First thoughts on LCR Sierra-2s

[Todd WI]

Hi,

Thanks to all who went before me and helped me to come to a decision to give the Sierra-2s a try. My LCR Sierra-2s arrived a couple of days ago and I wanted to share my initial thoughts.

UPS tried to drown the center speaker. The UPS guy was an old pro and handed it to me in a manner that I didn’t notice it was soaked until after he drove off in his big brown chariot. The bottom and one corner were soaked like they had let it stand in a puddle of water, at least I hope it was water. Kudos to Ascend as the packing prevented any damage to the speaker.

I set up the speakers in an AB-TV-AB format and level matched them (band limited pink noise with a meter) in my multipurpose family room. A = Sierra-2 , B = Paradigm Studio Monitors. The Digms are 3 way, 4 driver towers which I bought the in 1990 for slightly north of $2K (guessing $4-5K inflation adjusted?). They weigh in at about 80lbs or 4X the S2s and probably more than 4X the internal volume of the S2. Okay maybe not a fair fight, but that’s what the S2s are contending against for a spot in the living room. It’s kind of like George Foreman coming out of retirement to fight Floyd Mayweather.

The Digms have been good to me for a long time, decent mid-range and bass. The Al tweeter is good, but a bit harsh at times. So why the change? The Digms are a bit fatiguing, not horrible, but I do start to feel it after a couple of hours of listening.

While I was setting up the S2s, my teenage daughter passed through the room and stated “You’re NOT going to replace your big speakers with those”. What does she know? She does most of her critical listening on the tiny speaker on her i-phone with the volume maxed out. Talk about finger nails on a chalk board.

So all this rambling and I still haven’t said anything about the Sierra-2s. They are indeed very special. Listening to music, the first thing I noticed was the clarity of voices and how natural the S2s make them sound. Backup singers are separate and clear not at all slushed together . I was amazed at the voices of some of the backup singers, very nice. The top end of the S2s is very smooth. The voices sound like voices, the violins sound like violins, the pianos sound like pianos, etc. Very natural. Watching TV (family room), the voices were very clear even at low levels. The S2s perform very well at low volume.

Later in the evening I was switching back and forth between the S2s and the digms with a variety of music selections when my daughter picked up her head from her homework (family room) and said “THIS ONE!” when the S2s were playing. She didn’t know which speakers were playing. Then she added “You could buy the big ones ‘of these’ and then put the little ones in back”. Who told her about the towers and turned her into an enabler?

Another evening I used Chesky’s Guide To Critical Listening “The ultimate demonstration disk” on CD to compare the S2s to the digms. The S2s sounded as good or better than the digms in all the demonstrations.

I've also tried the Sierra-2s in my office as near field speakers. Very nice.

Todd

[markie]

Your daughter has an uncanny ability to get it right. The towers would be spot on. Precious!

For Christmas we got one of our sons a portable bluetooth speaker. His phone streams music to the speaker which sounds so much better than the phone alone. He uses it all the time now, taking it to friends houses and even hockey games to play in the change room.

http://www.amazon.com/UE-MINI-Wireless-Bluetooth-Speaker/dp/B00E9YIFQ4

(No doubt there's better sounding ones out there now, but the small size, sound and price was right)

Mark

[Todd WI]

Hey Mark,

That is the perfect product for my daughter. Ordered, I hope she like orange. Thank you so much for the idea!

One more S2 story. One of my daughter's friends wandered through the living room while I was doting over the S2s last night. She was quickly packing up her stuff as her mother was waiting outside. She asked me "why do you need new speakers"? I didn't say a word, but instead I quickly qued up "Some Nights" by fun and tweaked the volume up a few notches. And then it hit her, she stood there motionless looking at the S2s with a huge smile on her face. "Oh.... I like those.... gotta go". Question answered.

Todd

[markie]

Ha, I should be in sales! Of course it can't compare to the S2's but for what it is, it's a pleasant surprise for something so tiny and, well, cute. :) Putting the tiny UE speaker against a wall or in a confined area boosts the apparent volume and fullness nicely.

Todd Some Nights is a great song choice to highlight the Sierras with the tight acapella vocals and the later drums! (But man I find the video with the civil war depiction brutal to watch.) I'm not surprised your daughter's friend was somewhat spellbound listening to your new S2's. Great purchase!

Mark

[dtsequoia]

Thanks for the nice write-up. Makes me anxious for when I finally order mine!

[Todd WI]

I've revised my first post to remove the discussion about the visceral impact track on the Chesky CD. The short story is I screwed up and effectively had the sub turned off. The single 6" woofer in the S2s did not create the same visceral impact as the two 8" woofers in the Digms, no real surprize there. With the sub on, the visceral impact is similar between the two, again no real surprize.

After further listening to the Chesky CD it is clear that the Digms are a little harsh when reproducing high notes of flutes or violins. The S2s also have a bit more clarity than the Digms which is most noticeable in voices but also in instruments albeit not as much. The S2s also appear to be less fatiguing. The Digms are actually fairly close and I might choose them over the S2s if I couldn't have a sub(s).

We watched the third "Night at the Museum" movie today in 3.1. The LCR Sierra-2s were fantastic. My previous center, a Paradigm SE center, was not a perfect match to the mains. I never really noticed any continuity issues, but the LCR Sierra-2s were seamless and it was an improvement. Also with the Digms I would normally "miss" some of the dialog in movies, but the clarity in the S2s was fantastic, I didn't miss a word. The clarity is there at low levels too, which is not exactly a strength of the Digms.

Todd

[Todd WI]

Hi,

I’ve really been enjoying the Sierra-2s. I’ve been lugging them back and forth from the family room and my home office while working my way through my music collection. As others have stated the S2s are not particularly forgiving to bad recordings.

In the office I listen near field (~2.5 ft) at relatively low volumes without a sub. The sub is not missed in this environment. I was impressed while listening to Clapton’s Unplugged CD. The rhythm and lead guitars are better defined and less “summed” together if that makes any sense. Also there was one track where I noticed a new sense of separation of the backup vocals. Female voices definitely coming from the far left side of the stage, while a male voice coming from the right side of the stage. Previously these voices were summed together, with very little location information and very little separation.

In the family room I usually listen at higher volumes, but still relatively moderate levels (say 65-70 db) with a sub. Based on previous listening experiences, I believe I would miss the sub in this environment. While listening to Jimmie Vaughn’s “Strange Pleasure” CD the S2s did a disappearing act. It was weird. I could see the speakers, but I had a hard time imaging the sound was coming from them. I tried to isolate where the sound was coming from and could only come to the conclusion that Jimmie’s singing was definitely coming from the center speaker. The problem is I was listening in a two channel mode and the center speaker was not contributing anything. I had to get up and put my ear to the center speaker to convince myself of this fact. Based on this I think I could live very nicely with a phantom center when seated in the sweet spot.

Ironically the center speaker is the only one that has officially been accepted by the wife. Last night she expressed she liked the (new) center speaker with the digms. I think she’ll come around though. Her listening has been limited to just a couple of TV shows as she’s been very busy at work. And I blame myself for putting the S2s at a disadvantage as they are not on stands, but rather they sit on a 2” books on top of 24” high chairs. I’ve been trying to determine what height stands I should get and I think I’ve settled on 26”ers. Anyhow, my wife is not keen on the re-functioning of the chairs or the look of the 5 speakers up front. Also, “we already own the big ones”.

Todd