Sierra-2 Development Thread

[Dark Ranger]

Just popping in to give this a bump.

And hoping to see any kind of teaser from Dave!

Ya know, Mag, my heart skips a beat every time I see this thread marked with new posts. I am aware of Dave's timeline mentioned earlier, but part of me thinks "what if...maybe we have early news."

...and it turns out to be just a bump. Not cool.

[Chops]

There are other speakers on the market that have incorporated a tweeter & mid-range together in the same foot print. I don't know how successful these speakers are. Isn't the front of the Sierra-1 removeable so a new front might be part of the upgrade? Maybe a 3 way is possible.

[GirgleMirt]

Nah, front baffle is non removable, its a one piece cabinet. The NrT upgrade updated tweeter which was same size as old tweeter so you unscrewed the original one and replaced it with the new. Maybe the new upgrade will be RAAL tweeter, with a new mid, port block for the 'sealed' new mid, a new larger bass woofer and a new bass cabinet, making it a 3 way nah I joke, although still like my mid cabinet idea.


Idea: if tweeter upgrade, could call it MrT upgrade, although I believe it is copyrighted...

[choirbass]

There are other speakers on the market that have incorporated a tweeter & mid-range together in the same foot print. I don't know how successful these speakers are. Isn't the front of the Sierra-1 removeable so a new front might be part of the upgrade? Maybe a 3 way is possible.

Maybe a 3-way, but I dunno.. Dave did post awhile back when he assembled a 3 way sierra-1 due to numerous requests for it, he simply wasn't happy with the results. A 3 way NrT Sierra-1 was as expensive as a tower, but didn't offer the kind of performance he desired to really be worth it.

Along those lines, a modified tower 'could' be brought closer to the dimensions of a Sierra-1, much like lowering the height of the Horizon center, tho other dimensions would need to be increased to compensate. There's also the possibility that the results may 'still' be unsatisfactory like before.

It is why I've mentioned the possibility of a RAAL Sierra-1, as it simply supplies a lot of the detail a mid driver would offer due to it being able to have a lower crossover than the NrT, negating more of the need for a 3 way. And being the type of ribbon it is, that says a lot for what it can offer. It isn't quite a Sierra Tower, but it is close.

edit.. here's his post. memory is a bit faulty, so this should correct where I misquoted:


""
OK -- here we go

Since work began on the towers, must be at least 3 years ago now --- I have seriously challenged myself on coming up with an affordable bookshelf speaker that uses the mid from the tower and the NrT dome. I have built several prototypes and have had this same conversation during several open house listening sessions with both Ascend owners and non-Ascend owners.

The issue that I continually run into is that to deliver the type of midrange detail and quick transients, the tower mid uses an extremely lightweight cone and the overall suspension / motor system is also very low mass. This mid has the lowest MMS of any 5 1/4" "cone" based woofer I have ever come across and the moving mass of this woofer is actually less than half that of the Sierra-1 woofer. It is the reason why it is capable of delivering tremendous levels of detail with very quick and accurate transients.

Having this low of an MMS comes at price, the mid has a natural roll off that starts in the 180Hz range. I could design a ported version and possibly extend the low end to be -3dB at about 100Hz, but a ported version will not provide the same great transient accuracy and I am not fond of high crossover points to a subwoofer (100Hz etc.)

With that in mind, I built a prototype using this mid, one Sierra-1 woofer and the NrT dome. The problem with this is that there is a significant difference in efficiency between the two different woofers and both the tweeter and the mid have to be padded down by at least 4-5 dB. This 3-way bookshelf speaker, or LCR, would only be slightly less expensive than our Sierra Tower and I was simply not able to get the performance I would have liked. The beauty in the Sierra Tower is that the sensitivity of the dual 5 1/4" woofers match the mid and that matches the NrT dome (and even the RAAL, which has a custom impedance / sensitivity profile for us). There is almost zero padding on any of the transducers in the Sierra Tower which means the efficiency on all the components is maximized.

Keeping the bass response of the Sierra-1 intact is important to me, a very large percentage of our customers use these in 2-way systems without a subwoofer. So, how do we keep the bass response and yet provide even more midrange detail? The NrT upgrade does a good job of this as we cross a bit lower so more midrange detail comes from the tweeter, which is quite robust and can handle it with ease.

Along this same line of thought, I have built a custom Sierra-1 with our RAAL 70-20XR. With this particular ribbon, I can cross even lower and just as important, the slope of the high pass can be shallower. This allows less of the upper mids (the critical area where detail is sensed) to be reproduced by the woofer and instead is reproduced by the most detailed transducer I know of, the RAAL... The results of this combination is exceptional and while not as detailed as our Sierra Tower, for a 2-way bookshelf speaker it has to be amongst the best out there. The problem with this is the expense After completing the BOM, the price of our RAAL Sierra-1 will come out to be $1798/pair. Certainly not high for anything with a RAAL tweeter, especially a 70-20XR with AM core -- but, I just don't know if this would be marketable and it will not be possible to "upgrade" existing Sierra-1.

So here is where I look to forum feedback -- at $1798 / pair, would there be demand for a RAAL Sierra-1?
""

[davef]

There are other speakers on the market that have incorporated a tweeter & mid-range together in the same foot print. I don't know how successful these speakers are. Isn't the front of the Sierra-1 removeable so a new front might be part of the upgrade? Maybe a 3 way is possible.

Keep in mind that when used with active bass management and a dedicated subwoofer, you essentially have a 3-way system

[Mag_Neato]

Keep in mind that when used with active bass management and a dedicated subwoofer, you essentially have a 3-way system

Good point. The main difference being: A 3-way speaker has an optimized crossover integrating the high/mid/bass frequencies, where a sub/sat system has to be tweaked by the end user in their home. Also, a big advantage of the tower is having a dedicated midrange driver which never sees any low frequencies below the optimal range for mid frequency reproduction.

As good as a 2-way design can be, once you hear it next to a good 3-way with proper mid-range integration the advantage becomes obvious. Sort of like comparing the old Dolby Pro-logic, which used "Logic" matrixing to separate the channels, to Dolby TrueHD. Things become clearer and better focused.

So Dave, how did I do?

[SpeedD408]

Along this same line of thought, I have built a custom Sierra-1 with our RAAL 70-20XR. With this particular ribbon, I can cross even lower and just as important, the slope of the high pass can be shallower. This allows less of the upper mids (the critical area where detail is sensed) to be reproduced by the woofer and instead is reproduced by the most detailed transducer I know of, the RAAL... The results of this combination is exceptional and while not as detailed as our Sierra Tower, for a 2-way bookshelf speaker it has to be amongst the best out there. The problem with this is the expense After completing the BOM, the price of our RAAL Sierra-1 will come out to be $1798/pair. Certainly not high for anything with a RAAL tweeter, especially a 70-20XR with AM core -- but, I just don't know if this would be marketable and it will not be possible to "upgrade" existing Sierra-1.

So here is where I look to forum feedback -- at $1798 / pair, would there be demand for a RAAL Sierra-1?
""

Feedback... $1798/pair is a bit steep to me. However, I will be in the market for this. I'm working on saving for a set of Sierra Towers and Horizon (all with the RAAL's) for my front stage and I'm a firm believer in matching components. Therefore, I would want this option for my side surrounds probably overkill and probably not needed at all for the rear surrounds but it is something I would want.

thanks.

[RicardoJoa]

Feedback... $1798/pair is a bit steep to me. However, I will be in the market for this. I'm working on saving for a set of Sierra Towers and Horizon (all with the RAAL's) for my front stage and I'm a firm believer in matching components. Therefore, I would want this option for my side surrounds probably overkill and probably not needed at all for the rear surrounds but it is something I would want.

thanks.

If you are interested in matching components you should go with a pair of tower for surround. Having a raal sierra1 doesnt fully match the towers and center.

[SpeedD408]

If you are interested in matching components you should go with a pair of tower for surround. Having a raal sierra1 doesnt fully match the towers and center.

I wouldn't be able to do towers for surrounds. I would have to do the horizons. I just think that would be overkill.

[davef]

Feedback... $1798/pair is a bit steep to me. However, I will be in the market for this. I'm working on saving for a set of Sierra Towers and Horizon (all with the RAAL's) for my front stage and I'm a firm believer in matching components. Therefore, I would want this option for my side surrounds probably overkill and probably not needed at all for the rear surrounds but it is something I would want.

thanks.

We will have a ribbon speaker that perfectly compliments the Towers/Horizon.

If you are interested in matching components you should go with a pair of tower for surround. Having a raal sierra1 doesnt fully match the towers and center.

Unless you go with the exact same speaker as the fronts, no rear/surround speaker will fully match the fronts.

I wouldn't be able to do towers for surrounds. I would have to do the horizons. I just think that would be overkill.

Horizons as rears is definitely overkill... Sierra-1 NrT work exceptionally well as rears with Ribbon towers as fronts and you save a ton of $$$. That said, if you want RAAL ribbon surrounds, we are happy to accommodate you.