New Ascend Acoustics true full range tower speaker. "The Challenger Deep"

[Brannigan]

Sorry I couldn't help myself. So how long until dave starts working on the next tower? Something that requires no sub whatsoever but still plays balanced music.

RAAL tweeter
Updated midrange cone
Updated 5.5" woofer
New 6.5" woofer
New 8" woofer
New fancy crossover that somehow magically makes it all work.

Come on dave make it happen. Take everything that makes the sierra tower good and add gut rumbling thunder when appropriate. I need this. Please.

[Brannigan]

because....see...the challenger deep is the deepest place that can possibly be conquered..and....yeah

i can't afford these http://www.salksound.com/model.php?model=Exotica+3

so..come on dave let's go

[theophile]

because....see...the challenger deep is the deepest place that can possibly be conquered..and....yeah

i can't afford these http://www.salksound.com/model.php?model=Exotica+3

so..come on dave let's go

So Mr. B, if you haven't Yet, add the Rythmik F12 or F15 (or 2 of each) to go with your fabulous AA RAAL Towers and "Have It All", Already (@ $1\3 less the E3's)!!! :confused::rolleyes:;):cool:

Ted

[sludgeogre]

The way to add gut rumbling thunder is with a Rythmik subwoofer or two. Running loudspeakers full range doesn't make a lot of sense to me because of the power requirements of really low frequencies and because of the interactions of the room. The room plays a bigger part in how you hear bass than the driver does, so the PEQ on a plate amp as well as the ability to do room correction and other kinds of DSP on a subwoofer make it far more advantageous than making one giant monstrosity of a speaker with elevated bass response.

Most importantly is that the best place to have a low frequency driver is rarely the same spot as where the left and right speakers are. With your left and right speaker you want to abide by the golden triangle rule, but with subwoofers it's better to have two at the quarter points of the wall your speakers are on, if you're in a regular room, or in some random spot in your room if you have an oddly shaped room.

As much as one would love to just go full range all the time, it really isn't the best way to get the best sound out of your room.

The only thing I would do to improve my system is put it in a better room (two months away, my house is being framed right now) and maybe build a subwoofer system for that room with 18" drivers in the corners of the room with some kind of Dirac room correction system.

Dave could speak to what that driver compliment would require as far as a crossover, but I think that smattering of ranges of drivers would require a totally insane crossover to sound alright.

[Brannigan]

the advice is appreciated but i already had an f15 and sold it. it took me awhile to admit it to myself but the towers sound better pure. it was necessary when i started out with the sierra 1. now it just reduces bass articulation. i'm most likely just incompetent at sub setup but it is what it is. if dave handles the crossovers from top to bottom it will be perfect, i know it. there's too much room for error for audiotards like myself. my room has almost no extra space which makes it hard to deal with sub placement.

[davef]

Sorry I couldn't help myself. So how long until dave starts working on the next tower? Something that requires no sub whatsoever but still plays balanced music.

RAAL tweeter
Updated midrange cone
Updated 5.5" woofer
New 6.5" woofer
New 8" woofer
New fancy crossover that somehow magically makes it all work.

Come on dave make it happen. Take everything that makes the sierra tower good and add gut rumbling thunder when appropriate. I need this. Please.

One of the interesting aspects of speaker design is that to get deep bass you must have plenty of internal cabinet volume. Obviously, this requires a very large speaker cabinet. Large speaker cabinets compromise both imaging and midrange performance. Sure, we can easily design a tower speaker with true 20Hz bass, but getting it to perform as well as our Sierra towers with mids and imaging would be an incredible challenge. The only way might be to include a powered woofer section so that we can keep cabinet size somewhat reduced...

[Brannigan]

Salk did it with the exotica 3. There's nothing wrong with borrowing that idea since it seems like they borrowed all of yours and ran with it while charging a fortune. I think you could make a poor man's version of it for half the price that sounds almost if not just as good. I'll start saving right now.

[Brannigan]

Maybe rythmik can help and make a new amp with a few controls on the back to help control peaks for the big woofer.

[N Boros]

Brannigan,

Suppose you have a sealed rectangular room. The best place to put your speakers for bass would be at the midpoints of opposing walls. This placement will allow you to move around the room and have a consistent response in the bass region. There won't be places where there are huge peaks or nulls in the bass region (or at least you will have minimized this). You will have also likely canceled out some of the nulls.

The problem with this is that this is the worst place you can put the speakers to image well. The modern approach of using subwoofers is a great fix to the problem. You can get a couple of capable Rythmik subwoofers and place them ideally for the best bass response. You can then place your mains where they need to be to give you the best imaging and soundstage. This also saves you money and gives you better performance all around.

With this approach, depending on the size of your room, you may or not even need tower speakers since the subwoofer is helping with the heavy lifting in the bass region. If you have a larger room, then you may still need tower speakers for the 100 Hz up to 500 Hz region, where the bookshelf speakers might struggle in pressurizing the space.

[yellowbalt]

Hi Dave,
New member here. We are exchanging email regarding delivery to Canada. I'm really interested with either S2 or ST but still pondering about that high tax of ours. Might as well wait for "The Challenger Deep" so don't have to upgrade for a long time.
My amp is W4S (class D) and I currently have Veritas 6.2 and Totem Rainmakers.

Any ETA for the new tower?

Cheers,
Danny

[N Boros]

Hi Dave,
New member here. We are exchanging email regarding delivery to Canada. I'm really interested with either S2 or ST but still pondering about that high tax of ours. Might as well wait for "The Challenger Deep" so don't have to upgrade for a long time.
My amp is W4S (class D) and I currently have Veritas 6.2 and Totem Rainmakers.

Any ETA for the new tower?

Cheers,
Danny

Danny,

Welcome to the forum. I interpret Dave's comment above as he is saying it is really tough and not something he might do in any time soon, if at all. I could be wrong.

He is currently close to finishing up the Sierra Sat that is hopefully releasing soon and then it sounded like his next project might be a Sierra tower or bookshelf with a diamond tweeter. He has said it will be at least $6000 for a bookshelf implementation though because of the high cost of the diamond tweeter.

[yellowbalt]

Thank you very much for your reply.
That diamond tweeter is very intriguing but for 6k bookshelf, it might be too much at least for me but it might be acceptable if its a tower.

Danny

[N Boros]

Thank you very much for your reply.
That diamond tweeter is very intriguing but for 6k bookshelf
Danny


Just to be clear, he said at least $6,000. He has no idea how much it might cost, since he hasn't started designing it yet, but knows that it will be more than $6,000.

I own the Sierra 2s and they are excellent speakers that I don't plan to replace for any time soon. When I save up enough money I plan to build a small enclosed theater room (about 12 ft by 18 ft) in my basement and use the Sierra 2s in there. If you have a larger room, you might need the towers.

[Brannigan]

Sorry if i mislead anyone. It was (sort of) a joke thread and a dumb one at that. I was just dreaming. I am curious what dave could do if he decided to take the tower to a new level but of course if it's too expensive it might not appeal to the ascend crowd. I'm guessing that as it stands the ultimate sound would come from sierra 2 with diamond tweeter and a good sub well blended.

[mikesiskav]

I would guess that if the diamond tweeter works well in a bookshelf, it would also makes sense in the tower. If not more so.

[wilcat_2000]

Anyone see the Spendor D9?
http://www.spendoraudio.com/Images/Spendor%20D9%20New%20Product%20Information.pdf

man it looks familiar...

[sludgeogre]

Anyone see the Spendor D9?
http://www.spendoraudio.com/Images/Spendor%20D9%20New%20Product%20Information.pdf

man it looks familiar...

Yeah it sure does, but their tweeter looks pretty cool, and so does the rear port. Made in the UK, though, so they would likely cost a whole lot of cash to bring over to the US.

The crossover looks quite a bit different from the stuff that Dave uses. The materials for the woofers are also quite different.

It's really hard to tell how they'd compare with what little measurements most companies give these days. Many don't even give a +/- 3 dB rating to their frequency response, and even fewer list anechoic and in-room response. Drives me nuts!

[theophile]

Anyone see the Spendor D9?
http://www.spendoraudio.com/Images/Spendor%20D9%20New%20Product%20Information.pdf

man it looks familiar...

As do many slim tall towers. Spendor Audio does make a quality product, no doubt these would sound great! But as any thing you purchase, most of us want to obtain the best value (sound) for our hard earned $$$ ;)

However, over the Ascend Towers, not sure the D9's would have any sound quality advantages, especially for 4X the price! :rolleyes: According to specs (with RAAL tweeters), frequency response goes to the Ascends. The D9's are shown going down to 27hz (1\2 octave lower), however that could be with a 10db down point (spec not mentioned). The Ascend Towers have greater power handling capability, higher efficiency, smaller footprint, more compact dimensions, longer warranty, made in USA by Dave Fabricant and in MHO, better looks!!! :cool:

A direct A\B comparison would be interesting, but I'd bet that 75% overall savings on the AA Towers! :D

Ted

[sludgeogre]

As do many slim tall towers. Spendor Audio does make a quality product, no doubt these would sound great! But as any thing you purchase, most of us want to obtain the best value (sound) for our hard earned $$$ ;)

However, over the Ascend Towers, not sure the D9's would have any sound quality advantages, especially for 4X the price! :rolleyes: According to specks (with RAAL tweeters), frequency response goes to the Ascends. The D9's are shown going down to 27hz (1\2 octave lower), however that could be with a 10db down point (spec not mentioned). The Ascend Towers have greater power handling capability, higher efficiency, smaller footprint, more compact dimensions, longer warranty, made in USA by Dave Fabricant and in MHO, better looks!!! :cool:

A direct A\B comparison would be interesting, but I'd bet that 75% overall savings on the AA Towers! :D

Ted

I did not even look for a price, but 4x the cost? HOLY COW! Not worth it at all!

[Blutarsky]

I am thinking of a tower with dual 8 inch woofers that produce 30 Hz for music listening. These could benefit from a subwoofer for theater, but could still stand on their own without subs.

I enjoy my dual subs now, but am not a big fan of huge LFE, and have never made subs sound perfectly blended in spite of 15 years of fiddling with various ones in various systems.

B.

[Too_Blue]

[QUOTE=Blutarsky;55461]I am thinking of a tower with dual 8 inch woofers that produce 30 Hz for music listening. These could benefit from a subwoofer for theater, but could still stand on their own without subs.

[QUOTE]





Set a pair of Sierra 2s on top of a pair of Rythmik F8s on some sorbethane dots, cross them over between 160-200 Hz, done. How you gonna beat that SQ with anything bigger than the current towers that you can build for a reasonable price, especially since for another couple hundred you can EQ the bass?

If you absolutely must have 3-Way towers with big woofers and a "dedicated" midrange.

Just sayin'.

Personally, I'd cross them at 50 or 60 Hz and put the subs on either side of the room.