Sierra-2 Development Thread

[curtis]

I know at least Vapor audio uses custom raal and custom audio tech for his cirrus.

Curtis, sometimes you just have to be fair and unbias.

Thanks..I did not know this about Vapor. I will look into it. Knowing that they are a smaller ID company, and deal in lower quantities, I wonder what kind of a premium they are paying for the customizations.

Fair and unbiased? What about it just being my point of view, just like you have your point of view?

[RicardoJoa]

Thanks..I did not know this about Vapor. I will look into it. Knowing that they are a smaller ID company, and deal in lower quantities, I wonder what kind of a premium they are paying for the customizations.

Fair and unbiased? What about it just being my point of view, just like you have your point of view?

Well you sounded so "sure'' no ID speaker company would employ custom drivers without even doing a little research. Whatever dude
Im glad you finally got my point of view.
Even custom drivers will employs parts that are already available, specially when you know who manufacture Ascend drivers. A quick search on the manufacture is all it takes.

[curtis]

Well you sounded so "sure'' no ID speaker company would employ custom drivers without even doing a little research. Whatever dude
Im glad you finally got my point of view.
Even custom drivers will employs parts that are already available, specially when you know who manufacture Ascend drivers. A quick search on the manufacture is all it takes.

Ricardo, while I thanked you for the info, it doesn't mean that it is true, which is why I said I would look into it. As far as me sounding so "sure"...my sentence even included "as far as I know".

Sure custom drivers may use available tooling. A quick search and you will find similar stuff, but there are parameters and internals that you won't see, so I really hope you don't think it is that simple.

I hope you get my point of view.

[davef]

I know at least Vapor audio uses custom raal and custom audio tech for his cirrus.
There is really nothing wrong with using off the shelf parts. It really depends how and what goal a desinger wants to meet and they may not even be related to the speaker itself but rather in terms of cost. If these parts/items are inferior they wouldnt be on the "shelf".
Curtis, sometimes you just have to be fair and unbias.

Well you sounded so "sure'' no ID speaker company would employ custom drivers without even doing a little research. Whatever dude
Im glad you finally got my point of view.
Even custom drivers will employs parts that are already available, specially when you know who manufacture Ascend drivers. A quick search on the manufacture is all it takes.

Ricardo, you seem to think you know more about my company's designs and procedures than nearly anyone else. At least that is how your posts come across to me and to many others. The fact is, you really have no idea and any supposedly secret info given to you from competitors of ours is just that, information from competitors used to sell you their products and more than likely, entirely untrue.

Regarding the “custom” RAAL 70-20 used by Vapor, companies can make one minor change to a driver and call it custom. Fact is, every 70-20xr should be considered customized and the only change made by Vapor is the impedance of the transformer and the core material (OEM has the choice of iron or Amorphous metal). The stock 70-20XR (if there can even be considered a stock version) comes with 3 impedance taps on the transformer and to save a few dollars in cost, Aleks will wind with only one impedance tap to the specification requested by the manufacturer. He can also make subtle changes to the transformer inductance as this allows one to remove an inductor in the crossover in order to achieve the desired filter slope while simplifying the loudspeaker’s crossover.

We do the same, as does Salk... I personally don't really consider this a customization but nothing wrong with Vapor stating it as such -- but it is NOT AT ALL representative of how we do things.

An example, our customization to the RAAL goes a bit deeper than this. One customization I am willing to openly discuss because it is extremely obvious. At considerable expense, we designed our own faceplate which actually extends to modifications of the tweeter's entire assembly. This is quite expensive and was done for two reasons -- allows cost savings to our customers with regard to cabinet design and also allows for closer spacing to the midrange driver which I found important in the design of our towers. The other customization we do is to the ribbon diaphragm itself and is something I am not going to discuss with you, but it is something we spent a lot of time on with Aleksandar and his staff directly.

I think this will surprise you, but nevertheless -- please see the attached 2 pictures. The person in the pics working on the RAAL ribbons in our warehouse is Mladen. Mladen is the technician at RAAL and does the final assembly of every RAAL 70-20 (and nearly every other RAAL ribbon). I had an idea on how to possibly improve performance of the units we use and Aleksandar immediately sent his chief technician to us on short notice all the way from Serbia to conduct experiments and determine if what we desired was feasible and made sense. Aleks was willing to do this with us because we sell at what RAAL considers to be very large volumes and Aleks and I are on the same wavelength when it comes to continuous product improvements and recognizing each others skills. In fact, Aleks and I communicate nearly once per week and our relationship has extended past professional and I am proud to call him my friend.

It turned out to be an extremely worthwhile and educational meeting of like minds for myself, my staff, RAAL and another industry guru who accompanied Mladen -- the results of which have been successfully implemented with the units we receive.

I have never previously discussed this but your posts here and at other forums are starting to offend me and have pushed me to make information like this public.

Please take all further comments offline.

[Mag_Neato]

Thanks for the detailed post, Dave!

While I love to hear about the details taking place behind the scenes, I don't like the fact that you felt "Pushed" to reveal them. Most of us hear are smart enough to distinguish fact from someone's "idea" of fact, or better known as fiction. Many times I had my own thoughts of how you operated behind the scenes only to be corrected from one or more of your update posts. I'd never post my thoughts as fact as to how you do things, Dave, as I really have no clue! Most of us can see through the B.S.

Do not let yourself feel bullied into posting proprietary details that otherwise would not be revealed.

[Blutarsky]

Good manners are easy to bypass in our "Brave New World" of connectivity.

Ascend Forumians are usually the exception. Thank's to all of you.

Blutarsky

[guillermorb73]

Dave, thank you for your extremely informative and technical responses. It really is a breath of fresh air when people such as yourself, Mr. Jim Salk, et al. are so passionate about what you do!

[davef]

Thanks for the detailed post, Dave!

While I love to hear about the details taking place behind the scenes, I don't like the fact that you felt "Pushed" to reveal them. Most of us hear are smart enough to distinguish fact from someone's "idea" of fact, or better known as fiction. Many times I had my own thoughts of how you operated behind the scenes only to be corrected from one or more of your update posts. I'd never post my thoughts as fact as to how you do things, Dave, as I really have no clue! Most of us can see through the B.S.

Do not let yourself feel bullied into posting proprietary details that otherwise would not be revealed.

Good manners are easy to bypass in our "Brave New World" of connectivity.

Ascend Forumians are usually the exception. Thank's to all of you.

Blutarsky

Dave, thank you for your extremely informative and technical responses. It really is a breath of fresh air when people such as yourself, Mr. Jim Salk, et al. are so passionate about what you do!

Thanks a ton!!! These posts are truly encouraging and remind me to -- "just enjoy the music"

Kids are on spring break and it is 78 degrees and sunny... Closing up shop for the day and deciding what CD to listen to for my daily de-stress session before I head home

[j0nnyfive]

Hear, hear!

I just want to take a time out (from my studying) to say thanks to Dave and others here for being very mature, positive, patient, and helpful to me about my OCD questions! (I don't really have OCD just in case anyone thought I was serious about that lol) Ascend Acoustics rocks, Dave!! Thanks for the good sound!! (Listening to some movie soundtracks on my CMT-340s sans sub right now.) I'm a fanboy, I know, I know.

On a side note:
I remember reading something on here about there being one person to not be satisfied with the Sierra-1 Nrt bookshelf because of sensitivity. I think that was me, and I want to officially take it back. I AM satisfied with the sensitivity of the Sierra-1 Nrt. I was an uber noob and didn't understand things at the time. So officially, there has been nobody wanting to send the speakers back because they weren't loud enough. I don't count. lol FWIW! (So what was my problem? Lack of understanding and patience, and not understanding what I needed or wanted.) So... yeah.... just in case that was me, I want to take it back! I'm living with my parents at the moment (gone back to school), and we have the Sierra Towers and CMT-340 SE in the same house. Woooooo!!! Lots of sound!

[JustaSheep]

Dave (and all),

It is responses like these that made buying from your company an easy choice for me, even though I had not heard the speakers. I had heard some of the "competition", B&W, Paradigm, Aperion, Maggies, etc. Maybe I'm too trusting, but it was easy to pull the trigger with confidence based on the people and conversations in this forum, the customer service from calls and emails, and your candor. I've not regretted it for a single second since receiving my first order (towers).

Thank you for keeping your work-space clean and professional.

Sheep