The Horizon was recently reviewed at Audio Science Review. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...-review.15199/
Good objective and subjective performance as to be expected.
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The Horizon was recently reviewed at Audio Science Review. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...-review.15199/
Good objective and subjective performance as to be expected.
Good but not as good as I would have expected.
However, I will say the review was a bit weird since he was running it full-range. As a center channel, I'd expect it to be crossed over to the sub(s), probably at 40Hz, maybe even higher. That distortion at 35Hz would never show up under those conditions.
Luna Duo V2 LR, Titan Horizon V2, and Rythmik L22 & L12 in HT, Sierra-LXs in study, S-2EXs and Duo V2 C in bedroom, S-1 NrTs in dining room, S-1s at work, HTM-200s in kitchen. Brother owns CMT-340s and dad has a pair of CBM-170s.
Port tune on the Horizon is ~48Hz. At 35Hz the woofers are completely unloaded. Generally speaking, it is not a good idea to measure distortion at frequencies below port tune at any reasonable volume level but the NFS might be limited in that regard. Any ported speaker is going to show similarly high distortion measurements at frequencies below port tune, as clearly indicated with distortion measurements of other ported speakers on his site.
That said, yes - nearly anyone running a center is going to cross to a sub.
I can't answer any questions regarding this unit since we honestly didn't know he was measuring one, or for that matter, where it came from of how old it is (it is at least 18 months old since it does not have magnetic grilles)
To my eye, his measurements of the Horizon match closer to the ideal Harman in-room response than the Revel C52 center they measured, and the Horizon has exceptionally wide horizontal dispersion (as indicated) and the CSD is also extremely clean. Add to that deeper bass than the C52 (C52 uses much larger woofers) combined with a retail price $1000 less than the C52, I think in Amir's own way, the review and measurements were quite complimentary.
I must give him props though for going through the process, running spins on a speaker of this size and weight is not an easy task.
Last edited by davef; 08-09-2020 at 10:52 PM.
Agreed. Tho I also take Amir's reviews with a barrow of salt.
Again, I agree. What he does isn't easy and takes a lot of work, but I'm not a big fan of his hyperbolic subjective comments and think he's overly harsh. Did you see the debacle with his first review of the Denon X3700H? He ended up re-reviewing it and it did much better.I must give him props though for going through the process, running spins on a speaker of this size and weight is not an easy task.
Agree with Pogre & Dave
You know tho... I have looked around and there aren't many reviews outside of customer reviews on any Ascend Acoustics ribbon speakers. That really surprised me since they've been around for quite a while now. Or am I not looking in the right places?
Coming from Amir, this is about as glowing a review as he gives (except when he reviews products from Harman of course).
Post #46 in the review has the speaker's frequency response graph from Ascend. The testing date was December 20, 2012, so the speaker is approachiing eight years old. I agree the review is about as complimentary as Amir has published for speakers outside the Harman brands (for which he discloses a potential conflict of interest).
Hadn't noticed that, thanks for pointing that out. The Horizon was first released in 2012 so this was likely from our very first production run.
Great to see the speaker has held up nicely for close to a decade now. Don't see anything else on Amir's site that has as wide horizontal dispersion as our ribbon Horizon.
But...one issue not discussed much is the ability to integrate into a commercially available furniture system...I am so set on the Horizon @ 11" tall and have found that there are few furniture solutions that will accommodate... but...it's important, so accommodate I did! Doing Salamander, though very sad that I didn't pull the trigger on a Standout Designs model before they had to shut down. Otherwise, hard to fit a Horizon into a/v furniture
Sierra Towers w/RAAL as L/R, Horizon w/RAAL as center, Sierra 2's w/RAAL as L/R surround, Marantz AVR7705, D-Sonic M3a-2800, Oppo BDP-105D, Panasonic UB820