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Ascend Acoustics Announces New Klippel NFS-Optimized Sierra Towers and Horizon Center

Narek

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I see it the same way. A good speaker rather reveals the meaning of a recording. It makes it intelligible. If everything sounds polished, there's something wrong. In other words, with good speakers the infamous "bad recordings" rarify. 'Bad music' becomes more common, though.
The RAAL towers do that, it exposes bad recording or even bad instrument playing, but the Titan Dome does note, even bad recording sound smoother. Titan Dome is for people with a wide range of musical preferences, from jazz to death metal.
 

Narek

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I always use two Stockfisch albums when assessing speakers.

1) Sara K - Hell or High Water
2) Eugene Ruffolo - In a Different Light

They are two of the best mastered acoustic albums I’ve ever heard. Full range, no compression, exquisite detail. The recording engineers are superb.
There is tons of slow-mid tempo material to use for auditioning. But fast temp with varied instruments is how I like to test on my own. Yes - Fragile is my testing kit.
 

Narek

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I would love to be able to audition a pair. Of course, being the owner of the company and the designer, he would prefer his own speakers, but Dave mentioning that he would put the ELX towers up against any speaker at any price point is intriguing. The fact that we had one user in this thread prefer it to the Revel 226Be is high praise indeed.
I preferred it to focal aria 948
 

JAJDACT

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I recently went to their facility in San Clemente California and auditioned the ELX. They are probably the best speakers I've heard for only $4400. Very detailed and accurate, but also very warm and forgiving with bad source material. The bass is incredible, goes down to 20hz, audibly. Those 6 inch woofers are no slouch, they produce thumping bass like I've never heard of before in a floorstander of that price, or even up to 10k. Imo for $4400, the ELX Titan is a steal. Meanwhile the ELX RAAL Ribbon is even more detailed for slow and mod tempo music, but with fast tempo music, there is hardly a difference between the two, and I actually prefer the Titan Dome for Rock/Metal.
I recently did an in home demo with Philharmonic BMR's,KEF R3's and the LX bookshelves,I preferred the LX's for basically the same reasons you like them,great with all recordings and very smooth up top, as well as how well they performed for movies. I can only imagine how great the ELX towers sound.
 

Narek

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I recently did an in home demo with Philharmonic BMR's,KEF R3's and the LX bookshelves,I preferred the LX's for basically the same reasons you like them,great with all recordings and very smooth up top, as well as how well they performed for movies. I can only imagine how great the ELX towers sound.
More of the same, but imagine the bass of the LX, add 10 more LX and you got the bass of the ELX.
 

Narek

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I recently did an in home demo with Philharmonic BMR's,KEF R3's and the LX bookshelves,I preferred the LX's for basically the same reasons you like them,great with all recordings and very smooth up top, as well as how well they performed for movies. I can only imagine how great the ELX towers sound.
Btw, how do those BMR's sound? Alot of people were raving about them for a while. Im assuming its brighter with much less bass than the LX.
 

Ricardojoa

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Btw, how do those BMR's sound? Alot of people were raving about them for a while. Im assuming its brighter with much less bass than the LX.
The bmr looks to dig a bit deeper than the lx but the lx seems to have higher spl on the bass
 

ExPerfectionist

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The bmr looks to dig a bit deeper than the lx but the lx seems to have higher spl on the bass

FYI the LX come with 2 port plug options that change the tuning (o-ring and sealed), letting it go a little deeper. Not very usable at that volume, but it's there. And the plugs may be more to tame SBIR and boomy bass depending on placement. When I got my LXs, I used the O plugs initially because the bass was too much, until I dialed everything in better.

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enricoclaudio

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Spoke with Dina and Dave yesterday and most likely I’ll be upgrading my Sierra Towers w/RAAL to ELX and after that would be upgrading the Horizon w/RAAL to ELX and Sierra 2s to 2EX V2. This was not planned so the upgrade is going to take place in about 10 to 12 months total time frame. I don’t need to rush because I really like how my speakers sound but the cost of the upgrade is definitely cheaper than getting new speakers.
 

goldark

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Spoke with Dina and Dave yesterday and most likely I’ll be upgrading my Sierra Towers w/RAAL to ELX and after that would be upgrading the Horizon w/RAAL to ELX and Sierra 2s to 2EX V2. This was not planned so the upgrade is going to take place in about 10 to 12 months total time frame. I don’t need to rush because I really like how my speakers sound but the cost of the upgrade is definitely cheaper than getting new speakers.
Were you able to audition the ELX and compare to the originals?
 

enricoclaudio

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Were you able to audition the ELX and compare to the originals?
No. My plan is to get the upgrade, put new drivers and crossover in one first then listen to both (old and new) then I will be able to tell which one sounds better to my ears.
 

JAJDACT

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Btw, how do those BMR's sound? Alot of people were raving about them for a while. Im assuming its brighter with much less bass than the LX.
They were good overall,the only thing I didn't care for was the dispersion was too wide for my taste and the bmr mid range called attention to itself sometimes,as well as some oddities with some recordings where the soundstage didn't sound natural. The LX's sound a little brighter to my ears actually,just not quite as detailed as the RAAL tweeter with some music. Bass sounded identical to me but part of that was a null that I have at 45hz that pretty much neutered the deeper output of the BMR. I use dual subwoofers anyways so sub 80hz bass didn't make a difference for my decision. The LX's seemed "punchier" if that makes sense.
 
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Narek

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They were good overall,the only thing I didn't care for was the dispersion was too wide for my taste and the bmr mid range called attention to itself sometimes,as well as some oddities with some recordings where the soundstage didn't sound natural. The LX's sound a little brighter to my ears actually,just not quite as detailed as the RAAL tweeter with some music. Bass sounded identical to me but part of that was a null that I have at 45hz that pretty much neutered the deeper output of the BMR. I use dual subwoofers anyways so sub 80hz bass didn't make a difference for my decision. The LX's seemed "punchier" if that makes sense.
Dual Subs with the LX is pretty much a legitimate "giant killer"sound system imo. Your explanation of the BMR sounds almost exactly like the EX V2.
 

Shazb0t

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Spoke with Dina and Dave yesterday and most likely I’ll be upgrading my Sierra Towers w/RAAL to ELX and after that would be upgrading the Horizon w/RAAL to ELX and Sierra 2s to 2EX V2. This was not planned so the upgrade is going to take place in about 10 to 12 months total time frame. I don’t need to rush because I really like how my speakers sound but the cost of the upgrade is definitely cheaper than getting new speakers.
I'm really debating upgrading my front three, RAAL Towers and RAAL Horizon, to the V2 or the ELX. Not really sure what I'm going to do. I guess I should call them up at some point to discuss this as well.
 
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mj30250

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I'm really debating upgrading my front three, RAAL Towers and RAAL Horizon, to the V2 or the ELX. Not really sure what I'm going to do. I guess I should call them up at some point to discuss this as well.
The upgrade procedure is nearly identical for both, so it really comes down to the cost difference. I've never heard the V2 version, but going from the V1 to the ELX towers provided a massive improvement. I'm over a year into the ELXs now and I still have zero desire to "upgrade" further. Based on my typical patterns that's a nice return on investment in itself.
 

enricoclaudio

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The upgrade procedure is nearly identical for both, so it really comes down to the cost difference. I've never heard the V2 version, but going from the V1 to the ELX towers provided a massive improvement. I'm over a year into the ELXs now and I still have zero desire to "upgrade" further. Based on my typical patterns that's a nice return on investment in itself.
In my case, one tower cutouts are around 155.70mm so that one is going to need lot of sanding. The other tower cutouts are around 156.20mm so not too bad. The Horizon cutouts are both close to 156.80 so that is going to be literally plug & play. Good thing is carpentry is one of my hobbies ;)
 
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