Good morning everyone. I am thinking about purchasing speakers instead of DIY-ing for the first time in my life, and since I know too much about speaker design, I'm attracted to the Ascend for a couple of reasons - one, that they use excellent drivers, two, that the speakers are mostly produced domestically or in places I'd like to visit, and three, that they use an NFS for design.

Is the Sierra monitor with the beastly little Seas woofer the only model we have NFS data for? This is an attractive speaker, but I was wondering if the tower models had NFS measurements.

In general I think 3 way designs are better than 2 ways, but the Ascend towers are somewhat unusual in that they are not extremely large, their woofer array has a small radiating area (no idea what kind of excursion it has), and the midrange is on the larger side. As a result, it's hard to tell if the the normal 3 way advantages of smoother, broader radiation and deeper bass really apply compared to the Sierra LX.

So to help me out, can someone answer the following questions?
  • How does the bass output (depth and SPL) compare between the Sierra Tower and LX?
  • Is there a spinorama of the Sierra tower I can look at showing DI, early reflections and so on?
  • I saw a yellow painted speaker in the gallery - what is the cost for a custom color?


I understand the Sierra towers were designed before the NFS even existed, but it still would be helpful to see what kind of radiation you can expect from that mid/RAAL combo.

Thanks for your help.