Sierra-2 Development Thread

[Dark Ranger]

Interesting news here... Also, the other post is relevant here as well.


Exciting days ahead, folks!

[Mag_Neato]

Hmm......interesting bit of information.

Could the "Uber" upgrade be a customized RAAL tweeter with the appropriate crossover? I'm not sure this would be for me, at least from a cost perspective. If we're talking about a significant investment for this, say $500+, I will be looking in from the outside. I realize $500 is probably way too low for such an upgrade, but that would be stretching things budget-wise. The NrT upgrade was around $350'ish for both speakers when I did that, so I'd imagine this would probably be closer to $700 or more.

Still can't wait to find out!

[qwknuf6]

700.00 for a pair of raal tweets , plus a new crossover , 900.00 for an ugrade?????

Mark

[GirgleMirt]

Want to hear a sad story? I dreamed I visited the Ascend 'factory' which turned out to be in a really old shopping mall's basement, and it was HUGE, probably the size of four football fields. I was in the neighborhood and just walked in without an appointment and walked around. It was super dusty and had metal beams and scraps on tables and stuff which had nothing to do with speakers... I wanted to hear the towers but unfortunately none were functional; none had woofers, but an employee then offered to build me a tower with NrT tweeter so that I could hear it lol

Then Dave showed me his prototype Sierra tower. It of course had no drivers, just empty cabinet, but a really funky curved cabinet. In the end, it would have a RAAL tweeter, mid, two woofers, and a large (15 inch) bass woofer on the side with radiator, it was quite amazing... Oh!! And I remember he asked me how much I thought it was going to be and then he said 7500$, and I thought that was quite expensive but there would probably be a market for them. lol

Then there was one regular Sierra tower finally completed, but it was time for me to leave and join some friends but I couldn't really leave to because they had gone through so much trouble to build that one speaker so I could hear it... And so I politely listened to that one speaker, in the factory, on a super crappy chair sitting against a wall, and the environment was so bad I could barely hear anything from that one speaker, and then Dave wanted me to hear the RAAL to see if I could tell the difference, and so he was manually replacing the tweeter, and when it was finally done I had largely forgot how the NrT sounded and couldn't hear any difference... LOL Then I went out and met some old friend and things got even weirder but that's another story...

Oh well, note: This has nothing to do with reality (I'm sure the actual Ascend is exremely clean and all), simply the very strange dreams of a guy who has weird dreams

[JustaSheep]

700.00 for a pair of raal tweets , plus a new crossover , 900.00 for an ugrade?????

Mark

I think this speaks more to the value of the Towers than to the pricey-ness of the Sierra 2's.

[GirgleMirt]

Hmm......interesting bit of information.

Could the "Uber" upgrade be a customized RAAL tweeter with the appropriate crossover? I'm not sure this would be for me, at least from a cost perspective. If we're talking about a significant investment for this, say $500+, I will be looking in from the outside. I realize $500 is probably way too low for such an upgrade, but that would be stretching things budget-wise. The NrT upgrade was around $350'ish for both speakers when I did that, so I'd imagine this would probably be closer to $700 or more.

Still can't wait to find out!

Same here... BUT, we both did the NrT upgrade... For those who didn't do an upgrade, might be more attractive. And we have to keep in mind that the RAAL is one of the best tweeters available at any price point, so you do get what you pay for.

FWIW, I even skipped the towers... Maybe for new buyers, if it's 700, so 900+700 for RAAL Bookshelves, or 2700 for RAAL towers I think it is, or 1900 for NrT towers, maybe towers with NrT & mid woofer make more sense...

Though as mentioned, if RAAL takes over more of the midrange, maybe the match with 1 sierra woofer works great and gives better performance than NrT + dedicated tower mid...

Hard decision. Was NrT really 350? If RAAL was 4-500ish, due to maybe custom/cheaper RAAL tweeter, I might consider it, and I say this somewhat reluctantly as I'm not really interested in upgrading but such price point might make give me no choice... But 700 or more, I think would be a quite limited # of people due to cost of upgrade. But who knows... I have no doubt that if Ascend is offering it, it makes sense as an upgrade and so it is worth it.

But for myself I'm not sure.. As I said, I think the NrT has great performance, and vs NeoCD3.0 ribbon tweeter, I think it more than held its own. But the Neo is not a RAAL... So I don't know, I somewhat feel that the RAAL fits better with the towers (mid + 2 bass woofers), and for the Sierra bookshelves, it might be too 'big' of an upgrade. In actuality, this probably makes no sense, as if RAAL improves highs/mids it doesn't matter if speaker cost 900 initially and upgrade is almost 100% of original price, but upgrading on 2000$ speaker for 700 (30% cost of speakers) seems more 'balanced'...

[Mag_Neato]

I think this speaks more to the value of the Towers than to the pricey-ness of the Sierra 2's.

Disclaimer: This is ONLY my $0.02 and has NOTHING to do with reality! Dave MAY be looking at a ribbon for the upgrade, but who's to say it is the same RAAL as the tower uses? As far as I know that tweeter would not even fit in the Sierra-1 cabinet. So, these are merely my wild-ass-guesses!

[Dark Ranger]

For what it's worth, Dave did not state explicitly about the upgrade being a RAAL, or for that matter the same 70-20XR used in the Towers/Horizon. In fact, he did not even spill the beans yet from my perspective.

What I gathered is that there is another ribbon-based speaker in the works. It could be the Sierra-1 upgrade, but it could also be a completely new speaker. In any case, I find it very interesting because it will be a ribbon-based speaker instead of a traditional dome tweeter.


@ GirgleMirt,

Love that dream. I can guess where you picked up the $7,500 figure.

[Alleric]

So...

If this a tweeter upgrade be... I'm willing to discuss some second hand NrT setups for L/C/R. I have to do my things more on a budget, and in a strategic fashion.

But from my bench here at Speculation Station, I would think that taking a design up a full release level (Sierra 1 to 2) would mean more than just yet another tweeter option. Another tweeter option would seem more like a flavoring, like NrT is now. Full on Sierra 2 seems to implicate a far more holistic modification.

[billy p]

Some very active minds at play....I'm loving all this conjecture....

Thanks gents, I needed a good chuckle...

On a more serious note, I know the ETA was slated ~1yr ...has that since changed?

Regards, Bill...