SE WI Tower speaker GTG - Page 3

Ditto. Since the guy from Chicago backed out I say we just sit back and enjoy in comfort, sans blindfold. Your call. I am confident the Ascends will be awesome

Heh, its "hearing specialist" how many confirmed do you have coming tomorrow? I wish I could drive down but I have some "daddy" stuff to do. I'm curious what your outcomes were with the calibrations you were messin with and if you did anymore from what you posted last. Anyways, good luck tomorrow and everyone will be drooling over your new babies!!!

Brian in Bakersfield...

Hey Brandon,

What did you buy for a full range mic? I was looking at a Dayton or the Behringer from Cross Spectrum Labs. I will look forward to your thoughts on using a full range mic compared to using the Rat Shack SPL meter. I think its time for me to buy a better mic as well.

http://www.cross-spectrum.com/measur...behringer.html

http://www.cross-spectrum.com/measur...ed_dayton.html

Bill

Brian....you realize they are in Wisconsin, right?

Just wanting to enjoy these towers thru others

I'm just super excited about these towers and their amazing possibilities!!!

Hey guys,

Wish I could be there – this sounds like it is going to be a ton of fun.

Just a point of clarification…

Our tower was never specifically designed to “trump” anything but our own Sierra-1 and Sierra-1 NrT. With many thousands of Sierra-1 owners out there and having received hundreds of requests over the years to offer something that improved upon every aspect of the Sierra-1 (with power handling, efficiency, midrange and high-frequency detail being the primary factors), Brandon’s continuous pestering finally put me over the top to finally get it done…. (kidding Brandon, well - maybe not kidding so much )

Like our other products, we never targeted a specific speaker – instead we simply took an already well-proven performer (our Sierra-1) and improved upon it. This has been our formula since the beginning and the design of the tower is the specific result of what was required to reach those improvement goals.

That being said, I have head the Song Towers in comparison to our Towers and while both are very neutral, very detailed and musical – they are still different speakers and paint a different picture. Just like everything else audio, I suspect some will prefer the Songs and some will prefer our Towers. I will say this about the Song Towers though, they are an absolutely fantastic loudspeaker with performance that actually exceeds the individual components. Meaning that I do not think there is a designer anywhere who can use the exact same drivers and produce a better loudspeaker.

Another important goal for our speaker was to also perform exceptionally well for home theater and our tower is capable of maintaining its performance at rather absurd listening levels – it uses extremely robust drivers. One of the neat things about it is its diminutive size – it looks downright tiny compared to the Songs, but don’t let that small size fool you!

As Curtis said, don’t let measurements or figuring out how to do blind tests get in the way of having a good time and listening to some great music with some great speakers… Just have fun and I only wish I could be there too.

Thank you for the informative post, Dave. Ascend and Salk provide customer service second to none, and we're all blessed to be able to reap the benefits of your hard work.

I look forward to hearing your new creation, as I am sure it will become another great benchmark for the $2000ish price range. I certainly feel the Sierra's do this in the $1000 range.

Looks like I'm going to be the first to respond about the GTG. Not good...I hate that.

First, Brandon and his wife are fantastic hosts. Great food, beer, and an always welcome feeling. You guys are great! I also appreciate that Brandon's wife puts up with all of us and actually suffers through the entire day with us. I wish my wife would do that!

I really need to preface my following comments regarding the sound of the Ascend Towers vs. my Salk HT2-TL's by stating that my speakers sounded VERY different in Brandon's room. The room plays a major role in that, but I also feel it has to do with the front end electronics. I've spent a lot of time and money getting my Salk's to deliver a sound that I think is as close to perfect as I'll get with my budget. I am VERY happy with my setup.

I struggled listening to my Salk's due the significant difference in sound. This made me sort of just listen to the Ascend's without really making any specific observations.

In general, what I heard was that my HT2-TL's have significantly more low bass output that was proven with our measurements. This is not to say the Ascend's were lacking. They were quite impressive really. The bass was full and punchy displaying a very capable sound even at higher volumes.

I felt the Ascend's had a more emphasized upper midrange sound. I can't really state it much better than that, sorry. There was no evidence in the measurements that this would be so, so it has to do with something that measurements don't show. We did move the speaker position which did clean this sound up a bit. I suppose the Ascend's were interacting with the room slightly differently? I can't be sure.

I'm going to honest and let people know that I am not a fan of the Sierra-1's having tried them a few years ago. Mostly I'll blame the sound of the tweeter. I just couldn't like them. So one of the things I was very interested to hear was the NrT tweeter improved over the original in the Sierra-1. I still clearly prefer the ribbon tweeter in the HT2-TL, but I can't say that I heard anything I didn't like from the Ascend's. The tweeter is a real improvement over the previous one in my opinion.

I would really like Brandon to bring the Ascend Towers to my house for a GTG at some point because I'd really like to hear them on my gear and in my room. I would be able to comment much more specifically on the differences in sound. Maybe this will happen in the near future.

Overall, I'd say the Ascend Towers are a really good speaker. I can completely understand how Brandon likes the so much; he should! The look and finish were also very good. Would I still pay over $4k for my Salk's? YES!

To me the SongTowers are similar to Atlantic Technologies new TL with a different low resonance tweeter of course. I'm curious is the Songs use a high resonance woofer like the Atlantics? Anyways, I will patiently wait for your graphs

Yup--wish I could have been there. One point of clarification, and one question. It will probably be obvious from the picture, but Terry's HT2TL was the first one sold, and used the lcy ribbon. Jim dropped that unit because of a subsequent change in specs and switched to the RAAL ribbon (with a new crossover, of course). My question concerns the measurements, which are a little confusing. They're obviously incorporating room effects across the band, rather than the usual anechoic mode that's used for design purposes above 200 Hz. Do you know what kind of test signal is being used? Is it possible to measure anechoically with this unit? I doubt that the inherent response of the two speakers is really as similar as the measurements indicate (though it could be). That dip between 4k and 5k evident on both speakers is almost certainly not part of the anechoic response and must reflect room interaction. This is probably of more interest to me than anyone else, but I would like to understand the nature of the measurements a little better. Thanks for throwing the event!

I am sorry for taking so long to respond guys; I got very ill Sat night and even worse Sunday. Thankfully I am feeling a bit better today.

The GTG was a great time as always. I agree with Terry that Brandon and Erin are always wonderful hosts, and I've got to give a lot of credit to Erin for actually sitting with us and listening to our madness. It takes quite a woman to put up with that, so Brandon, you've got a keeper buddy! Our hosts made sure we had a nice selection of the finest brews and foods, including a special pulled pork sandwich recipe that Brandon shared with us (sooooo good). Needless to say we were taken very good care of.

All right, on to the sound. First let me start off by saying the Ascend Towers are an awesome speaker for the money. I'll admit right now that while I liked the original Sierra's overall for the price, there was a slightly odd midrange anomaly (upper mids if I remember, but not too distracting), and the tweeter was definitely not among my favorites. I am happy to say that this has been remedied, especially the tweeter issues (which was too dull and dry on the original Sierras). There was still an echoey/overdone sounding midrange, but it may have been a product of room interaction, as moving the speakers close together with no toe-in seemed to reduce the issue significantly. I don't know what in Brandon's room would cause this issue, but I really think it was the room. Due to this we're going to bring the speakers (along with my SongTowers) to Terry's house in the next coming weeks. Terry's room is the best I've ever heard that isn't a showroom at a B&M store, so it should provide a better means for comparison. I have a feeling many of the anomalies we heard Saturday will be significantly reduced or completely removed from our listening tests. With that said, I'd wager the midrange on the Ascend Towers will still sound a little more "in your face" than the other speakers. Terry mentioned this already, saying the mids had more emphasis, of which I agree with. Comparing in his room should put things to rest, and we'll be able to formulate better opinions.

The Ascends had great punch and bass extension considering their size. The Salks were better, but they should be, as they use a TL cabinet design and have larger woofers. Due to that this wasn't really an apples to apples comparison, so that's the last I'll mention the bass.

All in all I think Brandon's persistence of pursuing Dave to build an Ascend Tower paid off. Brandon knew what he wanted and I think Ascend did a great job of fulfilling it. Based on chatting with B and watching his face as he listened, I'd say the the wait was definitely worth it, and he seemed very satisfied with his new babies.

Concerning the measurements, they were not gated or anechoic. We simply wanted to take an in-room response to get a feel for what we were hearing at the listening position. However, as Terry mentioned, the measurements didn't line up at all with what we were hearing, so I wouldn't put too much stock in them. What you're seeing is mostly room interaction, so... For what it's worth, though, Dennis, REW uses a 256k log sweep from 15-20,000Hz at -12dB. That will probably make a lot more sense to you, as you're the crossover designer.

Here is the averaged in-room response of the left and right Ascend Tower speakers, measured with my gear (Behringer ECM8000 and M-Audio MobilePre USB Sound Card). The average takes the response of the left and right speaker and does just that, averages them. This is suppose to give a better picture of what you're actually hearing when you sit in the LP and listen.

What I'd venture to say is that the response was without any calibration correct? If that's the case, I can't imagine what Audyssey XT32 "Flat" would do with that or YPAO "Flat" calibration. With the Audyssey Pro version I would bet my left kidney that I could make these Ascend towers sound better than the Songs, and I know the Songs sound great, my opinion here.

I'm interested in the comparison of the Ascend Towers to the Songs as well. If I read the above correctly, this comparison was between the Towers and the HT2's, which cost about twice as much ($4k+(?)) as the Songs/Towers. Still it appears the Ascend Towers held their own quite capably. Interesting...

We didn't make a whole lot of direct comparisons, but the HT2-TL's were definitely the better speaker, no question. And they should be, as they cost twice as much. The problem on Saturday was the room played too much a role in what he heard. The real comparison will be the Songs and Ascend Tower's (in a different room), which are both in the same price range. That comparo is yet to come.


That's correct.


??? Okay... What are you basing that assumption off? Have you heard both? You might be right, you might be wrong. But making statements like that... To each their own.

I am not a fan of EQ above the Schroeder frequency but again, to each their own. For what it's worth, frequency response is only one small portion of designing a good loud speaker, and the FR was not the issue that we were hearing on Saturday. I have a feeling even Audyssey Pro wouldn't have changed the sound much. I've heard speakers with a dead flat in-room response that sounded pretty bad. There is just so much more involved.

Wow, awesome reviews. Sounds like you guys had an excellent time. It's too bad I live all the way here on the west coast. The new Ascend Towers look fantastic and must have sounded equally amazing. It's really something to be able to compete with one of the best valued speakers available costing twice as much. A lot of what Nuance describes about the Sierras I believe I heard as well when I visited Curtis (cschang). I still need to post up my reviews on that, but that's for another thread.

I do have one question though. Are there any forum members in the GTG area that has any DIY speakers like the Statements designed by Jim Holtz and Curt. I'm really curious as to how these speakers would compare, especially since these DIY designs end up costing about or just under $2k.

No sir. I'd love to get a pair of those at our next GTG, though.

Point was that with such an awesome response before calibration or equalization, the adove mentioned (Audyssey XT32) and YPAO would really make it even that much better, imo. The XT32 wouldn't even be working hard to polish that response as great as it is with its massive amount of mirroring capabilities. The Pro version allows more finite filtering and tweakability galore which equates to even better resolution.

I'm all about doing everything physically to enhance what a great receiver with its Parametric solutions can do digitally and better than I. I hear a more accurate reproduction and the resolution takes on a broader definition. My opinion here...

reference: Songs used with Denon Receiver using Audyssey XT and comparing the sound with and without using Chesky's Ultimate Demonstration disk. This Audyssey XT provides a more natural response (little boost in lows and rolloff in the highs) and we did not use its "Flat" scheme.

Natural? Sure, maybe in your opinion. It's likely not everyone would agree, so I am not sure what you're trying to accomplish with your posts. This thread isn't about Audyssey. We're preamp guys, not receiver guys. If you want to listen with a receiver that's cool, but the guys at the GTG prefer separates because we feel they sound better. I am not knocking receivers, by the way, so to each their own.

We can agree to disagree, because Audyssey would NOT have fixed anything above the Schroeder frequency at our event on Sat. This I am sure off. Let this end the Audyssey debate, as this isn't the place for it.

This is a little far fetched in my opinion. By this theory, you could take any speaker and apply Audyssey XT32 or Pro and "make the sound better than the Songs." Not even close to possible.

Frankly, I have yet to hear any receiver, with any room correction feature, sound good to me. It is my opinion that if you really want great sound, stop using a receiver and get a good preamp/DAC combo and a good amp. I'd "bet my left kidney" that you'd achieve better sound without room correction above 80-100Hz.



I have heard Nuance's SongTower RT's on many occasions. I'd say they are VERY close to producing the same sound quality that my HT2-TL's produce not including the bass for obvious reasons. I can honestly say that I would never prefer the Ascend Towers over the SongTower RT's. The SongTowers have a much smoother and cleaner presentation than what I heard from the Ascends.

There were without any doubt some room issues going on, and I was not used to the front end electronics. Again, even my speakers were not sounding anything like what I'm used to hearing. I'll be able to really give an opinion once the Ascend's make it to my house.



You give a lot more credit to Audyssey than I ever would. I don't even like what it does for HT use much less for music. I don't use it at all. I must be doing something wrong.

You fine gents have a great day

I don't think there was any offense taken by any party. I guess we just don't agree with you. There is nothing wrong with that. You have your experiences and we have ours (not that Nuance or I are teaming up on you).

I don't claim to understand the vast complexities that audio brings, however, Nuance and I were shocked at how similarly the two speakers measured yet sounded so different. Frequency response measurements don't seem to tell much regarding the overall sound of a speaker.

To be honest, one of the only reasons we measured the FR of the speakers was to determine how the bass measured in a room other than mine. I have a nasty bass peak in my room at the exact frequency there is a dip in Merrymaid's room. Other than under 100Hz, I don't put much thought into FR measurements, especially given the equipment we're using.

As always...YMMV.