Sierra-1 vs. Rocket RS250 MKII??

[teetopkram]

anyone hear who has heard both and have an opinion as to how they compare? Strengths, weaknesses, differences? Considering both at this point and am very indecisive.

thanks...

Mark

[curtis]

I heard the RS250MKII a couple years ago side by side the older "classic" CBM-170's. Sound wise, it was good and comparable to the Ascends, but with more bass output, and I felt the mids(especially upper mids) were better/cleaner on the Ascends. Since then, the SE versions of the Ascends have come out and I have not done a comparison between them.

The Sierra, without doing a comparison, I would think is in a whole different league. Given the trial policies, try them both.

[Quinn]

I agree with Curtis having heard the 250 and the classic 170 outside of bass extension I thought the 170 was the better speaker.

[Kpt_Krunch]

That's funny. Never heard the MKII's, but guarantee you if you post this question at AV123 you'll get the same response in favour of the MKII's.


You have to do your own comparison. That's the only way. Unfortunately, you can't walk into a store to do it. Best thing to do though is find a speaker in a store that you like best (don't worry about price) and then make notes on why you like it (characteristics). Then, see if a lot of those notes are being repeated for an online speaker that you are interested in.

I did that, and a lot of PM's. Went with Ascend, and was quite happy (actually, they are better than I thought they would be). Good thing too, as a buddy of mine bought some Rockets. Due to conflicting testimonials, I decided against them. He has the 750 sigs and 550 MKII's.

750's look great. As for their sound, the 750 look great, and we'll leave it at that.

The 550's are better IMO, and unfortunately I still haven't had a chance to AB them against my 340 classics, but by acoustical memory the Ascends offer more detail but don't go as low.

The 250 MK II"s are a bookshelf version of the 550's I believe. To be honest, if looks matter a lot to you, it's hard to beat the Rocket look. If sound is more important, I'd definitely go with the Sierras, though unheard, I hear the blow the 340's out of the water, and I would take a 340 over a 550 or a 250.

Hope that helps you a little bit. I haven't been fortunate enough to hear they Sierra's yet, and in fact will be quite some time as I have other 'needs' right now (my audio hobby is taking a back seat). But I"m hoping in 18 months or so I'll be ready to order these puppies

[Josuah]

Out of curiosity then, would you consider the Sierra-1's in the same comparison bracket as the Onix Reference 1 speakers?

[Sam1000]

Out of curiosity then, would you consider the Sierra-1's in the same comparison bracket as the Onix Reference 1 speakers?

Craigsub replied to a similar question on AVS. He thought that Ref1s are a good speakers but a step lower that Sierra. I agree with him. I had bought used Ref1s for approx. $500 and sold them at a loss when I heard Sierra. Remember, If the sound was equal, I would have kept Ref1s because Sierra costed me more.

[Josuah]

Thanks for your input. It's a little interesting, since of course Ref 1's have a used price of $500-$600 but brand new cost more than the Sierra 1's. But I was kind of thinking this might be the case.

[badassfajita]

Sam--can you give us a bit more insight in this comparison between the Ref 1 and Sierras? I thought the Refs had nice clean bass and a very clean mid and top end.

[BradJudy]

Ref 1's have a used price of $500-$600 but brand new cost more than the Sierra 1's.

I don't know why the retail price on the Ref1 hasn't gone down. The combo deals they were doing for a while greatly lowered the resell value of the Ref1 to the range you mentioned and I expected AV123 to go ahead and lower the retail price to something like $800-1000 for the different finishes.

[curtis]

If I remember correctly though, you could only get the combo deal with the Ref1 LE which was the rosewood finish.