Sierra-2 vs. SVS Ultrasound Bookshelf vs. Vapor Audio Stiff Breeze

[smurraybhm]

I think all of us who have Ascend products will go to great lengths to attest to their quality and performance. You need to be careful when you start saying that SVS is working off a larger profit margin, doesn't cost as much to make, etc. Dido on the Vapor's. Unless you have information that we don't or the expertise to go beyond something that "seems" to something "that is." All three are IDs, located in the states and offer some interesting products. In the case of Ascend and SVS we know that both companies are well regarded. Vapor seems to be aimed more at the high end audiophile market with deep pockets reviewing their products and pricing. Their speakers remind me of pricing a car - options add up.

One can always order the SVSs and the Sierra 2s and judge for yourself. Ascend or SVS wouldn't offer a free home trial if it wasn't an effective way to gain new customers - I bet return rates are very low for both. Personally I would start with the Ascends and make it an easier process with no return necessary.

[petmotel]

One thing I would like to point out is the types of drivers. The Ascend Sierra Towers are the first speaker I owned with ribbon tweeters. It was a revelation! The RAAL ribbon in the S-2s is reported in the specification section as having a mass of less than 1/100th of a gram (for the actual ribbon). There is no way a conventional dome type of transducer can hope to compete with a quality ribbon. It is simply not physically possible. I truly need not audition a speaker with a dome type high frequency transducer to know it will not perform as well.

And of course the S-2 woofer/mid which is a new, proprietary driver from Seas, designed from the ground up with some new, and advanced technology. In my experience it performs with levels of dynamics, and accuracy, in an extended bandwidth which is absolutely amazing, as well as exemplary.

At the very least, ultimate performance, much less performance with this level of value, is a very difficult feat to accomplish with a bookshelf speaker.

Jay

[markie]

I've heard the SVS speakers; to me they are good workhorses, quite good in all areas, but magical in none. I haven't heard them personally, but one can tell the Sierra 2 touches upon the magical, wow type of experience. I don't think the near equally priced Vapor Breeze would quite match it, but the Vapor Stiff Breeze (2 woofers instead of 1) at $2000 has a good chance. But then it is a much larger speaker and thus doesn't have the WAF of the Sierra 2. Interestingly I find that Vapor has a design philosophy similar to Ascend's, putting value on keeping things as simple as possible - although that simplicity comes out in different ways.

(On the other side of the spectrum, I've heard that Andrew Jones of TAD fame is not averse to putting a lot of complexity into the crossover in order to get what he wants.)

Mark

[Korkster]

Well, thanks everyone for your input. Sometimes a person just needs a little reinforcement into doing what they already pretty much know they should do. I don't spend this kind of money everyday, so I needed a little push, I guess. :-) I expect I'll be placing my order very soon.

[AllanMarcus]

I think one of the biggest problems with the Sierra-2 is the selling price being too low. Folks have been trained to equate sticker price with quality. So it's quite natural that people are comparing the Sierra-2 to other speakers that sell for around $1500/pair.

But those aren't really appropriate competition in terms of parts quality, sound quality, or how much it cost to make the speakers. That's the price that people ought to be more concerned about; if two pairs of speakers both cost $1000 to actually manufacture, but one has a selling price of $1500/pair while the other has a selling price of $5000/pair, why would we then assume that the $5000/pair speakers magically became better? They didn't, obviously; the selling price is arbitrary. I could take a pair of speakers that cost $1000 to manufacture and charge $10,000, and a whole bunch of people would now swear up and down that they're better than the $5000/pair speakers - just because of the psychology of pricing.

So Ascend's greatest flaw is charging such a small profit margin that it has people comparing the Sierra-2 to speakers that cost much less than the Sierra-2 to actually manufacture. If you're looking at other ID brands, a lot of the honestly more comparable speakers will be up in the $2500/pair range. Not all of them - there exist other ID brands that are also charging very small profit margins. But just in a more general "how do these compare?" sense, that's more the sort of price that other ID brands would charge for speakers that cost as much to make as the Sierra-2. If you're looking at retail store brands, it's more like $5000/pair or more. Again, not always. But just in terms of mindset and what sort of real cost of manufacturing and expected results in return.

So when you look at it that way, you quickly realize what a remarkable bargain the Sierra-2 really are! That's why so many of us have clambered to buy them as quickly as we could! But for the majority of people, the price is actually a bit of a problem. They cannot reconcile that two pairs of speakers both selling for around the same price could be largely different in performance. But we ought to stop thinking in terms of price classes set by the selling price, and instead, focus on price classes set by how much it cost to make the speakers. Of course, no brands really publicly share that information, so it's not the public's fault! All we have easy access to are the retail and "street" prices. So of course that's what we use for comparison. So that's why I mention the $2500/pair and $5000/pair figures. If we're forced to use selling prices, then those are the more appropriate "price brackets" for the Sierra-2 in the ID and retail store markets, respectively. Think of them that way, and you'll better understand why I would personally say that the Sierra-2 are a cut above the other speakers in this comparison thread here

Sorry for opening an old thread, but the above pricing argument missed a huge cost not represented in manufacturing cost: R&D cost. R&D cost is extremely relevant to the quality of the speaker. There is virtually no way to determine that cost. A $1000 to manufacture speaker and selling for $5000 may have cost $2,000,000 to develop. Who knows.

That all said, I'm sure the Ascend speakers are great and are very well priced. Other ID firms are as well (heck, look at Chane!).

[curtis]

When it comes to R&D and drivers, Chane is one of the least comparable ID brands to Ascend.

[AllanMarcus]

When it comes to R&D and drivers, Chane is one of the least comparable ID brands to Ascend.

I think Chane, Ascend, Phil, and many others, are ID speaker dealers that are great for their price. That was my point.

[curtis]

I think Chane, Ascend, Phil, and many others, are ID speaker dealers that are great for their price. That was my point.

But that point was made in FirstReflection's post...other than the "many others"...as I don't think there are.

[davef]

Sorry for opening an old thread, but the above pricing argument missed a huge cost not represented in manufacturing cost: R&D cost. R&D cost is extremely relevant to the quality of the speaker. There is virtually no way to determine that cost. A $1000 to manufacture speaker and selling for $5000 may have cost $2,000,000 to develop. Who knows.

Hey Allan,

I have been involved with many loudspeaker companies over the course of my 30 yr career. I have yet to come across a company that actually factors in a development cost when calculating the retail price for a pair speakers. Most just simply add up the cost of the components + labor (generate a BOM -- bill of materials etc.) and then add their margin. I am sure there are some companies that add in a development cost, but there aren't many. Typically, in this industry, R&D costs are covered by profits generated by previous products.

Rob (FirstReflect) is extremely knowledgeable regarding the inner workings of this industry and pricing -- shockingly so actually. When he was shopping companies for his custom build, I found it a bit disturbing that, based on the pricing we quoted him, he pretty much knew what our profit margin was.

That said, with a product like the Sierra-2, that uses a tweeter that was developed specifically for this speaker, as well as a woofer that was nearly entirely built for us, actual development costs were rather huge. Beyond anything we could absorb on our own, especially when considering the product (Sierra-2) would not be available until these components were completed, and these components are not mass produced in Asia (where development costs like tooling are fractions of the cost)

With the Sierra-2 tweeter, our deal was that RAAL would be able to sell an OEM version of what we co-developed which would help cover the development costs. This is not the same tweeter, although it does look the same, but there are some important differences.

With the woofer, since we have been a high volume purchaser from SEAS for over a decade now, they saw the potential in this so they absorbed about 1/2 of the development costs (which they figured would be worth it based on estimated yearly volume) and the other 1/2 we absorbed.

Now -- these types of "deals" don't come easy and in many ways give us an advantage over smaller or lesser known establishments, but many who know us, know our history etc, and know the kind of reputation we carry within this rather tight industry. I take great pride in the relationships we have with our many vendors, and this started well before Ascend -- for me it began back in my M&K days, which began 26 years ago when I started specing custom components from various manufacturers all over the globe (OMG -- hard to believe it has been that long ).