In the market for new speakers.

[oledurt]

soon I will be in the market for new speakers. I am primarily a home theater enthusiast, and have a dedicated room. People speak highly of the sierra 2's. After reading about them my interest is piqued. Could i buy 7 of these for speakers all around? Can they be mounted on wall for surrounds? How about Dolby Atmos? Can they be mounted on ceiling? Looking forward to responses.

[DougMac]

Welcome oledurt!

I had a chance to audition the Sierra-2's at Ascend's corporate headquarters and they are remarkable performers! You could certainly use them all around.

I think a good step up would be to use the Horizon as the center. If you really want to go all out, get the towers for L/R.

These cannot be mounted on the wall because they are rear ported. You really need some space behind them, preferably at least 12".

I currently have an Ascend system in my dedicated home theater comprised of 340's L/C/R, 170's side surround and 200's rear surround. While at Ascend HQ, I compared the 340's to the Sierra floor standing models with the regular tweeters. I was surprised at how close the 340's were to the Sierra's, but there was definitely an improvement in smoothness and extension with the Sierras.

Everyone who hears my system is floored by how good it sounds. You can't go wrong with Ascend!

[N Boros]

soon I will be in the market for new speakers. I am primarily a home theater enthusiast, and have a dedicated room. People speak highly of the sierra 2's. After reading about them my interest is piqued. Could i buy 7 of these for speakers all around? Can they be mounted on wall for surrounds? How about Dolby Atmos? Can they be mounted on ceiling? Looking forward to responses.

I have had a pair of Sierra 2s or about a year now. For surrounds I am using an old pair of Aperion audio outdoor speakers as surrounds, temporarily until I save up more money. They are mounted on the ceiling and angled down firing slightly above ear level, which is not optimal. I have a phantom center, since right now I only care about one listening position. Surprisingly, the speakers blend well. The only thing that I don't like is that they are elevated too high. I plan to fill out a 7.1.4 speaker system in the future. Up front I definitely am planning for another Sierra 2, for a seamless match up front. For side surrounds I may try the CBM-170s and put them on 36 inch stands (slightly above ear level when seated). If I like the blend I will just stick with those. If not, I could move them to the surround back position and get some Sierra 2s for the side surround position. Many have said that it is very difficult to hear differences in speakers in the surround back position, so that is a place to easily save some money. For Atmos/DTS X /Auro ceiling speakers I was thinking either some HTM-200s or possibly a different brand of speakers that offer in-ceiling options. (NHT for example has in-ceiling speakers and they seem to design speakers with wide dispersion and accurate flat frequency response as a couple of design goals)

Anyways, if you have the room and budget for Sierra 2s all around, it will definitely sound great. But, you may be able to save some money and get nearly the same results. I think the Ascend listening room uses CBM 170's as surrounds with the Sierra 2s. If they are okay with it, the difference going with Sierra 2s in the surround position (and even more so in the surround back position) might be very subtle, if you can tell the difference at all.