Hey, it's a new guy! Basic Ascend questions

[AjayRav]

Hi Mike,

Just a couple of quick commments. The Ascends are very neutral speakers with excellent soundstaging. Really, that is their forte. They have the 'boxless' sound audiophiles crave. Make no mistake, these are budget speakers (at $350 a pr), however, they put other speakers costing far more to shame. They are bass shy and are designed to work with a sub. Especially while listening to music, you will need a good sub that does note just provide one-note bass. Hsu, SVS and the RAVA come to mind. What sub will you be using? With the Ascends being fairly efficient you should have no problems acheiving ridiculously high sound levels. Regarding the package price, Ascend has special discounted prices if multiple speakers are purchased together (or within a short span of time).

Hope this helps,
Ajay

[michaeld]

Hi Ajay. Thanks for the reply. Glad to see this place has some traffic.

Heh, "$350 budget speakers." [:0] <--my reaction once i said "you know, I need to buy some better speakers...time to enter the big leagues" and started looking around.

Believe me, $350 for a pair of 6" bookshelf speakers is a bit spendy...for me anyway. I paid $300 for the two Kenwood towers I have...six years ago. [xx(]

AFA the sub goes, I will be purchasing a SVS PB2+. Bass will not be a problem. [8D] I currently have a Cerwin Vega LW-15...Ebay will take care of that.

I'm sure they can play "loudly"; the 200W power handling hints at that. But do they have any "oomph" in the midbass region? I get nervous with that 6.5" driver. Most midbass drivers are usually of the 8" variety...

Thanks!

[Quinn]

Mike anyone in your area that you can audition them at? I think with the importance you place on mid-bass it would be best to order just a pair to begin with to try for your tastes. If you don't like them you're out less than $20 in shipping costs.

Where are you able to set the crossover on your receiver? With most recievers the crossover is going to be higher than the mid 60hz range the 170s go down to.

I wouldn't get too caught up in driver size in relation to mid-bass. There are highly respected speakers that drop into the 40s with drivers less than 8". Design has the biggest impact on performance. The 170s are nearly 10" deep to accomodate the excursion length of these drivers.

[michaeld]

I'm in San Antonio TX. But not right now...I'm overseas currently...be back in November. So actually, anything I buy now, I won't hear until much later....just kinda "stocking up" for my return. []

IIRC, my Kenwood has an 90Hz/12db lowpass on the sub preout. Lemme go check *goes to Kenwood's site for manual*

Stupid online manual..it doesn't say. But I remember reading SOMEWHERE that it's 90Hz. I currently have the crossover freq on my CV sub set at 80Hz.

[michaeld]

[q]I wouldn't get too caught up in driver size in relation to mid-bass. There are highly respected speakers that drop into the 40s with drivers less than 8". Design has the biggest impact on performance. The 170s are nearly 10" deep to accomodate the excursion length of these drivers.[/q]

You know, I missed that spec. That is pretty deep for a 6.5" driver. Maybe I'll just order the set and roll the dice. I'm not particularly a gambling man, but the odds look pretty good on this one.

[Quinn]

Well, if you get down to Houston I can help you out.

[curtis]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Arial, Verdana, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Believe me, $350 for a pair of 6" bookshelf speakers is a bit spendy...for me anyway. I paid $300 for the two Kenwood towers I have...six years ago.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I can also tell you that these speakers compare very well to speakers costing three times as much. I suggest getting out to some shops and listening to various bookshelf speakers in the price range before you order a pair of Ascends.

-curtis