New Sierra owner looking for advice

[dennis138]

I'm the new owner of the Ascend Sierra 2EX V2 speakers. I'm currently in my third week of the trial period and I'm feeling underwhelmed.

I pretty much read everything I could find online about these speakers. People talked about hearing the full weight of bass notes and every nuance of drums coming alive. People used adjectives like "airy" and spoke of unparalleled high end extension. This hasn't been my experience.

Drums sound congested. Sometimes the Sierra's come across as punchy but in a fatiguing way. Horns can sound grating. Sometimes the overall tonality is darker than what I expected. Solo jazz guitar that sounded right in the room with my KEFs now sound less "real." Fatiguing is a good way of describing my experience with the Sierra's....which is strange ....as users consistently reported that they found the Sierra's to NOT be fatiguing. I often walk away with a headache.

My theory: my amp isn't a good match. Currently using a Marantz PM8006....which happens to be the only amp I've ever heard. Perhaps I'm not a fan of the Marantz "house sound." While many love this amp, I've heard others call it "shouty and fatiguing." I have full faith in the superior quality of the Sierra's, I wonder if I'm experiencing a problem with synergy or simply don't like the Marantz sound.

I've played around with placement. The Sierra's are on proper stands. Maybe it's my room.

I'm curious about what other Sierra owners are driving their speakers with. Have people found that Sierra's sound better on one amp than another?

[High Fidelity]

Hi. What are your room dimensions? Do you have a lot of hard reflective surfaces? How far from the walls are the speakers, measured from speaker front baffle for front wall and middle of drivers for side walls?

I have both the Sierra 2EX V2 and LX. My room is small, 10.5’x10.5’x8’ with carpet flooring. Walls are bare. The room has very noticeable slap echo.

Comparing the two in my room, EX V2 and LX, on occasion certain songs can be a little bright with the EX V2. That rarely, if ever happens with the LX. The LX can produce boomy bass with certain songs in my room, but I’ve lessened it by placing them farther away from the front wall. Both are placed 2 ft from the side walls. The LX is 30 in. from the front wall. I place the 2EX V2 27.5 in. from the front wall. I typically listen 70-80dB sustained with low-to-mid 80s peaks.

[Beave]

Unless it's defective, it's not the Marantz amp. Amps generally aren't "shouty and fatiguing," nor do they have a "house sound." People ascribe those characteristics to amps when it's actually the recording, the speakers, and the room that are determining the vast majority of the sound of a system. Synergy is a myth (well, except with some tube amps with high output impedance).

Which KEF speakers do you have?

How big is your room? How far away are you sitting? Can you snap a pic of the setup so we can see?

[Bruce Watson]

I'm the new owner of the Ascend Sierra 2EX V2 speakers. I'm currently in my third week of the trial period and I'm feeling underwhelmed.

Maybe it's my room.

My experience with speakers in general and Ascend Acoustic speakers in particular lead me to think that what you are describing is the sound of your room. That said I know only what you've told us about your room, which is... nothing really, so I could easily be wrong. That is, I'm just guessing here because I don't have anything to go on.

My experience with electronics leads me to think that the vast majority of electronics are reasonably flat and smooth from 20-20kHz. That is, the amps lend a lot less color to the sound than the speakers or the room.

So why don't you tell us some more about the room? Like it's dimensions, where the speakers are, where you're sitting, what else is in the room (chiefly furniture, and what type of furniture), whether the room is part of an open planed area or is fully enclosed with doors that shut, all that stuff. While you're at it, please tell us a bit about what you're listening to, such as what kinds of music, how loudly you like to hear it, etc.

If you really want to know what's going on, snag a copy of REW and a UMIK and post a graph or two. A good graph goes a long way to figuring out your issues. Just sayin'.

[dennis138]

Thanks for all the feedback!

1) Taking the amp out of the equation is helpful. Warm, bright, neutral, forward, house sound, synergy, class d is bad, class a is good, tubes are the best, tubes color sound too much. The internet has filled my head with so.many variables it's hard to know if I chose my amp right.

2) The KEF speakers are LS50 Metas

3) My room is 15x12 with 7 foot high ceilings. In reality, my system is shoved in a tiny corner. Speakers are about 4-6 apart. I've had them anywhere from 6 to 25 inches from rear walls. I sit anywhere from 3-6 feet from the speakers. I've been constantly playing around with positioning.

Here is a pic of my setup.

https://imgur.com/a/NSgRoBK

[Beave]

Thanks for sharing the details and picture. That helps a lot.

The placement is far from ideal. The left speaker is away from sidewalls, while the right speaker is very near a sidewall. You want better symmetry.

The Ascend vs KEF are both similarly good speakers, with the biggest difference being dispersion width. The Ascend dispersion is quite a bit wider than the KEF's, meaning that you will get a lot more reflections off of that right wall, which exacerbates the asymmetry of the setup.

The placement also affects the bass. The right speaker being in a corner is going to have significantly altered bass response compared to the left speaker.

Can you put something along that right wall, even if temporary, to test it out? Hang a comforter, thick blankets, pillows, whatever, on that wall, to see what you find.

Otherwise, can you move the system more to the middle of that wall and away from the corner?

If not, and you're stuck with that location, then I can see how the KEFs might work better in the less-than-ideal setup.

[Bruce Watson]

1) Taking the amp out of the equation is helpful. Warm, bright, neutral, forward, house sound, synergy, class d is bad, class a is good, tubes are the best, tubes color sound too much. The internet has filled my head with so.many variables it's hard to know if I chose my amp right.

Your amp should not be your biggest concern, based on your description and picture. Fix some other problems and you may find you like your amp just fine.

2) The KEF speakers are LS50 Metas

3) My room is 15x12 with 7 foot high ceilings. In reality, my system is shoved in a tiny corner. Speakers are about 4-6 apart. I've had them anywhere from 6 to 25 inches from rear walls. I sit anywhere from 3-6 feet from the speakers. I've been constantly playing around with positioning.

Here is a pic of my setup.

https://imgur.com/a/NSgRoBK

Oy. Your room is the biggest part of what you're hearing. No wonder you aren't impressed with your sound. A room that size should be full of room modes, and it is:

https://amcoustics.com/tools/amroc?l...t=true&r60=0.6

This is largely the cause of your "drums sound congested" complaint for example. This is because of all the peaks and nulls all around your listening position.

That's just the room -- your position in the room, as Beave says, will really upset the formation of a good stereo field. The bounce off that right hand wall (the first reflection from the speaker) probably sounds like you're in the shower. Very "small room sound", because that first reflection off the right wall arrives very quickly after the direct sound. Too soon and it's an ugly blurring effect, too long and it's an echo.

But the thing that really hurts the stereo image is the lack of a similar sound from the left. It's at least partly due to how the ear/brain locate images -- it's called the precedence effect. This is why people will encourage you to try for symmetry in your speaker placement. You want both sides to have similar bounces off the side walls so that the timing of the direct sound and the first reflections can be integrated in the brain to give you a consistent location in the sound field. If you want to hear where that sax in the recording is located, you need that kind of consistency.

If you can do what Beave says, you should hear noticeable improvements. If you can't... well, you still need to take the room out of the sound somehow. Decades ago when I was in a similar situation, the only way I could listen to music was headphones. Or, and this will sound terrible, but it was actually quite an improvement -- listening in my car (hardly any parallel surfaces, nice plush upholstery, etc.). For a couple of years I just had to leave most of my stereo equipment boxed up and sitting in the corner. That happens sometimes...

But if you can move your speakers to a better location in the room and treat the corners and walls some, you might be surprised at the improvements you can make. Look up room treatments (bass traps, absorption, and diffusion). A place like GIK Acoustics might be a place to start. There are of course a number of sites that sell acoustical treatments; everyone will have their favorites. For the record, I have no association with GIK, I'm not even a customer. They were just the first website that came up on my search.

The only other thing I can add is to wish you good luck with it.

Hmmm... something else. It might be possible to come up with a decent near-field setup. That is, so you listen from a very close distance to the speakers. But I'm not the guy who can help with that.

[dennis138]

A sincere thank you to everyone that provided a detailed reply. Not only did I learn a lot, but I understand what is happening now in regard to sound.

My system is set up in my bedroom. What can't be seen in my picture is a bed, dresser, and guitar equipment. There's not much room to change where my speakers are set up. I'm stuck with this mess of a room.

Taking the room out of the equation makes sense. Perhaps it's time to start researching a headphone rig.

[mikesiskav]

A sincere thank you to everyone that provided a detailed reply. Not only did I learn a lot, but I understand what is happening now in regard to sound.

My system is set up in my bedroom. What can't be seen in my picture is a bed, dresser, and guitar equipment. There's not much room to change where my speakers are set up. I'm stuck with this mess of a room.

Taking the room out of the equation makes sense. Perhaps it's time to start researching a headphone rig.

Some EQ in the bass range and some carefully placed room treatments could make a big improvement.

[Beave]

Can you move the speakers so that they fire diagonally into the room (ie, keep the left speaker where it is but rotate it some, and move the right speaker to the right wall and rotate it too)?

Or, could you swap the locations of the stereo setup with the location of the tower of CDs?