Absolutely, acoustic guitars sound amazing on the towers.
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What is crossover frequency for the tower speakers ?
New poster here!
I am really looking forward to hearing these speakers in my new house; but it is going to be a while before it is done and there is no place to store any speakers, so for now, I am living vicariously through you all.
I can hardly wait to here Jesse Cook "cook" on the towers. I have all his CDs and many more acoustic guitar artists as well as other jazz artists etc.
Thanks for all the information on this thread and on the site; it makes making a major decision on speakers much easier. I have been looking and listening to various brands and models for almost a year now and even though I have not hear the Towers I believe they are exactly what I am looking for.
Thanks again and I am looking forward to more reading (and drooling) over the next few months.
SteveR,
I have had the chance to audition the Sierra Towers with RAAL at a local owner’s house on two separate occasions, and I have heard Jesse Cook played through the towers both of those times. In fact, it was the first artist that he played for both of my auditioning sessions (he is obviously a big fan). I had never heard Jesse Cook prior to those sessions, but after having heard multiple songs of his played through both the Sierra Towers and my Def Tech's I ended up buying his Rumba cd and his DVD "One night at the Metropolis". My wife and I are really enjoying his music, and I'm looking forward to getting my Sierra Towers with RAAL that I ordered two weeks ago.
I must say that as much as I enjoy listening to Jesse Cook through my Def Techs, when I listened to him through the Sierra's with RAAL the sound was truly reference quality. The Sierra's made my speakers sound harsh on the top end and muddied in the midrange. The RAAL was exceptionally smooth while still being detailed, and the midrange was so clean and articulate that I could easily differentiate the individual instruments. The improvement in sound that the Sierra's had in comparison to my BP 30's was immediately apparent in a way that the Focal 836W's and Revel’s were not when doing side-by-side comparisons. If you’ve had a chance to read some of my other postings you will see that I’ve been casually listening to many different speakers for 3 years with the hopes of finding a pair that met all of my expectations. This turned out to be a much more difficult task than I had initially expected. I found that many speakers had harsh/bright sounding tweeters. This was easy to pick up on when using specific source material that I was very familiar with. I found very few tweeters could sound detailed and airy without having any harshness/sibilance. It seemed like almost every speaker had a flaw that I couldn’t live with (harsh highs, muddied midrange, over emphasized bass or lack of bass, etc…). I had listened to enough highly rated speakers that had let me down that decided I wouldn’t buy any speaker that I couldn’t listen to first.
I had high hopes for the Sierra’s prior to listening to them because I knew that they used the RAAL tweeter that I had loved in the Salk speakers that I had a chance to hear, but I was also very skeptical of how good they would sound because I had been let down many times before, and I knew that just because others loved them didn’t mean that they would meet my subjective tastes in sound reproduction (let’s face it, we all hear differently and have different preferences). The first time I heard them I was very impressed with almost everything about them. I left the listening session thinking that I may have found my speaker, but being the analytical skeptic that I am, I didn’t know if what I was hearing was due to differences in equipment and room acoustics. Scott (the local owner) had an OPPO BDP 95, Emotiva amps and a high end receiver that was being used as a processor. I had an older Sony SACD/DVD player and a Marantz SR8200 receiver that cost significantly less then his equipment. I did like the fact that his room was very similar to mine with wide open space and lots of hard surfaces, because it gave me hope that the Sierra’s could sound good in my house. Faced with my doubts about whether the improvements were mostly due to the speaker or the equipment, I asked if I could bring my speakers to Scott’s house for a direct comparison using his equipment. We did a fair amount of direct comparisons just to be sure of what we were hearing, but the truth is that the improvement in sound that the Sierra’s brought was immediately apparent on the first song. I knew for sure after that session that I found the speakers I had been looking for.
My only problem now is that I have only put in two weeks of waiting and I was told that it would be 4-6 weeks. I didn’t think waiting 4-6 weeks would be a big deal because I had taken so long to make a selection, but I now realize that it was always easy to go back to listening to my BP 30s because I would always leave a listening session thinking that the speakers in my price range ($5,000) lacked something that I was looking for. Now that I’ve found the speakers that I want (and have a fresh memory of how they sound), I find that every time I’m listening to my speakers all I can think of is “it would sound so much better on the Sierra’s”. I’m becoming very impatient. I do have the comfort of knowing that I found the speakers that I had been looking for, so I won’t complain too much!
I just realized that I ramble on way too much. I could have just said “Jesse Cook sounds amazing on the Sierra’s with RAAL”. Oh well, I did say that I was analytical, and if you’ve read this far your probably into great sound reproduction as much as I am (if not more so).
Mattcpt,
Thanks for the reply and the extensive posting on your search. I have read this several times and have communicated with others here and on AVS about various potential speakers. From what most describe, the Sierra Towers will fit my needs as close as is possible in this price range and with my intended equipment.
A little more about my media room and what I have planned as to setup etc. The room is medium sized, 18X15 with a 10' ceiling. The plan is for 7.1 or 7.2 initially but will be wired for 11.2; much cheaper to run wire now than later. There will be an equipment rack in an adjacent closet with all the equipment for the media room and the whole house audio system. I plan on some modest video distribution too. Front projection onto a 110" diagonal Cardas screen using a yet to be determined projector...looking at several options.
Speakers will be Sierra Towers L/R, Horizon center, and most likely CMB 170 surrounds. The initial plan is to use a single 12-15 inch sub; Rythmik most likely. Speaker finish to be satin or matte black (to hide reflections from the projector). My use will be 70:30 music to HT so RAAL ribbons are a must. I do not intend on damaging my hearing any more than it is already so modest listening levels will be the order of the day....usually.
Thanks again for such a fine forum and so much useable information.
Any other ideas for surrounds for this size room?
I'm getting ribbon tweeter tower soon (... in about 4 weeks ) I think about companion bookshelf pair with ribbon tweeter. Any ideas ?
for listening to 100% movies would the towers be overkill? Plan on using a large sub. I've just heard great reviews about the center and wouldnt want to buy it and not have a good match of fronts for movies.