Diamond Tweeter?

[davef]

Wouldn’t the Sierra Luna Center that you are working on, be pretty close in performance to the Sierra 2, but in a front ported more compact design?

Yes - should be very similar in performance but will not have as deep bass extension as the S2.

[davef]

Will there be performance gain with this woofer in tower? Can it replace the mid driver as well as woofers in the tower? I'm not saying there's anything lacking with current mid driver, just asking out of curiosity after reading your post (With Diamond tweeter). Too bad, I'm don't live in SoCal. I have been itching to hear these new offerings.

This woofer is designed to produce bass and mids, as such, it has quite a bit higher moving mass combined with a longer voice coil and greater excursion. The mid in the tower is a pure midrange with very low mass and uses an underhung voice coil for exceptional transient reproduction. Using this woofer as a mid in the tower would not improve performance, it would actually inhibit performance as we would have to pad down both the tweeter and bass woofer levels by a considerably amount to match the sensitivity of this mid (we would have to cut about -4dB, which is considerable, dropping the sensitivity of the tower to about 85-86dB)

As a pure bass woofer, overall bass extension would be slightly less as well.

It is an amazing woofer for a 2-way, and fully optimized when it comes to producing both mids and bass, but improvements can be made to optimize it for use as a dedicated mid or a dedicated bass woofer.

Hope this makes sense.

[davef]

Well, I am actually sorry to say that my new personal pair of reference bookshelf speakers is already sold. I am hoping that this customer will share some feedback on this thread, but I should mention that he purchased these after hearing some extremely high end speakers an hour or two before arriving at our place, including a pair of TAD ME-1's at about $13K/pair...

I am hoping SEAS can get us the components quickly to build an identical pair so I can keep these, if not -- I will be very sorry to see these go as I have been listening to them practically non-stop and will have to be without them for several months. In either case, we will still have this pair at our facility if anyone would like to hear them, we have some people coming next week. Just let me know...

[Sam1000]

I think this is going to snowball. You might think about ordering a limited quantity of these tweeters :-)
Can you also share some measurements? I really look forward reading the impressions from the lucky owners of your reference pair.

[dfurry]

Purely custom made for us by SEAS, with a slightly different Curv cone and an advanced motor system based on the SEAS Excel line of products. This woofer is exceptional!!!

Is there a similar SEAS Excel woofer in a 4.5" size?

Can't help but wonder how an LRC setup with Luna centers cfg'd with the SEAS White Diamond tweeters and Excel woofers would sound.

[dfurry]

I wonder if a hyper detailed tweeter in a center channel position would add interest or perhaps eventually wear you out.

[Asliang]

Well, I am actually sorry to say that my new personal pair of reference bookshelf speakers is already sold. I am hoping that this customer will share some feedback on this thread, but I should mention that he purchased these after hearing some extremely high end speakers an hour or two before arriving at our place, including a pair of TAD ME-1's at about $13K/pair...

I am hoping SEAS can get us the components quickly to build an identical pair so I can keep these, if not -- I will be very sorry to see these go as I have been listening to them practically non-stop and will have to be without them for several months. In either case, we will still have this pair at our facility if anyone would like to hear them, we have some people coming next week. Just let me know...

Yep, I must confess that was me

I went with an audiophile friend down to visit Ascend on Friday. It was quite an amazing operation they are running here, the place was completely packed with speakers and drivers waiting for assembly. Dave and Dina were very hospitable and allowed us to hang around and listen for most of the day, and we even got lunch delivered on the house! Dave was also available to answer any and all questions we had and we're very grateful.

We did visit a dealer prior to going to the Ascend HQ and got to demo the TAD ME-1 and KEF Reference 1 for a couple hours. The TAD ME-1 threw a very large image, and had very tactile and detailed bass. However, it was quite fatiguing with brighter recordings, and while the tweeter and mids were quite well integrated in the concentric driver, the bass sounded a bit delayed. Also the speaker sounded like it had too much "air", like the 9k+ range was a bit too tipped up. Cymbals and percussion instruments just sounded too sharp.

The KEF Reference 1 was basically the opposite, extremely rolled off, had a much smaller image, and sounded very laid back like a speaker you could fall asleep to. The bass was noticeably muddier than on the TAD ME-1, but might have gone a bit deeper. It reminded me a lot of the Dynaudio C1, which is a speaker that's notoriously easy on the ears.

The Ascend Sierra 2 Diamond (I think that's what it's being called) is a much smaller speaker than either of the 2 we demoed earlier on in the day--it uses the standard Sierra cabinet which is only about half the internal volume of the KEF or TAD. It has a more typical 2-way monitor look to it than the KEF or TAD (although the drivers certainly look unorthodox), which look pretty unconventional design-wise on top of using concentric drivers. But despite the size, the bass extension was extremely impressive. I was worried prior to listening that it would have roughly the same extension as the Sierra 2 due to the CURV woofer, but my fears were unfounded as it was quite close to the KEFs and TAD, but perhaps a bit less slam than the TAD.

However in the treble it really shined. It was easily as detailed as the TAD without the excessive air, and threw up large soundstage, closer to the TAD than the KEF. The majority of the brighest recordings we threw at the Sierra 2 Diamond were well controlled, detailed, and yet never became too bright. This was clearly the best tweeter I have ever heard, better than any Be or Soft dome and was able to play upper mids more dynamically than the RAAL tweeter. The woofer was amazing too, it had bass slam and extension that reminded me of the Sierra 1 woofer while having the transient speed to nimbly play quick bursts of drum beats much like the Sierra 2 woofer. It really seemed like the best of both worlds. I was sold after the audition and decided to buy it on the spot.

Honestly I don't see any 2-way speakers at any price range competing with these new speakers, and it's probably not a surprise the best speakers I could think of demoing against these were top of the line 3-ways. The top 2-ways I can think of at this price range are the Joseph Audio Pulsar (uses drivers that are a tier below, bright while in the sweet spot), Dynaudio C1 (too rolled off and lacks detail), or the Aerial 5T (which I have not yet heard but looking forward to), Paradigm Persona B (too bright), the Revel M126BE (no bass extension whatsoever), and Salk Silk (great speaker but I'm not as warm on the RAAL as I am on the diamond tweeter).

Thanks again David and Dina for the great hospitality and congratulations on a new milestone of performance. These speakers will be on demo for another week or so and hopefully they will be on their way soon afterwards

[curtis]

Wow! Thanks for your impressions Asliang.

I’m hoping hear them this Friday with another forum member.

I promise we won’t try and steal them.

[davef]

Is there a similar SEAS Excel woofer in a 4.5" size?

Can't help but wonder how an LRC setup with Luna centers cfg'd with the SEAS White Diamond tweeters and Excel woofers would sound.

As previously mentioned, the woofer in our S2di is 100% custom made for us. No such woofer exists in a 4.5" - the closest would be the woofer we currently use in our Luna, which is also custom made for us. I suppose we could investigate the possibility of creating a woofer similar to the one in the S2di, but I really don't see a market for an uber expensive version of our Luna. The performance of the stock Luna is already very impressive.

[davef]

I wonder if a hyper detailed tweeter in a center channel position would add interest or perhaps eventually wear you out.

Like anything else, purely depends on the listener's preference, the quality of the source material and the electronics in the signal path...