Decisions... Decisions

[sonicboom]

Hi everyone.

I'm sure this has been asked before, but I just can't find where. So please allow me to ask again.

I am debating between two set-ups for my upgrade path:
1) Sierra 2 + Rythmik sub
2) or Towers RAAL without sub.

The set up is mainly for music with occasional movie watching.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Daniel

[sharkman]

I ran a pair of high end Paradigm towers for a few years with no sub, but a couple of factors need to be considered. How much bass do you like or prefer? I have no experience with the Sierra towers, but a Rythmik sub would certainly provide more bass. Also, what power would you be running the speakers with as 80 wpc would not give as much performance as say 200.

[MusicHead]

I would go with bookshelves + sub, even for a system geared more toward music.

With towers you may end up having to choose between best positioning for imaging and best positioning for good quality bass.

With a separate sub you can "decouple" the two and if you spend some time in a careful integration between mains and sub you get the best of both.

Even more so with a Rythmik sub. I have the L12 and it is great with music while having more than enough kick for movies.

This is just one of the many opinions you are going to get :-)

[RPM]

There is a third option, Towers NRT & Rythmik. The Pro review on the Towers was with the NRT
and I have been extremely happy with this combo. The dedicated midrange and much higher
Power handling capabilities are the advantages I experienced from my Sierra bookshelves.
If at later time you wanted to change to the
Raal it is possible, but recommended done by Ascend.