Originally Posted by
mattcpt
Yes, I will go with the RAAL for sure because I had a chance to hear it (very important for me) and I found it to be my favorite for treble reproduction (although I also really liked the Anthony Gallo tweeters, but found fault with the dynamics (Strada) or found them to be exceptionally warm with too much bass (CL-4)). The local Sierra Tower owner, who's house I drove to yesterday, is Cane1992 (a member of this forum). Although, he states that he doesn't spend as much time on the forum now that he has purchased his speaker system. I'm sure I will be the same, as I will be spending more time thinking about the next component that I want to upgrade.
I'm a little jealous of Cane1992, not just because of the great sound system that he has put together, but because he fell upon Ascend many years ago when he purchased a pair of the Ascend CBM-170, Paradigm monitors and Axiom monitors for an in-house speaker shoot out. He obviously kept the Ascends. His explanation was that "they didn't look as nice, but they sounded so much better". When he decided to upgrade he just purchased the Sierra Towers without having done a lot of comparison. He did however state that he had the Towers with the dome tweeters while he was waiting for his RAAL Towers to be made (he stated that the difference between the dome and RAAL were not substantial, but that he liked the added sense of air and articulation of acoustic music that the RAAL provided).
I'm the type of person that needs to listen to as much as I can to see what is out there and what I feel matches my tastes (I'm very aware that people have different preferences for sound not to mention different capabilities of their hearing). I wouldn't do it differently because I wouldn't have enjoyed the Sierra's as much if I hadn't listened to so many other speakers to get an appreciation for what they do so right. I would be left with that "what if" feeling.
Having said that, there are speakers that I didn't have a chance to listen to that I would have liked to if it wasn’t too much work. Some examples are VMPS, Anthony Gallo Reference 3.5, Geddy Lee and Emerald Physics. Will that bother me? No, because even if the Geddy Lee, Emerald Physics, or Gallo Ref 3.5s sound better than the Sierra Towers, my wife wouldn't be happy to have them in our house (truth be told, I wouldn't like to look at them in our house either, I would just like to listen out of curiosity). The VMPS may be a great speaker, but I would need to drive approximately 8 hours round trip just to listen to them. I haven't heard the Thiels, but I have heard from others that they become harsh when pushed, and I'm trying to get away from the harshness of my Def Tech, so I don't have any interest in them.
I know what you mean about being disappointed with the performance of the PSB speakers. I felt the same as you; I didn’t understand what all the good reviews were about. There were a few other speakers that fell notably short of my expectations; Golden Ear – bright top end, no mid range magic and bass that lacked the articulation of the Ascends or Focals, KEF R900 – bright on the top end and over emphasized bass on the bottom (the dealer agreed and actually stated “I usually keep them hooked up to an equalizer to smooth out the sound, but I didn’t for you because you stated you wanted to use them for 2 channel listening”, and the Anthony Gallo CL-4 – great tweeter with smooth treble, but the sound was overly “warm” with cabinet resonance that was greater than most any other speaker that I heard. It was the opposite of the clean articulate (almost electrostatic) sound of the Strada’s).
I find it interesting that both you (parimento1) and I ended up with a top three that included the Ascends and the Focals. I found the Focals to sound great at low to moderate levels, but at moderate to loud levels the sharpness of the treble became a deal breaker for me. As I made reference to before, my reasonably priced dream speakers would be Focal 836Ws with the RAAL tweeters or Sierra Towers with RAAL and larger drivers or more of them. If Dave is working on such a thing, I would buy Ascend monitors with subwoofer to hold me over until the new towers are ready. If he has no plan for such a speaker I will buy the Sierra Towers with a subwoofer and feel comfortable knowing that I had found the best “compromise” for my tastes. Don’t get me wrong, I had a big smile on my face when listening to the Sierra Towers with RAAL, especially with the Rythmik subwoofer running at the same time. It was the best all around sound that I had heard, and most importantly to me is that it was while listening in an environment that is most similar to my own. I would have thought that the Focal speakers would edge out the Sierra’s until I heard them in my own environment. The dealer had low ceilings, carpeting and sound treatments on the walls, all of which made a significant difference to the sound. I noticed some sharpness in the show room, but in my house the Focals sounded much less warm.