Hi all,

Wanted to post my experience with Ascend. Have had my Towers for over a year now and have enjoyed every second of them. These speakers really portray the emotion of the music toward you. Previously I was a B&W fan, never thought I would find another speaker that would steel my love from them. But then I got the upgrade itch, and started researching speakers. I knew to upgrade on the B&W side would cost a lot of money, then stumbled on a review of these speaker and was intrigued by the raves, build quality and design for such a reasonable price. Thus took the leap. Once they arrived, proceeded to hook up and was impressed by the clarity and midrange of these speakers. They just felt very balanced and neutral, yet very detailed, without out being overly forward.

Fast forward to over the next year. I now have had my holy grail moment with the speakers. Thou truly enjoying these speakers, was looking for a little bit more to get into that audiophile stratosphere for music. I believed there was a need to upgrade my source of playing music or go separate stereo preamp route. Was currently using optical out my PC directly to my receiver. I pondered getting a new USB DAC, or new music streamer that has been all the rage lately. But due to limited funds, decided to tweak my current set up. Went the route to stream over wired Ethernet to my Oppo BDP 93 as DLNA, and then analog out over to my receiver. What followed was awesomeness. As many have stated, now it was like I was in the same live room as the artist and there was no more digital listening fatigue. Played for hours and days to make sure was not excited about trying a new setup, but my initial reaction and results remained the same. My system was very good before, but now it has taken on another level and is really showing off the greatness of the Towers!

Just wanted to state this review to portray how a source improvement can make these already great speakers turn into another realm!

Here is my full setup below.

1) Sierra Nrt Tower- Fronts
2) GoldenEar Sat 3's for Center, surround, and backs
3) B&W ASW 650 Sub
4) Anthem MRX 300 running ARC
5) Parasound 2125 Amp for Towers
6) Oppo BDP 93
7) Windows PC for music with Jriver MC 20
8) Tripp lite Isobar Power conditioner