The Sierra B stock came in on last Monday

[keithpkp]

The Sierra 1 came in on last Monday. I have been traveling for work and did not have a chance to listen to them until Friday and the weekends.

Upon further examination, there were some slight scratches. Not bad and I guess it’s expected for B stock. The scratches really do not stand out unless you look up close. The natural finish is very different/unique and IMO looks very good. However I did notice a crack ~ ¼ inch where the screw is on the woofer driver on one of the main speakers. Obviously if the grill is on you cannot see the crack. Still it bothers me a tad about the crack. Will send a private message to David/Sales with picture about this.

I do not want to return the one speaker yet as I am still listening to them. I want to concentrate more how they sound.

Here is my impression after 5 hours of listening to them. The 1st hour I was not impressed at all with the speakers. Note I was too excited to unpack them and did not calibrate the speakers. After some tweaking and recalibrating they sound much better. I just auditioned the Axiom M22, IMO the Sierra sound so much better. Unfortunately I had just returned the M22 so I could not do a direct A/B comparison.

Overall they sound better the more I listened to them. I guess these need more of a break in period. I can describe the sound as little bit different from speakers that I heard before. Not bright but I cannot say they are totally neutral. They are definitely more details and have a greater presence compare to the M22 that I had. From memory I cannot say I like them more or less than the Dynaudio 52 that I heard 3 weeks ago.

Obviously those who probably buy or auditioned speakers over the internet are looking for the best bang for the money; I wanted to be sure these are great values. I cannot say I am 100% sold on the Sierra yet. Sill it’s kinda of hard to compare sounds when I have really no other speakers to directly reference against. Will have more time this coming weekend to take them to the local speaker store and compare them to other speakers. Talked to the local speaker store rep and he recommends Sonus Faber for bookshelves. He has also Paradigms, Vienna Acoustics, and Martin Logans.

[Galwin]

In my experience, it is the ears that are being broken in more than the speakers. It takes time to hear beyond the sound reference etched in our memory. Multiple auditions with familiar music will open up the landscape (mindscape).