The Tower Discussion Thread!

[gorthocar]

...You and I both, buddy. It seems that Dave has an "inner gangsta."
...

That was not the music I was expecting to hear. But after hearing it, I can understand why it would make a good demo. It has a very wide variety of frequency and dynamic range to show off just how awesome these STCs are. It is not my first choice of music that I'd listen to, but it demos well.

My neighbors are probably going to be pissed once I get my STC and crank it up.

[merrymaid520]

Ok. I adjusted the yamaha XO to 100hz and also added an additional EQ filter. For the 2100, I of course have the other EQ filter on plus I lowered the sub level, nothing else believe it or not.
Here ya go....

[rtrose]

Dave I believe that what I see is you used a matte STC on the right channel for the demo video correct? I think that one is mine that has not shipped yet. That is OK by me to have my STC star in your video, gives me some serious street cred!

I received my matte finish towers this past Monday, and I am here to tell you that I am more than pleased with them. Every time I listen to them they just keep impressing me with their sound. They are visually pleasing as well. If you will allow me (don't know if it is against forum rules) but below is what I posted on AVS Forum with my initial impressions. I am not an expert by any stretch, but thought you and others here would find my "review" interesting.

Thanks again to you and Dina, for your help, personal attention, and total commitment to your customers and your product.

Hello,

I just wanted to chime in and say I took delivery of my black matte towers yesterday. Hopefully it will be followed here in the next few days by the STC. I'm rounding out my speakers with the 170 SE's as surrounds and a Rythmik sub.

First blush is that I'm very impressed and pleased with the speakers. I do not have a lot of experience with "critical listening". My other "system" is a Klipsch Quintet with the 10" matching sub. Obviously there is no comparison between the two as they are worlds apart (and rightfully so) but that is what my experience is with so take the following with a little grain of salt. This listening was don in my theater that is 13.5 x 20 x 7.5 and has no acoustical treatments at all.

I have only had about four or five hours with the towers ATM. A mixture of iPod, Pandora, CD's, and a couple of movie samples is where my initial impressions are coming from. One of the things that struck me was how "honest or true" these speakers appear to be. With these speakers source material is very important that was evident very quickly. If you have a crappy, compressed, or otherwise compromised source, these speakers will definitely let you know. They don't hide, or cover up anything and when fed quality material they will have you grinning from ear to ear with what you hear. I tried to listen at all different volume levels just to see what type of range they had and I can tell you that they can go loud, but that is not necessarily impressive into itself a lot of speakers can play loud. Oh, and I'm not so interested just in how loud they go, I'm much too old now to be purely impressed just by that, but how they sound at all volume levels. My little Klipschs would get harsh when driven loud and it would be obvious after listening at higher volumes that you had done so. The towers do so with out harshness, actually it kind of sneaks up on you and then all of sudden you realize wow this is pretty loud. Sound weird I know, but I don't know how else to explain it.

For my music listening they go down deep enough to capture the bass drum thumps and some of the other "popular" music my teens listen to. I did not feel like there was anything I was missing and the clarity of the music was also very prevalent. Not once have they sounded muddled, muddy, or harsh.

During the movie watching I watched a couple of movies that I am very familiar with. I put on the the 170 SE as a temp center to try to get an idea of what I was in for. The towers don't do the heavy hitting that a sub would for the LFE type material, but I would not expect them to and that is not what they are tasked for doing. They do seem to effortlessly handle HT and I can't wait to put the STC in the mix. The dialog and other surround duties were effortless.

I am still in the "Honeymoon Phase" and I obviously will be doing a lot more listening and tweaking with setup, position, and room treatments. I also wanted to say what a pleasure it was working with Dave and Dina at Ascend and that they truly know what customer service really is.

I'm hoping as these speakers ship and make it to their new homes others will chime in with their impressions.

Regards,

RTROSE

Thanks again you have a fantastic product.

Regards,

RTROSE

[logicology]

The STC with our RAAL ribbon is very impressive for relaxed and natural sounding dialogue. You can definitely mix the ribbon center with dome left/rights if this is something that you are considering... I would not recommend ribbon left/rights with dome center but the opposite works quite well together

So would you not recommend RAAL Tower for L+R and Sierra-1 NrT center? I can not fit the STC for my center speaker.

[choirbass]

So would you not recommend RAAL Tower for L+R and Sierra-1 NrT center? I can not fit the STC for my center speaker.

Dave did mention a few days ago about possibly researching and designing a RAAL Sierra-1 based on feedback. That may be a more suitable tweeter option 'if' it becomes available.

[logicology]

My curiosity got the best of me concerning the RAAL ribbons. In doing some research on them I found this fascinating article with pictures on how exactly they're made.

http://6moons.com/industryfeatures/r...ia/raal_4.html

[Dark Ranger]

My curiosity got the best of me concerning the RAAL ribbons. In doing some research on them I found this fascinating article with pictures on how exactly they're made.

http://6moons.com/industryfeatures/r...ia/raal_4.html

WANT!!

I know it's after Valentine's Day, but...RAAL, I love you. Marry me?

Thanks logicology, that was fascinating.

[logicology]

Glad you found it as intriguing as I did! RAAL is not exaggerating when they say hand-made.

[logicology]

My favorite part:

"Mladen must counter the powerful attraction of the magnets to assemble the actual enclosure without squashing his fingers. I watched him do it. It takes very strong hands"

[sesquipedalian]

I am still considering my options and am thinking about using one system for music and HT. If I were to use Sierra Towers for LR with the RAAL ribbon, is there any center other than the Sierra Horizon with the ribbon that would work?

I don't want to overspend for HT since I do more music listening. As I understand it, an NrT tweeter for the center with ribbons for LR is not a recommended configuration. Why is that? Would a non-NrT Sierra-1 center work with the ribbon towers? How about the CMT-340 SE center?