Quote Originally Posted by SONDEK View Post
Being brutally honest, discovering now that the SIERRA-2EX has ushered-in a whole new woofer design - rightly or wrongly - only reinforces my previous assumptions about the SIERRA-2. I.E. That the all-new woofer was designed to restore to the SIERRA-2 the kick-ass bass that the SIERRA-1 was rightly famous for!

Based purely upon my web-based research, I'm left with the impresson that the SIERRA-2EX has solved this bass problem with the SIERRA-2 and predict that the latter will be ultimately phased-out as a result - long before the SIERRA-1 disappears from the scene.

As I say, I might be totally wrong about this - but no matter how you slice it, it does leave the SIERRA-2EX looking like a real winner!

Let's see...
I'm not sure if categorizing the Sierra 2EX as a way of fixing the "bass problem" of the Sierra 2 is all that accurate. From what I was able to grasp parsing through the Sierra 2 Development thread is that the Sierra 2 was designed with the goal of having the Raal ribbon tweeter available in the Sierra 1 cabinet, so that an upgrade in drivers and crossover is all that is needed, for those interested. This is to help make it as easy as possible for those with the Sierra 1 to upgrade to the Seirra 2, if they would like to do so. A new woofer was needed to match the improved capabilities of the Raal ribbon tweeter, so the Curv woofer was what was designed to work well in conjunction with it. This was all completed around 2011 to 2012 (from what I remember).

Then Dave was approached by a guy from Seas within the past couple of years about a diamond tweeter. Dave was at first skeptical, if anyone at all would be interested in such an expensive tweeter being integrated into a design of a new speaker either in a bookshelf or tower speaker design, so he started a thread posting pictures of the new tweeter and then eventually some of his thoughts of the improvements of using it in the design would be after spending much time listening to a concept speaker with that tweeter. It did appear, that at least some on the forum, were interested in purchasing such a speaker. But, due to the high cost, he was making them completely custom to what each person wanted. It sounded like each speaker would be voiced to taste in the crossover, and such. In that same thread people began to notice that a new woofer was used with the diamond tweeter, when used in a bookshelf design. So several started asking if it could be made available as an upgrade to the Sierra 2. Dave went through the effort of making this upgrade available.

This happens all the time with speaker designers. As they make more and more speaker designes they let some of their design strategies from the more higher end (cost no object designs) trickle down to the lower cost models. Sometimes they will even use some of the same components, like we see here. What is unique here with Ascend is that those with Sierra 2's don't need to sell the entire speaker to upgrade. There is an upgrade path that exists by simply replacing the woofer and crossover. There is more money to be made by Ascend to NOT do things this way.

I would be more concerned if a speaker designer, never went back and ever improved any existing models. It seems to only be the case at Ascend when Dave feels that the upgrade is enough, to be noticeably better. This seems to be a much better approach than manufacturers who upgrade each product every year or two and those that hear the speaker have a hard time hearing any difference at all. Just as bad, would be if there is a huge and noticeable difference heard with each iteration, that is done that frequently. In both cases it brings into question the competence of the speaker designer.