Help. Are Sierra Towers Right For Me?

[FightingForAir]

OK … so I love what I’m hearing about the Sierra Towers but I’m not sure they are for me. I need some help and feedback before I pull the trigger. My current speaker setup has to go, so time for replacements. I’ll tee this up by describing what I have to work with.

First, I hate overly bright / forward speakers. I’m very sensitive to high volume, high frequency sounds / noise. I also cannot stand boomy, muddy bass or anemic mid-bass. I am a bass head and do like a lot of mid and low bass as long as it’s neat and tidy. Flat frequency response is not necessarily what sounds best to me... I like more weight in those lower octaves. I can obviously dial some oomph into the lowest end via the sub, but there's not a lot I can do with dialing up the mid-bass if its already thin. I like keeping my sub crossed at 40... 60 at the highest. My set up has to do double duty for music and HT, but I don’t use surrounds or a center channel – 2.1 works just fine for me. I have a Rythmik F15 sub to cover the bottom end. I have some placement constraints in my listening area that I have to work with as well. I also don't like very tight sweet spots and "boxy" sounding speakers. I'm willing to trade some loss of imaging for an open soundstage. When I can close my eyes, get lost in the mucic and forget the sound I'm hearing is coming from woofers and tweeters stuffed into a box, then I'm much more happy. My current set-up is Tang Band full range drivers in DIY open baffles supported by TC Sounds Epic 12 in "H-frames" down below. I like the openness of them very much but my new space is too small for them (they are huge) and I cannot get them far enough away from the front wall for best sound. Also because of size, the boss of the house is not happy with them. :)

My room is about 17 feet deep and my listening position is about 10-11 feet from where I need to place the front of my speakers. With the Sierra Towers being the depth they are, I’m only going to be able to get about 10 – 12 inches between the back of the speaker and the wall behind them. My living room opens up to one side into the dining room and kitchen so it is about 30 feet or so wide. I have a short hallway that takes off to one side behind my listening position.

My musical preferences are all over the map. I like rock, jazz, orchestral, roots rock, pop rock, alt. rock, reggae, blues, etc, etc. Some of my favorites: Gaslight anthem, Green Day, NeedtoBreathe, Coldplay, Mark Knopfler, Skillet, Joss Stone, Beth Hart, Joe Bonamasa, Corinne Bailey Rae, Erich Kunzel, Pat Kelly, Peter Kater, Maroon 5, Sting. Corinne has a couple tracks I love to use for testing speakers: The Blackest Lily and Paris Nights/New York Mornings. There are a lot of details going on with both tracks and the bass violin is great. The bass lines tell me a lot about the speakers I’m auditioning. If the notes are indiscernible and come across as just a series of booms or if they have no impact or hit at all, then those speakers are not for me. When I can clearly hear each distinct note clearly and those notes have some weight, I’m liking it. Many of the speakers I’ve auditioned cannot do the bass lines on these tracks well – even when paired to a sub unless the sub is crossed high… they are just too thin in the mid-bass (examples: Martin Logan Electromotion ESL, Klipsch RF-82, some paradigms and B&Ws I listened to). Goldenear Triton 2s and Klipsch RF-7s did a good job with the bass line on these tracks but I really didn’t love those for other reasons.

Sooo … given my placement constraints and desire for some good, strong weight in the mid and upper bass, how would the Sierra Towers do for me? I'm worried about it because every set of speakers I've auditioned so far that uses smaller woofers have not been able to produce strong enough mid-bass for my liking. I’m also considering Von Schweikert VR-33 due to reported ease of placement and strong mid bass, Gallo Cl-4s or Philharmonic 3s (though I’ve heard both are a bit bright and that the Gallos may also not have strong enough mid-bass for me), and Zu Omen Def.

Thanks much for any help you can provide.

[FirstReflect]

Hi there! Welcome to the forum.

I'm happy to see that you've included the details about your room, and where you speakers and seats will be placed within that room. Those inclusions tell me that you're well aware that the room's acoustics play a very large role in the final sound that you actually hear at the seat.

However, even so, I think - based on what you're saying about having auditioned speakers - that you might still be underestimating just how much the room plays a role, particularly when it comes to bass.

So here is what I can say about the Sierra Towers and your Rythmik subwoofer:

just in terms of what the speakers and the subwoofer themselves are producing, they are very, very accurate, very, very neutral, and very, very linear. What the signal in the recording tells them to play - that is what they play. Nothing is boosted, nothing is cut. And notes do not hang around a moment longer than the signal in the recording said to play. What's coming out of the speakers themselves is simply transparent and faithful to what is in the recording.

Now, does that mean you will like how that sounds by the time it reaches your seat? Not necessarily.

But the great news is that if the speaker itself is very faithful and accurate to the signal, it means that you can easily and predictably EQ the sound to your liking. If you want louder mid-bass, go ahead and manually EQ those frequencies. The Sierra Towers will play it back exactly as they are being fed. There's no rule that says the speakers have to act as a passive EQ. In fact, I'm strongly against that approach. When the speakers are simply accurate and faithful to what's being fed to them - as the Sierra Towers and the Rythmik subwoofers are - it means you have the freedom to tune the frequency response to your personal taste, and you can feel very confident that any manual changes you make with an EQ will be reflected in a predictable manner. You make the mid-bass 4dB louder using an EQ? The Sierra Towers will play back the mid-bass 4dB louder. There's no guessing, and no worrying that no matter what changes you make in the EQ, the speakers are still just going to sound a certain way because they themselves are coloured and inaccurate.

But the bigger issue is having the deep bass sound "muddy" or "sloppy". Again, the Sierra Towers and the Rythmik subs are just going to produce exactly what is in the signal. If it's sounding muddy or overblown at your seat after coming out of those speakers, then that is ALL because of your room.

I might be the opposite of you in terms of preference. I am not a bass head at all. I only want exactly what is on the recording to reach my ears. And I don't seem to be bothered by "brightness" nearly as much as a lot of people. I tend to pay more attention to the highest frequencies - it's one of the reasons I'm so over the moon about the RAAL ribbon tweeters.

But with my background now described, I have to tell you that when I first listened to my custom Horizon RAAL Fronts (which are very similar overall to the Sierra Towers RAAL), the very first thing that jumped out at me was their bass performance! Now that is saying a lot coming from me! I usually instantly gravitate towards listening to the treble. But the bass reproduction from the Horizon RAAL speakers was so clean that it really did just instantly grab me. So if that means anything to you at all...

:)

I did want to touch upon one more thing, though, which is where you said that you only want to use lower crossover frequencies. That is a preference that I would like to recommend you consider having an open mind about.

Ultimately, what do we want? Do we want to steadfastly hold onto the idea that we only ever want to use a lower 40Hz crossover frequency -- even if that means lots of peaks and dips, and very uneven bass response from seat to seat? Or do we want to achieve seamless, uniform bass across our entire seating area, where we truly cannot tell where the speakers end and the subwoofer begin, and it sounds that way in every seat?

Personally, I want the seamless, uniform experience. And that means letting go of the idea that it is somehow more "pure" or desirable to have the Front speakers play as low as possible on their own. Again, it's all because the room's acoustics play an even bigger role than you seem to be accounting for.

Perfect example is my own setup:

My Horizon RAAL speakers themselves remain very linear in their output down to about 40Hz. Just all by themselves, in an anechoic chamber or outside in a wide open field, they play linear and accurate right down to 40Hz. So one might imagine that I'd want to use a 40Hz crossover to my subwoofers, right?

Nope.

:)

When they are in my room, I begin by having them set to "Full Range" or "Large" in my Processor's speaker setup menus. I then play a bass sweep through just one speaker at a time. And I listen to that bass sweep in every seat in my theater. I also make sure that the bass sweep is being played at a very loud 85dB because that is the SPL at which human hearing is its most linear. We have to remember that human hearing is not a linear thing. And below 85dB, we tend to perceive deep bass as being much, much quieter than the midrange or treble. They can all be playing at, say, 65dB. Technically, all the frequencies are equally as loud. But we do not perceive it that way. A 65dB SPL midrange or treble note will be perfectly audible. But a 65dB SPL bass note will be barely heard at all! So it's important to have the bass sweep playing at the decibel level where human hearing is at its most linear, which is 85dB.

So I play that bass sweep through one speaker at a time, and I do so at every seat. I already know that my speakers themselves are playing linearly down to 40Hz. But that is NOT what reaches my ears! In my left-most seat, things sound nice and linear down to about 60Hz. At 50Hz, in that left-most seat, my Front Left speaker sounds quieter. And that is all because of my room. The soundwaves are bouncing around, reflecting, interacting, and they just so happen to cancel out and get quieter around 50Hz -- at that left-most seat. Now, I pick myself up and go sit in my right-most seat, and guess what? Now 50Hz sound louder coming from that Left Front speaker! It's the exact same test tone, the exact same speaker. Nothing changed. But from the left-most seat to the right-most seat in my theater, at 50Hz, it's literally opposite responses: louder in one seat, quieter in the other.

The solution? I use dual subwoofers. I have them positioned at the mid-way point of each side wall. And that gives me very, very uniform bass across all of my seats. So now, I can cross my Front speakers over to my dual subwoofers up at 60Hz, or 70Hz or 80Hz. I can prevent my speakers from playing below 60Hz where the bass becomes very uneven because of the room and my seating positions, not because of the speakers themselves.

So you mentioned wanting a very large sweet spot. You mentioned wanting to be able to get the bass response that pleases you most. To achieve those goals, you're going to need to let go of the idea that having your Front speakers play as low as possible is somehow "better" or more "pure". Bass response is inseparable from the room. When it comes to deep bass, you are NEVER hearing just the direct sound. You are only ever hearing a whole bunch of reflections. So having your Front speakers play as low as possible is not desirable. If you do that, you're only ever judging the room - not the speaker themselves. So it's entirely unfair to say, "these speakers have better bass". No, they only have "better" bass IN YOUR ROOM vs. some other set of speakers. Put them in a different room, and the tables could easily turn. So the key is to only credit the speakers with differences that speakers themselves can actually make! It's just as important to credit the room with the tremendous impact that it has on the overall sound.

I hope that's of some help!

- Rob H.

[FightingForAir]

Hi there! Welcome to the forum.

... So the key is to only credit the speakers with differences that speakers themselves can actually make! It's just as important to credit the room with the tremendous impact that it has on the overall sound.

I hope that's of some help!

- Rob H.

Thanks for the welcome. Your reply is exceptionally helpful. As long as the Sierra towers have no inherent deficiencies with mid-bass and I don't have to have a lot of breathing room behind them (more than 12-14 inches) to avoid boomy bass (the rear firing port has had me a bit concerned with placement), then I feel good about jumping in and placing an order.

[FirstReflect]

You're most welcome! Happy to be of any help :)

12-14 inches from the back of the Towers to the wall is perfectly sufficient just in terms of "breathing" room and avoiding any sort of port noise or that sort of thing. You will most likely get a bit of boundary reinforcement in the lower bass, just as you would by having any speaker positioned within a foot of the wall - rear ported or not. But, as I mentioned, you can easily overcome this (if it even turns out to be any sort of problem in your setup, which it very well might not) by using a higher crossover frequency to your subwoofers, or by just using a bit of EQ to tame any unwanted boundary reinforcement.

I do find it a bit funny how so many people seem reticent to use any sort of EQ these days. They will swap out speakers, amps, pre-amps; add room treatments, bass traps, move furniture around; even go into the realm of the ridiculous by swapping out cables, or power cords. And all of this just to try and reach some sort of "audio nirvana" that really just amounts to a personal preference!

But if any piece of gear has a characteristic sound -- bright, warm, laid back, forward, etc. -- then all that means is that it is acting as a passive EQ in some way! So why go chasing after just the right combination of passive EQ parameters? Why not just use an EQ, for Pete's sake! lol

Everyone used to have an EQ in their stereo system a couple of decades ago. I honestly don't know what happened. The name is equalizer . It's for equalizing all of the audible frequencies in those instances when your gear or your room is acting as a passive filter and altering the signal in some way!

So there is no rule, written or otherwise, that says you cannot use an EQ to adjust the sound to your liking! That's what EQs are for. And I've no idea why that concept seems to have been lost these days.

What I will agree with is that some gear is just inherently flawed. If a speaker simply will not play any louder at a given frequency, then no amount of boosting the signal with an EQ is going to help. If an amplifier just has an inherent roll-off on the top end or on the bottom end, then no amount of boosting the signal will bring back the power output that simply does not exist from that amp.

But, once again, I come back to the notion of just buying very neutral, linear, accurate gear. If you do that, you can EQ to your heart's content! Linear, accurate gear will response predictably to the EQ. And that is a tremendous help. You shouldn't have to match inherently bright speakers with an inherently rolled-off amp. Those are just two passive filters being used to try and get back to linear! And if you insert and EQ, you can't be sure of what the results will be. Maybe the rolled-off amp simply won't play any louder. Or maybe the inherently bright speakers will get louder in the treble than what you really dialed in on the EQ.

But the Sierra Towers and the Rythmik subs? They just "tell it like it is". Feed them the signal, they'll play back what they were fed. Simple. Predictable. But you should absolutely feel free to change that signal to your liking! There's no rule against that :D

[FightingForAir]

Again, thank you. On one final note, what can you say about the sweet spot of the towers? Pretty tight?

[markie]

Again, thank you. On one final note, what can you say about the sweet spot of the towers? Pretty tight?

Hi FFA,

There is really one ultimate sweet spot for direct radiating speakers. That said, since the Ascend Towers have such great dispersion, they will sound pretty sweet off axis compared to other speakers imo.

But if you are willing to fork 1K more for a pair speakers, have placement restraints, value bass over the type of treble a RAAL provides, aren't doing home theatre, I would say the Von Schweikert VR-33s would be very hard to beat. But it boils down to preference!

Mark

[RicardoJoa]

Never heard any Von speakers. But i feel the discriptions of their speakers are writen to impress the fool.
Some models use dayton cabinets and they seem to believe they have built 65 mm thick wall cabinets?
They call a tweeter in between two woofers a point source? Is just a MTM design. Any speaker designer should be able to tweak the crossover so that the speakers are more tolerant to close placement to wall, but it will still suffer smearing from wall refections. No free lunch.
Sorry about the rant. Didnt mean anything.

[RicardoJoa]

Mid bass and im assuming you are refering to 50-100hz? If so, that should come part from the subs. If you dont use sub, my experience with the sierra 1, is that ii has very good punch bass. I dont think this trait has lost. If you are using a sub or subs, most importantly is the integration at crossover point.

[loonytunes]

To touch on one of the op's other concerns. I too, like a heavier bass sound. My last pair of heavyweights were C.V. AT-80's. I also am sensitive to the higher frequencies at reference volumes, or higher, as I like to turn it up. Often :rolleyes: Dave's response to me on this note, no pun intended, was that the RAAL tweeter is very good on this regard because it has a very quick decay and doesn't store energy. Also if you look at the RAAL tweet link on the towers intro page, you will see off axis response is very good. Hope this helps.

[smurraybhm]

Hi FFA,

There is really one ultimate sweet spot for direct radiating speakers. That said, since the Ascend Towers have such great dispersion, they will sound pretty sweet off axis compared to other speakers imo.

But if you are willing to fork 1K more for a pair speakers, have placement restraints, value bass over the type of treble a RAAL provides, aren't doing home theatre, I would say the Von Schweikert VR-33s would be very hard to beat. But it boils down to preference!

Mark

When making your decision keep in mind that Markie has never owned Ascend speakers and I doubt the Von's - yet he posts with authority. Seriously anytime I post an opinion about any product I make it clear that I don't own said product as well as those I have heard or not. Towers are more than about the RAAL and you can always go with the other tweeter to which many positive comments have been made about them from actual owners.

[FightingForAir]

Thanks again for all the input everyone. I thought I'd jump back in to provide update on the decision.

I did not get a chance to audition some of the speakers I was considering (Zus, Tektons, etc). However, I found a local guy who has a set of Sierra Towers (not RAAL though) and another guy not far away that has Von Schweikert VR22s (not 33s). Thus, I got to audition them both - though unfortunately not in my own home.

Final decision: Getting both the Sierras and VR33s. :)

I'm doing the home trial of the VR33s right now and will order up the Sierras to use in another room when I've recovered from this Von purchase.

To anyone considering the Vons, they are good... really good. They are big. They are heavy. They perform as advertised. Significantly more expensive, but to my ears... worth every cent.

However, the Sierras won a place in my heart as well. Just can't resist. :)

Thanks again for the input. Looking forward to Joining the Ascend family soon.

[markie]

Very nice FFA! Yeah for big bass, near wall placement, huge and more diffuse sound field, the VR33s are great. The Sierras will bring a cleaner, clearer, more focussed soundstage, and of course a sleek, beautifully finished bamboo cabinet. Two very different beasts, and both are very special at what they do especially at their price points. Thanks for keeping us updated, and happy listening!

Mark

[FirstReflect]

@FightingForAir

Very cool!

I definitely hope you'll return with descriptions of your comparisons once you have some Sierra Towers in house :)