Sierra-2 Development Thread

[davef]

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

Oh my... this is a really disturbing nightmare Scary stuff.... Was there weird background music playing too?

We are actually in the process of organizing our warehouse. Check out our new 20' high "Wall o'170 cabinets followed by our Wall o'340 cabinets (behind)

Funny thing about your dream is that we have been looking for a larger facility and your dream reminds me of one of the places we recently looked at

[Alleric]

Care to move out to southern Arizona? I'd love to come hang out. As an ineffective taunt: I do indeed own a smoker and make some pretty darn good brisket and shoulder.

[Dark Ranger]

Oh my! Look at all that Cheddar!

This means one thing, folks, and one thing only: we simply are not doing our part to empty the Ascend warehouse!

I will pledge to buy two rows wide by two rows deep of both 170s and 340s. Who's with me!? Besides, I've always wanted good sound in my kitchen...and bathroom...and closet...and dog house*!


*Having good sound in the dog house is essential, because one day we men will screw up and get kicked outside, unable to listen to our primary system indoors. By outfitting the dog house with Ascend quality, we'll be able to conquer the lonely nights unfazed.

[JustaSheep]

*Having good sound in the dog house is essential, because one day we men will screw up and get kicked outside, unable to listen to our primary system indoors. By outfitting the dog house with Ascend quality, we'll be able to conquer the lonely nights unfazed.

That's why they make Schiit and NAD and Sennheiser...and AKG...etc.

[davef]

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

Mark

FYI, we could not possibly offer a pair of our specialized RAAL 70-20XR with Amorphous core transformers for $700. The reason we are able to offer these for $350 each in the towers is that we recoup our cost on the NrT dome, which is 4-5 times the cost of the standard Sierra-1 dome.

If someone were to purchase the tower ribbon from us, the price would be $585 each. Sierra-1 with the tower ribbon tweeters would be in the range of $1800/pair. Also, to make matters worse, the dollar has fallen against the Euro which only makes the ribbons more expensive

[qwknuf6]

Dave

If you were to offer a RAAL tweeter upgrade for the Sierra 1 and if someone had already upgraded to the NRT dome tweeter ,would there be a credit for trading in the NRT tweeter and crossover?

Thanks

[GirgleMirt]

Oh my... this is a really disturbing nightmare Scary stuff.... Was there weird background music playing too?

We are actually in the process of organizing our warehouse. Check out our new 20' high "Wall o'170 cabinets followed by our Wall o'340 cabinets (behind)

Funny thing about your dream is that we have been looking for a larger facility and your dream reminds me of one of the places we recently looked at

About that pic:

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

FYI, we could not possibly offer a pair of our specialized RAAL 70-20XR with Amorphous core transformers for $700. The reason we are able to offer these for $350 each in the towers is that we recoup our cost on the NrT dome, which is 4-5 times the cost of the standard Sierra-1 dome.

If someone were to purchase the tower ribbon from us, the price would be $585 each. Sierra-1 with the tower ribbon tweeters would be in the range of $1800/pair. Also, to make matters worse, the dollar has fallen against the Euro which only makes the ribbons more expensive

So the Sierra-1 NrT 'Next phase' is a Ribbon upgrade? RAAL does offer other Ribbon tweeters but they're all above 400$ a pop... So a non-RAAL ribbon? Hmmm!

[nzone]

Will this upcoming Sierra 2 Monitor integrate perfectly with the current Horizon?
The current Sierra 1 Center looks cripple (visually) somewhat when remove the grill.

[hemingrey66]

Hi Guys,

So sorry about the delay. I really wish I could post more details but nothing is 100% just yet. These are fully customized components for us and I am not comfortable posting public details until I have approved final samples and the parts are in production.

With regard to a timeline, I hope to be able to approve final samples within 2-months. From there I would estimate 3-4 months for production and delivery.

Great things coming... I promise

So we are pushing November, is there anything that can be shared with us about the "Sierra-2". My interest because, although I have plenty of room for the Towers, my space for the center "Sierra Horizon" is no more than my existing Sierra 1 center, so a possible upgrade of my existing center with the great mid range of the towers is of great interest. Maybe I'm just wishing here, but from what has been said it seems possible.

[davef]

I apologize for the delay in responding to these questions.

Dave

If you were to offer a RAAL tweeter upgrade for the Sierra 1 and if someone had already upgraded to the NRT dome tweeter ,would there be a credit for trading in the NRT tweeter and crossover?

Thanks

Yes, I believe we will offer a trade-in price for those who have Sierra-1 NrT.

Will this upcoming Sierra 2 Monitor integrate perfectly with the current Horizon?

This is the plan -- although it won't have the bass response or the dynamic capabilities of the Horizon (simply due to physical constaints)

So we are pushing November, is there anything that can be shared with us about the "Sierra-2". My interest because, although I have plenty of room for the Towers, my space for the center "Sierra Horizon" is no more than my existing Sierra 1 center, so a possible upgrade of my existing center with the great mid range of the towers is of great interest. Maybe I'm just wishing here, but from what has been said it seems possible.

I can share that is coming along quite nicely so far I spent a good 3-4 hours listening to the proto Sierra-2 vs. the Sierra-1 and Sierra-2 vs. Sierra Ribbon Tower and so far I think we have managed to reach our goals. Midrange and high frequency performance is directly between the Sierra-1 and the Ribbon Towers (closer to the towers)

We are not there yet though, we are still trying to further optimize the fully custom components (our 4th time around) and I hope to have the final versions here within a few more weeks.