Looking to expand my current 2 speaker setup.

[John_H]

Well, I think I'm about to pull the trigger on a sierra-1 LCR set. Now I just need to decide if I want natural or piano black.

At first I wanted Piano black, but now I'm leaning towards natural. I like the looks more and more. How do the naturals look on the black TP-24 stands? Has anyone had a hard time getting the naturals to work with the decor of their room? What I mean is, I want to get a new TV stand (or wall mount the TV and buy an audio tower rack) and if I get the naturals, I will probably wind up going with more of a natural wood decor for my home theater system in general.

Obviously, tv stands and audio towers made out of bamboo aren't exactly readily available. Most of the wood furniture I see is maple, cherry wood, and walnut. Does anyone know which of the more common woods go well with the color of bamboo? I like the natural wood look, but I also understand that having a bunch of different wood tones may or may not be good depending on how it turns out. Has anyone with a natural wood decor found that the natural sierras clash or is everyone happy with them?

For instance, I am looking at the salamander synergy series. The color tone of bamboo appears to be somewhere in between the maple and cherry.


Thanks again for the help everyone,
John

[BradJudy]

My general advice on woods is to not try and match them, but to try and be complementary. It's like any color matching, if two pieces will be near each other and you can't get an exact match, go with a complementary color.

My TV rack is a dark walnut type stain and I use black stands for the Sierras.

If you want matching bamboo speaker stands, there's a forum member here who will custom make them for you.

[John_H]

That's good advice. I bet the dark walnut/rosewood type tones would be a nice contrast to the lighter sierras. That's much better than something close but not quite, like maple, for instance.


Thanks for the tip.

[curtis]

Not sure this helps, but I have a combination of light woods:

This picture has my Sierras on custom stands using a maple veneer. The TV stand/rack is ash.



This picture has the Sierras on custom bamboo stands by Jason:

[John_H]

Didn't Dave say that the price on the sierras is probably going to go up by $50-60 on 1/14/2008?

[davef]

Didn't Dave say that the price on the sierras is probably going to go up by $50-60 on 1/14/2008?

Yes, I really have no choice but to raise prices on the Sierra-1. Jan 14th is the day.

[Pilk]

One of the young ladies who answers the phone confirmed that this was the case, which pushed me over the edge to order yesterday. She was very helpful and friendly, if you're listening Dave.

[davef]

One of the young ladies who answers the phone confirmed that this was the case, which pushed me over the edge to order yesterday. She was very helpful and friendly, if you're listening Dave.

Pleased to hear this

[Pilk]

Pleased to hear this

See, I knew you were listening.....BIG BROTHER!!! BIG BROTHER!!! BTW, where are my Sierra's? I ordered them on Friday. (JK).

[Fantom]

Hey, John. Sierra's are a great choice you won’t regret. The piano black looks great (that's what I have across the front), but the natural bamboo is something you don't see everyday, and it's almost seems a shame to cover it up. Everything else in my setup is black and I have nothing wood to match/compliment the bamboo. So piano black it was.

You might find that you listen to music more often now with Sierra's. I have a PS3 too and started to get some SACDs once I had the Sierra's. To really get the quality from them you need HDMI to a receiver (the DSD stream on the SACD gets converted to high quality (24-bit 176.4kHz) LPCM inside the PS3). The receiver does not need to be able to decode DSD, since the PS3 will never output the DSD stream directly. Alternatively, if you just want the multichannel experience, the 5.1 DSD stream is converted to 5.1 Dolby Digital by the PS3 and passed out the optical. Stereo SACD would be uncompressed LPCM over optical (probably CD quality more or less).

Basically I'm saying an HDMI receiver will get you the best SACD sound (and bring out the best in the Sierra's), but you can play 'em and get multichannel music with just the optical audio connection.

As for your subwoofer question. Yes, a sub will help a lot, though the Sierra's hit quite low. They won't hit forcefully at 60hz, but it's all about flat accurate response here isn't it? And the Sierra's truly do that even with the lows.

I am also in a 2nd floor apartment and recently decided to get a sub. I decided against the STF line because they are bottom firing woofers, and would more likely travel right into the downstairs neighbors' living room. Of course, any bass will travel through walls easier than most frequencies. I was going for future proof and decided on the HSU VTF-3.3 (side firing woofer). I turn it off in the evening, so I mostly only get use out of it on the weekends. However, for such a large sub, the response is extremely accurate and not boomy. So while action movies can easily reach room shaking (and neighbor annoying) bass levels, I find it mostly rounds out music without calling attention to itself. Honestly, most people set their subs far from flat. If a sub properly blends with the other speakers, it will often just seem like your speakers have more bass. This really is the whole point as the bass is non-directional. Crossed at 60hz, the receiver is also not burdened with amplifying those lowest frequencies, and this helps to open up the whole system.

So, if you can afford it, a (good, e.g. HSU, Outlaw, SVS) sub will really complete the system. Sure, you'll miss it when you flick it off each night and you'll probably want to wait for the weekend to watch that action movie at reference levels (or invite the neighbors over), but the Sierra's will still be solid the rest of the time.

But, in the end, do what YOU want. And most importantly, enjoy it!