Very impressive Dave, love the STC! Has pricing been mentioned, I may have missed it?
Once I move and get my wall hung flat screen, the STC will be mine.......*cue evil laugh*:)
For now I have to "suffer" with the Sierra-1 NrT center.
Printable View
Very impressive Dave, love the STC! Has pricing been mentioned, I may have missed it?
Once I move and get my wall hung flat screen, the STC will be mine.......*cue evil laugh*:)
For now I have to "suffer" with the Sierra-1 NrT center.
Yes -- they definitely could but to get the same low end performance as the Towers, the cabinet volume needs to be the exact same as the tower...
As I understand it, you need 23" wide.... I will do some additional modeling and see what works. I would like to try and avoid increasing the depth (10 1/2") and height (10 7/8").
Wow, that would be fantastic, Dave! And I will be retaining the Sierra-1NRT's for the L and R speakers; HT is my thing, so having an exceptional speaker is so important.
PS And yes, 23" W max.
PS2 And since I have a SubMersive HP, low end output is irrelevant for the Center.
Just curious,
are the woofers desined to work in sealed box?
What is the purpose\advantage to have the low end just like the towers when it comes to center channel.
thanks
Brian, lol! We're here for ya!
This centre is not something you try to fit into your home theatre, oh no. It's something you build your home theatre around! Love it!
I have a few questions:
From David's recent post I see that the prototype is 10.5'' deep and almost 10.9" high, but what is its actual width? (It's more than 23" I know.)
Would this centre channel also work well with two Sierra bookshelves as left and rights, if one didn't have the room for the towers, or would it overpower them? I've heard people say the centre channel is the most important, and this thing definitely looks important. :D
It looks like this centre is easily study enough, and fashionable enough, to use as a TV stand! Also, I think it would look better under the TV than over, because it is so large. The problem is, since I like the TV fairly low to the floor (zen style I suppose), perhaps just 1.5 feet off the floor, this would mean that the centre would be that much closer to the floor, and would have to be angled up quite a bit. Would this be a problem for the sound? (If angled, it could no longer be used as as TV stand, drats. Unless the baffle itself was angled. But that's probably a bridge too far... )
Mark
Thank you Mark! The new crossovers, now the center, and now ribbon tweets...i'm really trying to be patient!
How cool would it be to use 5 of those bad boys...5.1??? Or even just as a L,C,R all at even levels, that would be perfect. All 3 front tweets even level...yum! I could just see my wifeys face as she walks in the room...:eek: and you bought what...:eek:
Brian in Bakersfield...
Wow that center is a monster, but since my family room isn't a dedicated theater room, it looks like I'll be sticking with the smaller Sierra 1 center for now in an effort to keep the room somewhat livable :). I bet the new center's performance is fabulous.
That is one large center speaker! Performance should be spectacular.
I hope someone close to me buys a pair of towers and allows me to audition them!!:D
With the STC being 28" wide, it will be fairly close to my HTPC. This may sound like a dumb question because most of us have gone to LCD or plasma HDTVs, but is the STC going to be mag shielded? I don't want it to wipe the hard drive in my HTPC. :eek:
I'm a bit surprised by this statement, honestly I'd gladly sacrifice a bit of depth (1-2 inches) for a shorter (narrower would be nice too, but far less important to me) center channel.
even at 12 inches, it wouldn't be that unusually deep for a center channel.
Paradigm has several centers from 12-14in deep, as does B&W and several other speaker makers, depth can be hidden in a shelf, or under a tv, height and width are always going to be visible unless you happen to be using a projector with a speaker behind the screen, but then you would just use a tower anyway.
Increasing the depth just to 12 would allow you to bring the width down to 24.5. Though honestly if there was room, it would be far more beneficial to lose some height and keep some of that width (something like 27w x ~9.85h x 12d), but it looks like with the mid/tweeter stacked like that there isn't much room for choice unless you actually redesigned the housing of the tweeter which seems like more room than it's worth.
Any chance you guys have considered a W-M-T-M-W configuration? I know it would take some tweaking to balance it with the towers and it wouldn't be an EXACT match for the towers, but I'd think the increased midrange from dual mids would be beneficial for dialogue. Plus it would allow for the tweeter to stay in the center vs the W-M-T-W config you described and maintain symmetry (I R OCD about such things ^_^, I love the freedom W-M-T-W would give regarding size, but the idea of an off-center tweeter just wigs me out, at least any more than 1-2 inches since i know the directionality would wig me out on higher frequencies.)
Anyways, sorry to ramble, I love the idea of the Center, and I'm sure it sounds just as good as the towers, it just seems like in the current configuration, the options for fitting it into a system would be extremely limited. For me it wouldn't make a huge difference since the only way the speaker would fit in my current console is if it somehow was only 9" tall, so I'm going to end up having to go with a Sierra-1 center for the near term.
I also think you could help with the look of the speaker if the woofers were vertically centered, but that's just my ocd again.
I'm gunna shut up now.
David ,The tower 8 ohm 6 ohm or 4ohm? David, can you ship my tower as soon as before my wife change her mind
I do somewhat agree more with the above comments about depth not being as much of an issue as height or width; currently having plenty of space available behind a CMT-340 SE, compared to the width of a few inches at most. Hopefully a dimension change like that wont impact SQ, though that may just be wishful thinking.
Dave,
When can one preorder one of these as well:D. Even if kinks are being worked. Would be nice to match up with my soon shipping towers(I hope:o). I started this to replace family room setup but looks like this will be getting top billing in the dedicated theater.
Differences would seem to be more preferable, albeit at a said cost increase. For me it's largely the height that is noticeable more than anything, and that in itself isn't even a big deal. It's more of a visual difference compared to current speakers than anything else. But just the same, in would seem a fairly large improvement acoustically too. A worthwhile tradeoff at that IMO.
great looking center dave! it is indeed much larger, but it looks like a real performer that you'd stack behind a projector screen or be lucky enough to squeeze below a flatpanel tv. it looks like in the effort to build an amazing center channel, you just created the need for an inbetween ascend product (somewhere between the SC and STC). I guess we can't have it all ways (form factor and top sound quality). i for one would like to have the tweeter above that mid, as I read that is one of the best layouts for a center, but it also looks like you're out of room as far as squeezing it down any shorter.
either way, great work :) I have a feeling this new even higher end product will bring in a few more new comers to the ascend-owners family
We just received all of the final packaging materials for the Sierra Towers and I am very happy with the quality.
Upon recommendation from the packaging company, we are not double boxing these speakers, instead we are using a single box which is double wall and has a 500 lb/sq inch burst rating. The box is more like a crate than a typical cardboard box and as usual, our packaging is overkill for these speakers. We prefer not to take any chances though ;)
Our flat rate domestic ground shipping per pair will be $96.00. We expect to finally start shipping later next week :) I can't wait and it will be very nice to finally come up for air ;)
Attached are some pics of the packaging.
Beefy looking boxes :)
Dave, have you considered a W-M-T-M-W configuration with the prototype center speaker?
That's great news, but who said you could come up for air until you finish the STC? ;)
But seriously, it sounds like a major accomplishment to wrangle everything together to get the Sierra Towers rolling. Sometimes my projects at the office drive me into the ground until I wrap up a major milestone, and afterwards I desperately need some down time to catch my breath.
Hi Guys...
Spent much of the afternoon at our cabinet maker inspecting the finishes and going over some final details on how to ship the cabinets to us. They expect to deliver the cabinets to us by next Thursday and we hope to start assembly and shipping that same day :)
BTW, the cabinets simply look fantastic and they nailed the finish color for the naturals, espresso and dark cherry. The satin espresso is my new favorite, but this seems to vary every month.
I only had my iPhone with me but I did manage to take some pictures to share with you.
Enjoy!!
just out of curiosity. Is there no damping material for the mid driver enclosure?
We use a different kind of damping material for the midrange woofer enclosure. It is a pillow stuffing type of Dacron rather than an adhered batting material. The precise amount is weighed at our facility and we install it prior to inserting the woofer. The entire small enclosure is actually packed fairly tight with Dacron in order to reach our desired "Q" and absorb rear-wave reflections.
It is handled a bit differently since this is a sealed enclosure.
I really like the cherry finishes, I like reds.
Great pics, Dave. Lots of work coming to fruition. :) The colored finishes almost make me wish I got one. That said, I can't wait to see the gloss black in person.
Like with our Sierra-1, there will be an additional fee for magnetic shielding. However, you absolutely DO NOT need the speaker to be magnetically shielded even if your HTPC is sitting directly on top of the speaker :) This is one of the most widely misunderstood issues...
To cause data corruption to a hard drive, one must apply a minimum of about 2500 gauss to the external shell of the unit. I have never seen a typical loudspeaker radiate more than 100 gauss measured at only one inch away.
Here is a good example, our production line PC test station is only about 12 inches away from the loudspeaker under test. In the past 12 years, at least 50K loudspeakers have been tested in this setup and we often leave loudspeakers on the production line overnight and over the weekend. In other words, this PC has been subject to the magnetic field of our loudspeakers almost continuously for the past 12 years. Absolutely no problems :)
We are currently in the process of a quick redesign of the center. Since depth does not seem to be an issue, the redesign dimensions are 23" wide and 12.5" deep. This keeps the cabinet volume the same.
The woofers are not designed to work in a completely sealed cabinet. With the low end performance, keeping the cabinet volume for the woofers the same is important as it also keeps bass alignment the same as the towers and this is important to allow the Sierra Towers and the Sierra Center to achieve the same integration with a subwoofer... A low crossover point is highly recommended for both the Sierra Towers and the STC.
Most definitely -- this is a fantastic center!
The STC cabinet is made from the same bamboo as our Tower and Sierra-1. This laminated bamboo is ridiculously sturdy and the cabinet is well braced. I don't think this cabinet would have a problem supporting even a 35" CRT television :) Any size LCD, Plasma or DLP will not be a problem.
18" off the floor will be OK.
Dave: Is there a Sierra-1 in high gloss (instead of Piano Black) finish to match Sierra Tower (ST) and Center's (STC) finishes if one wants to use Sierra-1 as surround speaker?