Upgrades for Sierra Towers (RAAL)?

[hilde45]

Hi all,

I love my Sierra towers and appreciate the quality of the parts and build. However, as with other gear I own, I am wondering if anyone has done any upgrades to any aspects of the speakers?

I upgraded my DAC with better caps and resistors, my amp and preamp with better caps and potentiometer, and my streamer with a new power board and external LPS.

So, as far as these speakers go, anyone recommend for or against any parts upgrades on the Towers?

I have a more than capable tech in my area and all upgrades would be done professionally.

Thanks.

[Mag_Neato]

I would hold off for now, especially with the latest Sierra-LX release. Dave hinted at something for the towers (Very obscurely), so something may be coming already.

[curtis]

I recommend against any "upgrade" that isn't offered by Ascend.

As you know, once you do something to the speaker that is not authorized, you lose support from Ascend.

[davef]

Hi all,

I love my Sierra towers and appreciate the quality of the parts and build. However, as with other gear I own, I am wondering if anyone has done any upgrades to any aspects of the speakers?

I upgraded my DAC with better caps and resistors, my amp and preamp with better caps and potentiometer, and my streamer with a new power board and external LPS.

So, as far as these speakers go, anyone recommend for or against any parts upgrades on the Towers?

I have a more than capable tech in my area and all upgrades would be done professionally.

Thanks.

Happy to hear you are enjoying your towers. I am not to clear with regards to how any technician would be able to upgrade your speakers. Please provide some clarification regarding this, thank you!

[hilde45]

Happy to hear you are enjoying your towers. I am not to clear with regards to how any technician would be able to upgrade your speakers. Please provide some clarification regarding this, thank you!

Hi Dave,

Thanks for replying. Dialogue with you was probably the main reason I went with these towers, and you were most generous with the time you spent writing to me.

Now, it is a hard question to pose to the speaker's designer without seeming to be asking an impolite question about how the parts of the speaker could be improved. But perhaps there are parts in, say, the crossover which are "very good" but could be better, if someone was willing to spend the money.

One thing I discovered about my tube amp, was that it was built to a very competitive price point. Inside, the caps used were reliable but not great. By changing them, I improved the sound of the amp signficantly. Same thing with the preamp's caps.

To put the question another way, if Ascend were to release a "deluxe" version of this speaker with a few upgrade options, what would be changed? One can see other companies do this to let the customer set their final price point. (See, e.g. Cary Audio, who offers different upgrade options on their preamps https://carydirect.com/shop-now/prea...s/slp-98l.html )

Thanks for entertaining this question. I don't want to insult the product or cause buyer's remorse or anything like that. I have other gear where the product I got initially was SO excellent (my Quicksilver, e.g.) that taking it to the next level was a no-brainer. I suspect my Towers are just like that.

[Mj30250]

I doubt you'll find many (if any) Tower owners who have performed their own crossover modifications. There's little reason to bother with upgrading capacitors or related components unless you A) are targeting a specific deficiency / defect within a particular loudspeaker and B) truly know what you are doing.

I don't see any such deficiencies with the towers - certainly not any that would be addressed by simply swapping in "better" caps, resistors, etc. IMO, the only upgrade worth doing would involve new drivers, and by extension, a fully redesigned crossover. Given what Dave has accomplished using the Klippel NFS so far, I'd just hang tight for now.

[davef]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for replying. Dialogue with you was probably the main reason I went with these towers, and you were most generous with the time you spent writing to me.

Now, it is a hard question to pose to the speaker's designer without seeming to be asking an impolite question about how the parts of the speaker could be improved. But perhaps there are parts in, say, the crossover which are "very good" but could be better, if someone was willing to spend the money.

One thing I discovered about my tube amp, was that it was built to a very competitive price point. Inside, the caps used were reliable but not great. By changing them, I improved the sound of the amp signficantly. Same thing with the preamp's caps.

To put the question another way, if Ascend were to release a "deluxe" version of this speaker with a few upgrade options, what would be changed? One can see other companies do this to let the customer set their final price point. (See, e.g. Cary Audio, who offers different upgrade options on their preamps https://carydirect.com/shop-now/prea...s/slp-98l.html )

Thanks for entertaining this question. I don't want to insult the product or cause buyer's remorse or anything like that. I have other gear where the product I got initially was SO excellent (my Quicksilver, e.g.) that taking it to the next level was a no-brainer. I suspect my Towers are just like that.

Hi Hilde45,

Speakers and amplifiers are very different devices, and the capacitors are also different. Generally speaking, when changing "caps" in an amplifier, it is the power supply filter capacitors that get changed. The actual signal source in an amplifier rarely, if ever, flows through a capacitor (it shouldn't).

Power supply filter caps are nearly always polarized electrolytic and must handle high current / high voltages. These capacitors provide instantaneous "capacity" so the power supply can provide additional headroom when needed, they provide energy storage. They also serve the function of taming ripple current to prevent excess noise from entering the system. These capacitors do dry out and break down, limiting power supply headroom and reducing their ability to filter ripple current. In addition, changing the power supply filter capacitors to higher capacity values will provide more storage, slightly increasing headroom and thus possibly providing better performance.

Capacitors in a speaker crossover serve an entirely different purpose, and do not deal with high voltages or high current, nor do they have to deal with suppressing ripple current. In addition, our towers already use metallized polypropylene film capacitors, which do not break down or dry out. This is also the best design for audio quality capacitors.

Please, do not let this amplifier technician mess around with your's or anyone's speakers. One must have the ability to properly measure various performance aspects of a speaker in order to find a deficiency and/or make performance improvements. Properly measuring an amplifier is very simple, one only needs an oscilloscope and a load bank. Properly measuring the performance of a speaker is very complicated and I guarantee your technician does not have this ability, and certainly not the experience. At best case, you spend money to have him swap crossover caps for lesser performance caps, the more likely case - he seriously degrades performance.

Over the years we have received in for service countless pairs of our speakers that have been "upgraded". Some of these customers spent a fortune on these upgrades and they never perform as well as the originals, and in many cases, the upgrades made have seriously degraded performance. Many times, they don't even function properly and the costs to repair back to original performance can be quite high. I remember one such customer trying to take one of these upgraders to small claims court and the paperwork I had to fill out was very time consuming.

[hilde45]

Thanks to MJ30250 and to davef for your replies. I will leave the speakers alone.

The explanation about the differing functions of capacitors did the trick.

My tech built his own speakers -- here's a photo -- but he's a cautious fellow and would not be part of any Frankenstein adventure, even if I prodded him. He's a hobbyist so this is not how he makes his money. He builds and repairs amps, preamps, DACS, mostly.

These are wonderful speakers. I am not sure they are my "end game" speakers. If you, davef, ever came out with another line of towers above/beyond these, what would be different about them? I'd be interested in some kind of trade in, if that ever came about.

hilde45

[racrawford65]

Don’t think Ascend does trade-ins but Dave mentioned awhile ago in the LX thread something was in the works for the Towers

[kyzersoze98]

Thanks to MJ30250 and to davef for your replies. I will leave the speakers alone.

The explanation about the differing functions of capacitors did the trick.

My tech built his own speakers -- here's a photo -- but he's a cautious fellow and would not be part of any Frankenstein adventure, even if I prodded him. He's a hobbyist so this is not how he makes his money. He builds and repairs amps, preamps, DACS, mostly.

These are wonderful speakers. I am not sure they are my "end game" speakers. If you, davef, ever came out with another line of towers above/beyond these, what would be different about them? I'd be interested in some kind of trade in, if that ever came about.

hilde45

The link to his speakers doesn’t work.