How about an Ascend Acoustics Subwoofer?!

[Jonnyozero3]

He makes a hell of a cold cut trio...

[GaryB]

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[Jonnyozero3]

Well, I thought I was funny at least.

[davef]

Been a crazy day ---

The subwoofer issue has been nagging me for a long, long time... Truth is, I worked side by side with some of the brightest minds in the industry, we set the standard for reference quality subwoofers well before the sub/sat system became an industry standard.

There is much irony in the fact that I don't offer a line of subs considering how many years I spent behind a Dual Domain Audio Precision System 1 (a $20K audio analyzer) evaluating and tweaking subwoofer amplifier performance... Perhaps it is due to a few too many capacitors exploding in my face or having to rip the guts out of the AP to track down a tripped breaker due to a mis-wired power supply on the amp... I suspect that it has more to do with my own personal satisfaction, to me, there is still art and expression in loudspeaker design, and with subwoofers it is more about numbers... More power and more excursion. Companies like Hsu and SVS already deliver that in spades...

Back in my "sub" days, we built subwoofers for sound quality. We were more concerned with accuracy, distortion, mechanical noise and system Q then with how much output they managed at 20Hz. Never a rattle or buzz... Tight, clean and EXTREMELY musical. However, in today's marketplace and on paper, a subwoofer built with these parameters rather than max output and extension would be a tough sell, unfortunate, but nevertheless true...

At this time I would rather precisely focus my efforts on products that offer exceptional sound quality for 8 or 9 octaves of the 10 octaves we can hear. Will there ever be an Ascend subwoofer? Probably – but only when I can come up with something different rather than offer a product that has 2 or 3 dB more output at 16Hz compared to the current champion, only to be dethroned a year later…

For example, the CBM-170 is over 7 years old and still remains the standard for accuracy in an affordable bookshelf speaker (yes, it has been updated once to the SE but the overall performance, design and principles have remained the same). I am not sure that type of long lasting appeal is possible with a subwoofer. At least it hasn’t been done yet

[Jorge59]

If I correctly understood the "spirit" of Ascend, its main strength is being very focused (apart from the direct channel strategy).

Of course, David could do a great sub but, in this industry war, he might not be ready yet to jump into the "line extension trap".

As they grow successfully, most companies are temptated to introduce new lines of product. But the marketing experts say this is something that only the industry leader can afford. Over-segmentation can be an expensive pain in the neck....to say the least.

I think that, before making a sub, Ascend would rather deliver a 3-way speaker. But this is only customers' wishful thinking, not David's rationale, I guess.

He'll certainly know when to cross the borders, if ever.

[Jonnyozero3]

Nice thoughts - glad you shared them, Dave.

And Happy Turkey Day

[KojiroTakenashi]

Perhaps you could focus on size (smaller than the others) and price/performance...sort of like the Wii. You could be the Wii to another company's PS3-style subwoofer.

[dae3dae3]

If we are voting......

I vote for the tower first. I should be moving to a new house where I can have a dedicated theater in probably 4 to 5 years. That gives Dave a good solid amount of time to have the tower ready for my new theater.

[KojiroTakenashi]

If we're voting, I vote for commercial theater Ascends...oh hell yeah.

[curtis]

Unfortunately, I can not use a floorstander in my room. So if we are being selfish, I am hoping for another bookshelf that pushes beyond the current offerings in sound quality, making the same kind of impact the CBM-170 did 6 or 7 years ago, but at a higher price point.

I enjoy my 340SE's immensely, but I always wonder what DaveF could do for a cool $1K. I wouldn't be able to afford food for a while, but hey, sitting and listening to music does not burn up too many calories.