I've been enjoying the ELX Titan Towers for a little over two weeks now, and I have to say these are just great sounding speakers. I know that's not a measurement, but those are available on the Ascend Acoustics web site, and I believe that owner exeperiences are just as important.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that I didn't think I would ever own this caliber of Hi-Fi. They sound like a dealer demo of an absurdly priced rig that most people could never afford. These bad boys make all the sounds. The highs are there, the mids are there, the bass is there. Nothing is lost in the mix, and no part of the sound dominates at the expense of the rest. Brash trumpets sound like you are standing in front of the stage. You can hear every nuance of lilting piano passages. You can follow every note of every bass line, no matter how far back in the mix it is. The clarity, resolution, and instrument separation is fascinating to hear and make old standbys sound new again, no bull. The bass is clean, powerful, and it digs deeper than I would have ever thought possible from a speaker this size.
I opted for the Titan dome tweeter over the Raal ribbon option because I have always been mostly a bass head and I never considered myself a connoisseur of tweeters, so I didn't think I would appreciate the difference. That, and because we all have decisions to make when it comes to how much we can afford to spend on a hobby. I don't find there is anything at all left to be desired from the Titan dome tweeter, but now that I've heard what these speakers can to, I'm kind of curious what special sauce the Raal ribbon adds.
The rest of the system is a Parasound A21, a Musical Fidelity M6S preamp, a Denafrips Ares II, and two SVS SB-1000 subs connected to the power amp through the high level inputs. The front end is a PC streaming Amazon Music HD and I'm using Windows Equalizer APO with the Peace interface. Thanks to the ASR archives for educating me on how to get the front end sorted out. So there is a modicum of ASR content in what I admit is a subjective review. If anyone is interested in how I have them set up or other things like room size and treatments, let me know.
The buying experience from Ascend couldn't have been better. Everyone was friendly and communicative throughout the process, and this was at the height of the holiday season when businesses are busier than ever. Packaging was above and beyond as well, and a good thing too, since UPS always does their best to destroy everything they touch. They're not known as Gorilla Mail for nothing.
I would have loved to do a shootout between the ELX towers, the Kef R7 Meta, and the Revel F206/F208. While we're at it, throw in both of the Arendal 1723 towers. But since that won't ever happen, I had to make my best guess, and I'm convinced now that I chose wisely. I know most people outside the hobby would consider $4398 to be an absurd price to pay for a pair of speakers, but we all know that isn't a very big number in the price spectrum of high quality speakers, and this is still in the price range where you get what you pay for. Overall, just a great quality product and a treat to hear them in action.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that I didn't think I would ever own this caliber of Hi-Fi. They sound like a dealer demo of an absurdly priced rig that most people could never afford. These bad boys make all the sounds. The highs are there, the mids are there, the bass is there. Nothing is lost in the mix, and no part of the sound dominates at the expense of the rest. Brash trumpets sound like you are standing in front of the stage. You can hear every nuance of lilting piano passages. You can follow every note of every bass line, no matter how far back in the mix it is. The clarity, resolution, and instrument separation is fascinating to hear and make old standbys sound new again, no bull. The bass is clean, powerful, and it digs deeper than I would have ever thought possible from a speaker this size.
I opted for the Titan dome tweeter over the Raal ribbon option because I have always been mostly a bass head and I never considered myself a connoisseur of tweeters, so I didn't think I would appreciate the difference. That, and because we all have decisions to make when it comes to how much we can afford to spend on a hobby. I don't find there is anything at all left to be desired from the Titan dome tweeter, but now that I've heard what these speakers can to, I'm kind of curious what special sauce the Raal ribbon adds.
The rest of the system is a Parasound A21, a Musical Fidelity M6S preamp, a Denafrips Ares II, and two SVS SB-1000 subs connected to the power amp through the high level inputs. The front end is a PC streaming Amazon Music HD and I'm using Windows Equalizer APO with the Peace interface. Thanks to the ASR archives for educating me on how to get the front end sorted out. So there is a modicum of ASR content in what I admit is a subjective review. If anyone is interested in how I have them set up or other things like room size and treatments, let me know.
The buying experience from Ascend couldn't have been better. Everyone was friendly and communicative throughout the process, and this was at the height of the holiday season when businesses are busier than ever. Packaging was above and beyond as well, and a good thing too, since UPS always does their best to destroy everything they touch. They're not known as Gorilla Mail for nothing.
I would have loved to do a shootout between the ELX towers, the Kef R7 Meta, and the Revel F206/F208. While we're at it, throw in both of the Arendal 1723 towers. But since that won't ever happen, I had to make my best guess, and I'm convinced now that I chose wisely. I know most people outside the hobby would consider $4398 to be an absurd price to pay for a pair of speakers, but we all know that isn't a very big number in the price spectrum of high quality speakers, and this is still in the price range where you get what you pay for. Overall, just a great quality product and a treat to hear them in action.