New Member of the Ascend Acolytes

[Teamjoe]

Hi, Everyone,

I’m a newcomer to Ascend. I’m a personal audio guy, and went through so many permeations of headphones and earphones and sources and amps, but had never heard good speakers. Well, I demo’d a set of Audioengine’s once and wasn’t convinced to go down the rabbit hole with passive speakers, amps, and pres.

But some weeks back I finally settled on a good dac/amp and headphones for laptop listening, and I got a Walkman and earphones for portable listening. Having satiated my head-fi lust, I wondered what a good 2Ch. front end and passive setup might sound like.

I thought of getting a set of Dynaudio or Totem bookshelves, but someone on Reddit turned me on to Ascend. Long(er) story short, I found a gentleman in Austin who was selling a set of L/C/R Sierra 1’s, and CBM-170 SE surrounds. We settled on a great price and I’m now a happy owner of a set of Ascend speakers!

I’m driving these in my small study/office with an old JVC amp, an A-X1 (30W into 8ohms, Class A/B), with a Resonessence DAC as a source, and Blue Jeans Cables all around. My front-end is not high-end by any stretch of the imagination, but it’ll have to do for now. The setup sounded wonderful with the CBM-170 SE’s and I doubted it could get better than that but when I hooked up the Sierra 1’s I was blown away! I am worried, however, of any adverse effect the JVC can have on the Sierra 1’s.

The recommended minimum for the Sierra 1’s are 45W, per the specs. I’ve been doing some reading about under/overpowering speakers and most say to be wary of clipping when underpowering. I’m listening to the Sierras at low levels. My vol. pot sits at the 9’oclock position mostly, and never goes past 12’oclock.

Still, I thought I’d ask the experts about this. Should I hook the CBM-170’s back up until I can save up and get an amp with at least 45w, or will I be alright with my 30W JVC?

Thank you all and greetings from TX!

EDITED