Hi all. I registered a few days ago and have read through quite a bit as Ascend's speakers have been of interest. I did get a chance to listen to a pair of Sierra-1s with the NRT tweeter recently. While I was generally impressed I thought the upper mids were a bit too forward for my liking, at least in that particular room with those components. In about everything else--especially depth, detail and soundstaging--I was quite impressed, but that liveliness gave the music I prefer a bit of a hard edge.

Anyway, as for my background, I'm a lifelong musician and once even majored in music before deciding to get slightly more practical degrees. I also partly put myself through school as an audio engineer, mostly in a mastering studio. I mainly play and listen to jazz, but have an interest in many genres, especially classical, blues and harder rock. So I generally look for components and speakers that are detailed, engaging and fairly neutral.

I may see if I can find Sierra-2s or Sierra 1s with the standard tweeter to audition. In any case, there's a lot of great information here, so I thought I'd say hi.