Finally pulled the trigger.

[curtis]

It's great that you found something you like.

[davef]

Haven't posted a pic before. Not sure how.

Please post a picture of the front of your room where the speakers are located. Posting / uploading a picture is extremely easy and takes a few seconds of time. When making a post, simply scroll down and hit the button that says "manage attachments" Self-explanatory from there.

This is really an odd situation, in many tens of thousands of Sierra customers, you are the first person to ever describe the speakers as muddy. Running the speakers full range together with a subwoofer is simply a bad idea. In addition, having your couch against the back wall is also a bad idea as that is a prime spot for significant bass reinforcement / room modes.

Based on the fact that you like the way an in-wall / in-ceiling speaker sounds when used as a front left/right front speaker - cements the fact that either you prefer speakers with little bass or you have rather significant issues with your room acoustics. in-wall / in-ceiling speakers use the inner part of the wall as the rear air chamber. When used in open air with no rear chamber (as you did), they will have basically no bass whatsoever, typically rolling off in the 200Hz range, thus not exciting room modes or more to your preference with very little bass. In addition, a well designed in-wall speaker is voiced to use the wall for baffle compensation, when not placed in the wall - there will be a very steep rise in the midrange, perhaps also to your preference.

The Sierra-2EX are very neutral with extended and dynamic bass for a bookshelf speaker, from your description of what you are hearing, you need a speaker with a more limited frequency range and a rising midrange response. These are not those speakers and unless you are willing to post a pic of your room setup, nobody here can assist you further.

You can also email me the pic of your room.

The only other piece of advice I can offer you is to order another set of bookshelf speakers and compare directly - which is recommended because you might run into the same exact issue. Again, using an in-wall speaker used out-of-the-wall, dramatically affects the performance of that speaker in a negative way - which seems to be a positive for your preferences / room acoustics.

[djDANNY]

Didn’t see this posted but just wanted to confirm you took off the magnetic covers on the tweeters.

[davef]

Didn’t see this posted but just wanted to confirm you took off the magnetic covers on the tweeters.

Excellent point, hadn't even thought of that - this would indeed fit in with his descriptions. Qman, again - please remove the grilles from the speakers and post a picture of the front of your room so we can see all 3 speakers.

The speakers ship with a thin protective magnetic board over the tweeters to protect them during transit. This must be removed, if not - there will be no output from the tweeters and the speakers will indeed sound horribly muddy. Please confirm that these protective boards have been removed from each speaker. If you remove the grille, you will see it covering the tweeter.

IMG_0018.jpg

[jimb]

This happened to me after having mine modified from early S2 to S2-EX. I sent them out without protectors and didn't think to check that Ascend added them when they returned them. That new woofer was pretty unimpressive for a little while!

[Qman]

Didn’t see this posted but just wanted to confirm you took off the magnetic covers on the tweeters.

Absolutely i did!

[Qman]

It's great that you found something you like.

I'm simply trying to point out that the old receiver is able to make an acceptable signal.

[curtis]

I'm simply trying to point out that the old receiver is able to make an acceptable signal.

Understood, and we are trying to point out that something doesn't seem to be right with the setup and environment.

That said, personally, I am happy you found something you like.

[Qman]

So here is my living room setup, (not HT, no DUO) running full range, no sub. Dimensions are 13 x 22 x 8 with half open wall to right to kitchen. I have them sitting on an ancient pair of Advent speakers from 1981 (which still sound ok!) I think you can see there is NO cover on the tweeters.
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[Qman]

The HT setup is in the lower level of the center split house, dimensions 14.5 x 21 x 8, with partial open to dining room on the right. The speakers are along the 14.5' wall. I am limited on this room due to the partial opening on one short end, and fireplace on the other. Ive run these full range, at 100, 150, and 200 Hz cutoff via the Receiver, widened the speakers out by 2 ft each direction, elevated a foot, and...all the different iterations my receiver will allow. The Sub is a Legacy Pacemaker.ascend ht room.jpg