Ascend SE Owner's Thread - Page 120

Break in does make a difference ...give them about 50 hours before you judge them

So I finally got my Yamaha 673 AND the 60" Vizio back from being replaced Monday.

Wired up everything with 12guage speaker wire and banana clips and spent last night setting everything up and running YPAO calibration. It was interesting looking thru the PEQ graphs YPAO came up with for the 340's and 170's. I'm sure I will moving things around and rerruning this several times, but for now it is sounding good. I'm still hunting for a proper TV console stand to fit this TV and with room for the 340 Center. There have been a couple that were just an 1" off being able to fit.

Tonite was time to enjoy! Popped Life of Pi into the BR player and relaxed on the couch with my wife.

I must say I am pretty pleased. When the storm hit the boat it felt like I was there!

Why not just place the entire speaker/enclosure in the wall?

One thing you will lose is the effect of the port, but if you are crossing at 80hz, that should not be much of an issue.

Okay so finnally got my 340se center and and a pair of 170se in the mail today. First of all to anyone who doesn't know I currently have a definitive technology pro cinema 600. I like PC 600 a lot quality wise but quantity wise I wanted louder and fuller sound. So I decided I'm going to slowly upgrade until I basically have two different systems. Anyways I took my pro center 600 and traded it with the 340se center and the rift and left pro monitors and replaced them with the 170se's. I'm still running pro monitor 600s for surround duty(5.1).
The first thing I decided to test was avatar blue ray. I was iimediatly impressed! The soundstage felt gigantic! One of the best things my new front setup did well was disaper. When sound went from right to left with the pro monitors I was very aware of there presence. The nnew setup lets me focus on the TV more and I'm no longer distracted by the speaker.
The 340 center works beautifuly. The dialouge is crisis and clear and I no longer have to turn the volume up and down for quiet to loud parts (with the exception of some REALY quiet parts) Everything up front blends so perfectly together. I feel immersed In the sound.
I'd say theese speakers are neautal but not at all boring like I suspected they might. There very very accurate and clean sounding. I can't belive the amount of detail I can hear without getting the sense of seperating the sound. Again very accurate .
I ran yapo and it set the center and front and right to large and my little pro monitor rears to small. Cross over was set to 110 and I bumped it down to 90. ( QUESTION: does setting my front s to large disable the crossover making them full range? Sorry I'm a noob) the blend from front to back was supprising well. I like the smaller sats in rear as I feel it helps focous more to larger front where the fronts large soundstage from there help me to concentrate on the TV and forget about the speakers as I mentioned above.

This is my first review so feel free to ask any questions on anything I missed. Ill also follow up with a review after the 50 hour break in. Theese speakers are already amazing tthough I feel.

Also my room is 12x13 and I'm running the pro sub 600 which will eventuallyy be an svs

Hi all. After months of waiting our home renovations are done and speakers are being set up this weekend! So psyched! I'm going to get some cables made tonight. Just wondering for the 340 mains and center... Will I plug into the tweeter input or the subwoofer input or does it matter? I'll be having an outlaw sub with the system. But since I'm not biwiring I wasn't sure of this answer.

My contractor is actually mounting these in the morning so if someone is able to answer this tonight it would be a huge help!

Thanks,
Frank

There are metal bars or if you will tabs on the backs of the 340's. You can put speaker wire into either the tweeter or woofer(it doesn't have a subwoofer, but I know what you meant) wire terminals. It will still produce sound either way. If you planned on bi-wiring, you would remove the metal tabs and wire both the tweeter and woofer. Just make sure that the positive is to positive and negative is to negative on your AVR or amp. If not your wiring would be out of phase and affect the overall sound quality.

Oops, yeah. Woofer. :-)

So either one. That's what I figured. Do I need to be consistent among the three or does it not matter?

Thanks

As long as those tabs/bars are in place would not matter....just keep them in phase.

PS You're getting cables made? Explain please...

You could call it a woofer, but since it handles both midrange and bass, technically it's a midrange-woofer or "midwoofer." This tweeter also digs into the upper-midrange, but it's uncommon to call it anything but a tweeter.

It doesn't matter, but why not be consistent? Are you a rebel without a cause or what?

I'm a troublemaker. I'm an instigator. But I'm on the side of the good guys, most of the time, so I get a free pass. :-).

i am going to order a set of speakers i would like to get 3 340's across the front and two 200's for the rear. What i am worried about is that my living room where these will be set up is kind of odd shaped. it is a open floor plan with a kitchen and a small dinning room all in one room approx 14 x 20. The listening area where this is to be set up has one wall(where the tv currently is) 8' and the rear wall 12'. Its hard to explain without actually seeing it. What i am wondering is with the front wall shorter then the back will this distort the effect of the surround?

http://www.americanhomeguides.com/Plans/Florida/Bellview/417910/ This is the only image i can find of the floor plan. We don't have the fireplace and that short wall is where are tv is.
Edited by bigblockhead - 3/14/13 at 8:53pm

Link's not a lot of help, doesn't seem to enlarge (and I'm not signing up if that's what it takes). Your room correction software should help in any case, the shape of the room may even help in some cases, more about where in the room you place your speakers; in a 5 ch setup the surrounds should be to the sides, you go to rears with 6/7 channels. I think you'll be happy with the speakers in any case, even if your room isn't totally cooperative. What sub are you using?

I only have one side wall the other one is clear across the dining room . I havent figured out the sub yet.

So where are you putting the surrounds?

ps i.e. where is your seating and the speakers in relation?
Edited by lovinthehd - 3/14/13 at 11:17pm

All Ascend speakers are designed primarily for use with their grilles off, but having said that, naturally the grille cloth that is used is extremely acoustically transparent. It is still possible, however, to measure and for some folks to hear a slight difference in the high midrange and treble. Try it both ways to find out. Here is a brief discussion about this topic on the Ascend forum: http://forum.ascendacoustics.com/showthread.php?4280-Remove-Grills-from-Sierras

I don't know whether it would give you any more "sparkle" but your hearing perception seems sensitive enough that it should make some sort of difference. For what it's worth, the attachments in the following post show the difference the grille makes for the Sierra Tower (with the RAAL ribbon tweeter option):
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1290568/official-ascend-acoustics-tower-thread/1300_100#post_23011316

Right. Large means the sob is not being crossed over with those speakers.

I am brand new to this the only speakers i have ever owned are the ones inside my tv. I had thought in the 5.0 setup that the rear surround could hang on the back wall. our couch is up against the back wall and i was going to place the speakers on each side of the couch on the back wall. if i was to buy regular surround speakers instead of book case ( like the ones HTD sells) would that work? I just would rather not do ceiling speakers. one more thing what would work better with the 340's Denon 1913 0r the 890? All i will hook up is WII,cable computer, blue ray player. thanks for all the help.

That's what I do with my 170SE surrounds, which sit on two shelves mounted on the back wall to the sides of the viewers and above ear level, and point directly toward the central viewing location (as though they were mounted on side walls).

If by that you mean bipoles and dipoles, then I seriously doubt that they would work properly in such a configuration because they depend on having a wall behind them in order to reflect sound in two directions symmetrically, and a close back wall would only make things even more asymmetrical for them. Besides, in my view these types of speakers are obsolescent anyway in this age of discrete digital stereo surround channels. For more discussion on this topic, read through the following:
http://forum.ascendacoustics.com/showthread.php?5156-Any-chance-we-see-some-Ascend-surround-Bipole-Dipole-speakers

I don't see much of a difference regarding how they would handle the speakers. You may want to consider the 1713, if it has all of the features that you need, because it has a better version of Audyssey than either of those.

Thanks for the help. im relieved that the bookshelf's will work. i am going to check out the 1713. the only reason i was considering the others was i thought they had more wattage and would work better.

Well, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a little more amplifier power available, but to put things into perspective even going from the 1713 to the 890 would only give you about 1 dB higher volume or headroom--not nothing, but not as big of a difference as it may appear (and cost), either.

Newc33, I also own and love my Yamaha receiver with over 100 hrs messing with YPAO. Your fronts can still be set to "large" but bass to "SWR" within the settings still sending dedicated "LFE's" to the sub only. This is one of the many engineered features I love with Yamaha receivers.

If anyone is on the fence about getting Ascend Acoustics speakers, I for one am sold and have only had them for a month. I replaced a 13 year old Mirage surround system with CMT-340 SE Mains and 340 SE Center, and the CBM-170's for the surrounds. The old system consisted of the OM-6 mains with built in powered subs, the OM-C2 and OM-R2 surrounds. The sound of the new system with both music & HT, is much improved in every way.

I'm using these speakers with a SVS SB13-Ultra, and even with the cost of this sub it's about 1/2 the price of my old system (considering for inflation $4k in 2000 is just over $5k in 2013). My poor OM-6's have been relegated to back speakers in my 7.1 system. I didn't have the heart to sell them after all these years for cheap.

The customer service has been first class all the way. Dina at Ascend was in contact via email even after hours keeping me informed on build and ship dates etc.

Right, but that means the sub won't be used at all with music. And once he gets his SVS sub, probably best to let it take over the lower frequencies. I would try 60 or 80hz for the fronts and see what you think.

I've got a odd-shaped/open floor plan and I have three 340SEs for the front and two 200SEs for the surrounds. I have added some bass traps and acoustic panels and have not noticed any problems with the sound. Most of the time the surrounds are just supplying sound effects and background noises, so the sound quality isn't noticed. When they are providing music, they sound very good.

What do you guys mean by "SWR" ? I'm going to go home and plug an lfe to my sub. Should I re run yapo? Is there anything else I low need to do? I don't have the option on my recieiver to set individual speaker crossovers. There is is just one setting for all speakers. I have satalites doing surr ound and don't want to set them to low. In my case should I run the fronts at large and leave my overall crossover at 100 like it is now? I'm a little confused on what I should do

OK so I re did my settings. I'm now using the LFE and have all my speakers set to small (even though yapo rcomended large for the fronts) and all crossed over at 60hz. Does this good tobyou guys? The only difference I noticed a somewhat stronger bass. My manual says I can raise the LFE but doesn't say how. What exactly do they mean by raise the lfe?

After trying this I have to say I'm not to fond of the sound. I think this system sounds better when the fronts are set to large. Maybe immediate crazy idk.. I feel like the original setup just sounded Fuller. Should I take the lfe out and run sub as none?

Try raising the crossovers to 80 and turning up the subwoofer channel level 3db in the receiver.

With our Yamaha receivers we can have fronts set to "Large" with bass still going to "SWR" subwoofer. There is a difference between bass and LFE's or low frequency effects. Music will still go to the SWR or subwoofer if that is how it is selected. We can choose between front, swr, or both meaning fronts and sub. If you leave your fronts to large and set the crossover to say 80hz and then set the bass setting to swr then that should be a good start for you to experiment with the settings. Capable fronts can benefit from the large setting with our receivers allowing a full sound while allowing them to provide all sound down to crossover setting without removing any sound effects. To each is own but Yamaha engineered flexible settings that allows one to really fine tune ones setup. Just another reason of many that makes me love my Yamaha. There are some here that do own and can suggest great options from ownership experimenting with the awesome settings. I have used and will always use a Yamaha receiver for any Audiologic research project or when verification audiologically is needed in performing real ear measurements measuring acoustic performance within the human ear canal, fwiw.

Not surprised. The prosub 600 is a budget sub. The svs will be a different experience.