So I de-boxed your speakers, and I didn't put the center channel on top of its stand. It's a little too narrow to fit across the full width of where the rubber pads are on the stand, and I didn't wanna mess up any of that beautiful piano black gloss finish - and it IS beautiful. Good choice on the finish.
Ever since I've been listening to my Dunlavys, I've fallen in love with them and with good old fashioned true 2 channel recordings/setups. For movies, I can see why you'd want a surround setup - often times there's things happening off screen that are to your sides and behind you. For music though (and I have listened to both 2Ch and 5.1Ch setups, yours being one of the latter) I think it becomes a little too "non-live" once you add the surrounding channels because I've never listened to live music where the sound (or at least, non-reverberatory sound) is coming from anywhere but in front of me, on the stage. Of course, this is just my personal opinion on how I like to listen to music, but I honestly do think a 2 channel setup is the closest thing we have to listening to live music in any venue outside of a recording studio.
All that being said, it worked out perfectly that almost everything I listened to on the Sierra's was in a 2 channel format. I did start off with my SACD Best of Dire Straits (same as you have on DVD-A, but mine is an SACD import), which was the only thing I listened to in full surround. After that I moved to my Best of Collective Soul album, which has some great dynamics and bass in it. I was really pleased with what I listened to, and for some odd reason it seemed like your sub was putting out much more and fuller bass than when I listened to some stuff with your old -170's/340 combo. The imaging was great, especially for a stereo setup.
About halfway through the first track on that album, in the spirit of my 2 channeled-ness, I decided to turn off the sub so I could just listen to the bass from the Sierras. I went behind the couch, flipped the power switch on the sub to "OFF," but didn't notice a difference at all. I thought maybe I wasn't hitting the right one 'cause it was kind of dark, so I just unplugged the RCA input from the back but I STILL didn't hear a difference in the bass. It was only after I pulled the power cable out of the subwoofer that I realized that it HAD BEEN OFF THE WHOLE TIME and all that wonderfully deep, rich, tight, tonal bass I was hearing was coming from your "little" Sierras. I can only say that 1) I had to fight the urge not to crank them up to hear what they could really do for fear of top end clipping and damage to your brand new babies, and 2) definitely get LOTS of power to feed these because they will be more spectacular the louder you play them. I decided to put in the SACD of an old RCA recording of Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra so I could judge the percussion instruments on your speakers. The recording definitely shows its age, there's some background hiss in there (either that or it's the sound of the air escaping from the organ like in the Chesky Records demo disc you have), and the percussion is a little disappointing...right up until the last 10 seconds or so, and then it's like an awesome nuclear blast of bass - I'm assuming it's some really low brass notes. I loved it. Needless to say I'm VERY impressed with your new Sierras - across the range (especially in the lows) I had no idea such little boxes could deliver such impressive dynamics and bass. I'd have to say they're pretty damn close to my Dunlavys, especially in the bass area. You got yourself one fantastic deal here.
A Friend Unboxed My New Sierra's... (must read)
This is the email I just recieved from him.
