We Saved The Best For Last!

[bkdc]

There will also be upgrades available, however - these upgrades are time consuming and complicated, and will require soldering.

Soldering was one of the most useful skills I picked up in college. As typing was the most useful thing I learned in high school.

Will the same crossover be used for all four versions?

[Beave]

Will the same crossover be used for all four versions?

Different drivers in each speaker will require different crossovers for each speaker.

[davef]

Will the same crossover be used for all four versions?

Yes, but different value components are used with all 8 different versions. It is a ton of work on our end, but we wanted to offer something different, something very special.

[racrawford65]

Dave - just to confirm, any upgrade of existing Towers/Horizon would require soldering (I’m specifically interested in either just cross-over or new bass/midrange/existing RAAL+new crossover options)

[davef]

Dave - just to confirm, any upgrade of existing Towers/Horizon would require soldering (I’m specifically interested in either just cross-over or new bass/midrange/existing RAAL+new crossover options)

Correct, for all tower upgrade options, it will be necessary to desolder and solder. I think the soldering is the easiest part

I will be posting upgrade instructions within 24-48 hours.

[jimlucci]

As the ultimate option (ELX) replaces 3 of the four drivers in the towers (+ crossover), I am guessing the pricing on the upgrade will be on the steep side. I am very interested in understanding the relative difference in performance between the ultimate option and just the crossover option. I have the towers with RAAL and I also have a pair of the Sierra LX's so I can imagine the towers with the new EX and LX drivers will be unbelievable.

[racrawford65]

Correct, for all tower upgrade options, it will be necessary to desolder and solder. I think the soldering is the easiest part

I will be posting upgrade instructions within 24-48 hours.

Thanks Dave. Guess I may need to get a soldering gun and start practicing😁

Looking forward to the instructions

[sonic icons]

laserllama - according to Wikipedia articles, the full frequency range of human speech has been measured to be 85 Hz (lowest fundamental frequency of an adult male voice) to 17 kHz (highest overtones). The 85 Hz - 7 kHz range is defined as wideband or high definition in audio systems designed for human voice only transmission ("telephony") - this range preserves enough of the overtones to recognize and distinguish between individual voices. The 85 Hz - 14 kHz range is defined as superwideband in telephony - this range preserves almost all of the audible overtones.

I think Dave has said that the midrange-tweeter crossover in the existing Sierra RAAL Tower and Horizon is close to 2 kHz. (We should probably start calling those the "first-generation" Tower and Horizon.) According to this article, a traditional 3-way system with 6-8 inch woofer and 4-5 inch midrange ("Example 1") usually has a bass-midrange crossover at 300 Hz or slightly higher.

My conclusion is that the human voice frequency range encompasses both the bass-midrange (probably near 300 Hz) and midrange-tweeter (near 2 kHz) crossover frequencies in the Tower and Horizon, hence all three driver types affect the quality or fidelity of human voice reproduction.

Also, you wrote "It seems in most surround programming the center is (mostly?) speech, even music/atmospheric content usually goes to the left and right". I don't believe that is correct. A lot of the "music/atmospheric content" - to use specific language, the part of the audio content of a modern surround-sound movie or TV program that is produced by acoustic or electronic instruments and not by human voices - DOES go to the center speaker. If you doubt this, try a simple experiment. Using the controls on your AV receiver or processor (e.g. "Option" - "Channel Level" on a Denon AVR) turn the center speaker level all the way up and all the other channel levels all the way down. (Write down the levels before changing them.) Now stand directly in front of your center speaker and listen to a favorite movie or show. Do you hear human voices only, or voices PLUS music and sound effects?

[sonic icons]

When reading about the amazing drivers in other Ascend speakers, I was thinking "hmm, there may be more than one Tower and Horizon upgrade path, to take best advantage of the new drivers and give people a choice between lower upgrade cost and higher performance". But even I wasn't expecting FOUR new versions of both the Tower and Horizon!

I think the lowest-cost and simplest upgrade for current RAAL Tower or Horizon owners will be the Ribbon Tower/Horizon V2, because that will preserve all the existing drivers (if I understand the description in #26) and only replace the crossover. However, I'm leaning toward the "ultimate high-end" ELX Ribbon version if the credit card can bear it. (lol I know what kind of group this is, who isn't craving "ultimate high-end"? )

Per Dave's comments "these upgrades are time consuming and complicated, and will require soldering" and "it will be necessary to desolder and solder. I think the soldering is the easiest part" I plan to be He Who Leads From Behind and wait for feedback from other upgraders before attempting the Mt Everest of speaker upgrades. Also welcome recommendations for the best model or type of soldering iron for the task, as well any other specialized tool. (I've used "high end" soldering irons at work, with features like a temperature control dial.) Since I'm leaning toward ordering three ELX Ribbon Tower upgrades, I'm sure any tool purchases will be a trivial part of the total cost.

[laserllama]

laserllama - according to Wikipedia articles,

my question is mostly to Dave about whether he thinks it is a "whoa" improvement on speech or not, and maybe a bit about why, as I was weighing what I might be missing when I thought the Horizons were already super slick.

to answer the panning question, YMMV, on pretty much all of my sources, all the atmospheric/SFX/music stuff goes to the L+R for home theater applications. If you listen to old stereo sources (like old sitcoms and stuff filmed for 4:3), mid/side math will put a lot more out the center channel. From an audio engineering perspective, it makes a lot of sense to send the atmospheric bits to the L+R so the vocals get less muddy, and people may not have balanced levels or speakers, so I can see why you'd do that in mixing.