right' in a speaker which leads designers to tame them a bit. He felt that a really good speaker could have good clean high frequency response without being difficult to listen to. An interesting perspective that may or may not apply here.

Since I'm also into headphones, I'll give the analogy that Ascends are probably more like Grados than they are like Sennheisers (I have a pair of each sitting right next to my Ascends).