Front pair, RAAL towers or horizons?

[PowerDude]

I bought a horizon center to get a feel for the Ascend RAAL sound. I've run some mono music through it and I'm really liking it. The question is; should I get RAAL towers or horizons for my left and right speakers? And if I get the horizons can I use them horizontally or get a custom cabinet to use vertically?
The room is about 23 x 23, the mlp is about 13' from where the front wall (tv) is. Because of a hallway and room shape I can only get the front speakers 12' - 13' apart and no more than 6" from the front wall. I do already have a sub. So should the towers be out because of a lack of clearance from the front wall?
Horizons would be nice because I can put them close to the front wall. If I use horizons will there be enough horizontal dispersion, or should I consider trying to get a custom upright design (although that may be more than I can spend)?
Thanks for any thoughts or advise on this.

Carl

[sludgeogre]

Definitely listen to Dave F before you take my advice, since he knows his speakers well, but this question has been asked a bunch of times. I think 6" from the wall is enough clearance for the towers since the port isn't that large. They aren't like some speakers that need a ton of room to sound alright.

Dave does do custom Horizon cabinets and FirstReflect uses that version (the "slim" version) as his L/C/R speakers since he can have them flush against the wall. It's a bit more money to go that way and it's a long wait since it's a custom job. I believe the slim is recommended if you want the Horizon to be vertical, but others can comment on that.

If you don't need to place them vertical then it is more than OK to use 3 identical Horizons for L/C/R.

If you are really in doubt, please don't listen to me, just call or email Ascend and they will give you brilliant advice. Dave was really helpful to me when I was looking into the Towers and Rythmik subs.

[PowerDude]

Thanks for the info. I have searched the board for this info, and I'm just not very good at searching.
Alex, can you give me the measurement from the bottom of the tower to the lowest speaker on the tower?
Thank you.

[sludgeogre]

20 inches from the ground with the stand attached, about 18.5 inches without the stand.

[PowerDude]

Thanks again. I've got a piece of furniture that's potentially in the way and that's why I was wondering about the measurement.

[N Boros]

This was already mentioned but I thought an extra bit of clarity might help as you are starting to investigate the speakers. The Horizon with the RAAL ribbon tweeter (just like any of the other Ascend speakers with the ribbon tweeter) have a nice wide dispersion where even if you move quite a bit off axis there isn't a significant change in the sound of the speaker. This wide horizontal dispersion came at the expense of a narrow vertical dispersion. If you are close enough to the speaker and stand up and sit down you will likely get quite a different sound. This isn't a big problem because most people when they listen to these speakers will not really be moving their seating position that much vertically (maybe recline their chair which is fine), but will likely move their seating position horizontally (sitting at a different seat on a couch).

One of the problems of just standing the Horizon up on its end is that the narrow vertical dispersion will now be a narrow horizontal dispersion, which is not good. This is why you would need to go with the custom horizon that fixes these issues that arise when standing them up on their ends, if you want to orient them in this way. There are other problems, but this is the easiest of the problems to understand.

On a side note, the Sierra 2 is much easier to orient one way or the other. You can just loosen the screws and rotate the tweeter by 90 degrees if you wanted to change the orientation. But, this is because there are only two drivers in the Sierra 2 vs the extra drivers of the Horizon. And it does sound like you have a large enough room where you might want to get the Horizon or towers over the Sierra 2s for you main speakers.

[davef]

One of the problems of just standing the Horizon up on its end is that the narrow vertical dispersion will now be a narrow horizontal dispersion, which is not good. There are other problems, but this is the easiest of the problems to understand.

For using horizons vertically, we always rotate the tweeter 90 degrees so it is not a concern about horizontal dispersion.

We have quite a few customers using non-custom horizons vertically

[N Boros]

For using horizons vertically, we always rotate the tweeter 90 degrees so it is not a concern about horizontal dispersion.

We have quite a few customers using non-custom horizons vertically

I was unaware. Is it a significant compromise not having the tweeter and midrange aligned vertically? With the Sierra 2 there is just a tweeter and woofer so it seems there isn't big issues with doing this, but the Horizon's are 3 way and I thought for the CMT 340s you had implemented different crossovers for the center orientation to help with any detrimental effects or laying the originally vertically oriented speaker on its side.

[davef]

I was unaware. Is it a significant compromise not having the tweeter and midrange aligned vertically? With the Sierra 2 there is just a tweeter and woofer so it seems there isn't big issues with doing this, but the Horizon's are 3 way and I thought for the CMT 340s you had implemented different crossovers for the center orientation to help with any detrimental effects or laying the originally vertically oriented speaker on its side.

With a vertically oriented horizon with the ribbon tweeter rotated, because the tweeter and midrange would now be aligned horizontally, symmetrical horizontal dispersion (to the left of the speaker and to the right of the speaker) is slightly compromised. However, the horizontal dispersion is so wide regardless, I don't think any compromises would be audible. Keep in mind this is exactly what we do with our HTM-200's, and customers love the way the sound and image.

Sometimes not having symmetrical horizontal dispersion, if done right, can be beneficial as you end up getting less issues with reflections from side walls. This was done purposely in the design of the M&K S-100 and S-150.

340's are a different beat entirely and the EXBAC crossover optimizations are more for compensating from the extended baffle created when a speaker with such a small front baffle is placed in or on an entertainment center.

[davef]

Thanks again. I've got a piece of furniture that's potentially in the way and that's why I was wondering about the measurement.

Generally speaking, having an object in front of the bottom woofers is not too much of an issue as the bottom woofers reproduce the bass signals only, and as such, the shortest wavelength would be ~5.5 feet long and would pass right through or wrap around most objects.