Quote Originally Posted by Mag_Neato View Post
No argument from me that the Salks are excellent speakers. I am certain they sound as good as you claim.

Now, based on your listening at Brandons' place, your Salks sounded different than in your own home, but they also had noticeable differences between the Ascend towers. So, if your room is optimized, even if unitentionally so, for your Salks, it is still optimized for them. You have put together a system that sounds its best with the Salks since those are the reference standard you based everything else on. Replace those with any other speaker and it will have a different sound. If you are accustomed to your reference sound than you will most likely be biased towards that. I do believe, based on everything that has been posted regarding this whole thing, that the Ascends will sound better in your room. But you must attempt to integrate/calibrate them into your system as best as possible since that has already happened with the Salks. This will give the speakers the most level playing field.

I look forward to everyones impressions of the next GTG!
I certainly can't argue with your points. I just wanted it known that I didn't really tweak my room to control the sound to fit my Salk's. What I found was that the right mix of electronics and cables can provide a clarity that is very distinct. Along with this clarity came fantastic definition in the sound stage imaging and great separation. In my opinion, ANY speaker should benefit from this, and I hope that's what I find out this coming weekend. I'm really wondering what will happen. This will be a great experiment for me and I hope the others as well.

I also think I can be a little more objective than preferring my Salk's over the others because I listen to them every day. I had speakers in a previous setup that I thought sounded great; heck the best I had heard at the time. I showed up with my B&W (800 series) to friend's house to show him what great speakers sound like. Well, as it turns out, the B&W lost by a HUGE margin to his speakers. Then I thought getting them back home to my room would make them sound good again. Nope. Having heard something better ruined my B&W's for me. That's when I ordered my Salk's. I will have to admit that I am partial to ribbon tweeters though.