I'm hoping to upgrade my two mains and my center channel early next year. We're building a new house and it should be completed late December.
After attending RMAF there were two speakers that really stood out that would also fall within my price range. The first is the Salk Supercharged Songtowers and the next was the PSB Imagine T2. The SCST's have the ribbon tweeter and upgraded midbass/bass drivers over the regular SCST. The imagine T2's have a dome tweeter and dedicated midrange driver and three bass drivers crossed over at different points. I believe one is 200-500hz and two of them play below 200hz.
After reading on AVS, getting a couple PM's and having Brian at Ascend contact me I'm now seriously considering the Ascend Sierra towers.
Attached is my room layout
I did not do a very good job drawing this to scale, the home theater portion of this room is about 12 ft deep and 10ft6 inches wide, so it is a bit deeper than it is wide. However, to the back wall it is 24 or 25 feet. Ceilings are low at approximately 8 ft. You can see my proposed layout for the area.
I have an SVS-PB12 NSD that will be crossed into the system. For now the system will be powered by my Yamaha V1700 and I will likely get a dedicated 2 ch amplifier sometime in 2013.
I currently have the Swan Diva 5.1's, C3 center and R3 surrounds. The purpose of the upgrade is to get both better music and movie performance out of the system with the primary emphasis placed on 2 channel music experience. While the system will probably get more home theater use, I am craving significantly better 2 channel music performance than what I have now.
As mentioned above my list was originally narrowed to the Imagine T2's from PSB and the Salk SCST's but after reading about Ascend, listening tests and interacting with people in the Ascend community, I feel I need to further research them.
That's where you guys come in...
I would assume the Ascend Sierra towers would be a significant upgrade from where I am now? Can anyone tell me what types of drivers they use (other than the tweeters)? What are the crossover points on these speakers? I can't find the crossover points anywhere and I've done a pretty exhaustive search. Are the crossovers high quality crossovers?
I'm considering the RAAL upgrade on the 2 channel mains, should I also do it on the center? Would the RAAL be the best option for me? Or should I stick with the NRT? I read Dave's PDF on the RAAL, does he have something similar showing the benefits of the NRT over the traditional dome? I've read pro's/con's about the ribbon's and frankly I am on the fence, but when implemented properly they do sound impressive.
How is the midrange on these speakers? I'm a fan of dedicated midrange drivers because I believe if the crossovers are done correctly you get more clarity and detail, especially at moderate volumes and up. Otherwise you're asking too much of a single or group of drivers all trying to cover 60hz-2khz. That is one of the big attractions to the PSB's and the Ascends.
Additionally, although perhaps a tiny bit unrelated, both here, at AVS and on another forum (audioholics maybe?) I have seen several people say that Ascend and Salk have different business models...what is different about the models? I ask because if what I've been reading is true, Ascend seems to have a similar or better product then the SCST's for several hundred dollars less. I think some of this may have to do with the cabinets? I have read transmission line cabinets are pretty difficult to produce and as a result cost more?
Any details you can give me on my situation, I would greatly appreciate. I'm especially interested in hearing differences between the NRT and the RAAL, when one works better over the other (room acoustics maybe?) and since I can't find a lot about the NRT some details on how it works would also be appreciated.
Obviously I expect some Ascend bias on the Ascend forum, but I've also seen some blatantly honest posts, including from DaveF telling folks they would or would not benefit from specific upgrades. I like that honesty and not simply trying to make a buck.
Sorry for the longish post, I just want you guys to have all the info I can think of up front.