Ascend Acoustics Horizon Center Speaker Review

[amirm]

Did you try a high-pass filter to solve that?

I did. It sometimes did some good but at other times it seemed to reduce bass. Needed more time to optimize so I left it out.

 

[Bruce Morgen]

Bundle with some Connector Tubes to further reduce all the losses that would usually occur through the binding posts and get the additional benefits of even fuller, more robust, deeper and lower bass!

That's "tube connectors" and not "connector tubes" -- do not misquote The Gospel According To Danny!

 

[Deleted member 17820]

Hi AmirM, thank you for all your work.
Does the issues with acoustic axis matter if you measure in near vs midfiled? Thanks!

 

[amirm]

Hi AmirM, thank you for all your work.
Does the issues with acoustic axis matter if you measure in near vs midfiled? Thanks!

It gets magnified greatly in near field. The farther you sit, the less that matters.

 

[Deleted member 17820]

It gets magnified greatly in near field. The farther you sit, the less that matters.

I wanted to get a w/t-m-t/w but because I have untreated walls in my HT/living room I went with a Nested MTM. I'll measure it someday to see how well it does off axis.

OK, It just reminded me that last week my buddy told me the same thing about my nested MTM(avatar). I sit 11 feet away so hopefully the benefits outweigh the negatives. IMO center channels need to be high performing. I don't seek out sealed, THX, stuff but sometimes it works the best in certain situations.
Blessings!

 

[BYRTT]

You can't generalize about RAAL tweeters. The Horizon uses the OEM 70-20, which is actually designed to be crossed around 2 kHz, unlike the 64-10X used on the Sierra 2 series and my BMR, which needs a crossover point at least 1 kHz higher. From the vertical directivity plots, it looks like the 70-20 is being crossed around 2500 Hz (Dave would have to confirm), which is quite conservative for this unit. In any event, 1.5% maximum THD at 96 dB is an excellent figure for a ribbon and not of any audible consequence that I can imagine at this SPL.

Looking at the directivity index, I would have said ~3500Hz.
I doubt I could hear that distortion, but I would prefer no higher than 1%.

In CAD program its possible rotate horizontals and tilt verticals of Amir's spindata relative to the microphone at 2 meters distance, a tilt to minus 20º and plus 20º gives a clean deepest notch in area above 1kHz as seen below, +20º tilt land at 3500Hz and -20º tilt land at 3700Hz so around that area must be the XO frequency region, at more than +/-100º tilt it looked woofer to mid region is 500Hz but didn't plot it in below because its some diffuse at those frequency and clutter up the other curves, imagine because there is lobes in the polar chart at right and because notches at left dont land overlaid each other is because slopes are non symetric and to demonstrate that added Neumann KH 80 sample 3 below Horizon speaker so we can see how symetric Linkwitz Riley slope looks like when tilted in CAD sofware and based on Amir's nice spindata.

 

[Vini darko]

Are those micca mb42 woofers? They look familiar. Anyhow good showing for a center speaker.

 

[rxp]

Nice to see some center reviews up! The most important speaker for HT

 

[TimVG]

@amirm
Since I often produce filtersets for speakers you've measured: what would be the preferred format for you just in case you'd like to try one? I normally just post the values but adding a file wouldn't be any work I suppose.

 

[edechamps]

I have added the Ascend Acoustics Sierra Horizon speaker to Loudspeaker Explorer where it can be compared to other speakers.

Okay consistency within the listening window:

 

[MZKM]

Are those micca mb42 woofers? They look familiar. Anyhow good showing for a center speaker.

A modified version of this Peerless woofer:
https://www.parts-express.com/peerless-by-tymphany-830860-5-1-4-ppb-cone-hds-woofer--264-1080

EDIT: Maybe not.

 

[Robbo99999]

I want that blue speaker mat please!

@amirm , I think you might have the labelling the wrong way round in your EQ pic - the "Fill Dip" and "Reduce Resonances" labels should be flipped around, unless my brain has spazzed out!

Speaker seems a little bit of a mess in the mid range and that bass distortion at high SPL isn't very pretty, but the wide horizontal dispersion is impressive & notable and the rest of the frequency range is good.

 

[Robbo99999]

@amirm
Since I often produce filtersets for speakers you've measured: what would be the preferred format for you just in case you'd like to try one? I normally just post the values but adding a file wouldn't be any work I suppose.

And anyone else of course, so useful nonetheless. You prioritise Listening Window don't you? I think that makes sense to me.

 

[TimVG]

And anyone else of course, so useful nonetheless. You prioritise Listening Window don't you? I think that makes sense to me.

Smoothness of listening window with consideration to keep a neutral trend in the on-axis is my aim. For this speaker that would produce the following curves (original on top) for the ON, LW and PIR

 

[echopraxia]

First impression was that "this speaker is alright." Bass was standing out a bit but no way of telling if that was too much or hitting some room mode. Or else, what it should have been producing.

I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong with it other than my excitement level was not at max. Yes, that is a technical term. It is covered under US ISO standard, 23476-A (annex E).

I have these speakers, and the corresponding towers as well.

Personally, I find they sound better than this subjective review indicates, at least when I EQ them to a more declining in-room curve. Granted, I’ve mostly compared the Towers and not the Horizon alone — but for those who don’t know, the Horizon has the same drivers etc as the towers, just in a different (horizontal) configuration.

In this blind test I ran, 4 participants compared the Ascend Towers vs the Revel F206. No EQ or subwoofer was used. The results were a tie with bass preference going to the Revel and treble preference going to the Ascends.

Before anyone accuses me of bias: If I had not been one of those participants, the Ascends would have won overall. Personally, I also find that the Revel sounds better behaved 0-1khz, which is indeed very important. But the treble and dispersion width of the Ascend Towers lead it to win favor in many songs.

Even in the songs I compared where the Revel won, I still noted that the Ascends win on treble and soundstage but the Revel F206 wins in bass. In fact, almost everyone described this observation over and over again, in different words.

The only other speaker I have that really satisfies with a wide dispersion and detailed treble presentation as much or more than my Ascend RAAL speakers, are my Revel Salon2’s.

Yes, even my Genelec 8351B does not match the wide sound of the RAAL tweeter. Obviously, the dispersion is clearly different. Obviously, the Genelec 8351B measures (and sounds) better in every other way (aside from the treble soundstage width), and I do overall prefer the Genelec over any other speaker I have ever had except the Salon2’s (in which case each have pros and cons to balance). Nonetheless, the Ascend’s wide dispersion still is very appealing and in some ways is still audibly preferred at least in some cases, even over otherwise much better measuring speakers like the Genelec 8351B.

I believe this reason is also mainly why I prefer the Salon2’s for relaxed listening over the Genelec 8351B, even though the Salon2’s spin is much worse — my subjective preferences tend to put a lot of weight in wide dispersion, and the Salon2 does this incredibly well.

 

[TimVG]

Yes, even my Genelec 8351B does not match the wide sound of the RAAL tweeter.

Depends which one - the wider Raal model as used here does not have wider dispersion than speakers with a regular 1" dome tweeter. Which makes sense as the directivity is the consequence of size vs frequency. The tweeter used in the Bookshelf model (2 and 2ex) indeed has very wide dispersion.

 

[echopraxia]

Depends which one - the wider Raal model as used here does not have wider dispersion than speakers with a regular 1" dome tweeter. Which makes sense as the directivity is the consequence of size vs frequency. The tweeter used in the Bookshelf model (2 and 2ex) indeed has very wide dispersion.

Maybe that is your expectation, but for whatever design reason, the Ascend Horizon measurements shows much wider dispersion than the Genelec 8341 measurements.

For most of the treble the Ascend is around -10db at 90 degrees off axis, while the Genelec is around -15dB at 90 degrees off axis.

 

[TimVG]

Whatever the design reason, the Ascend Horizon measurements show wider dispersion than the Genelec 8341 measurements, at least how I’m reading it (looking at 90 degrees off axis).

Yes, the Genelec is kept quite narrow by design. Compared to one of the Revels however it's more or less the same in terms of horizontal directivity. The 2ex is much wider in the higher treble:

 

[echopraxia]

Yes, the Genelec is kept quite narrow by design. Compared to one of the Revels however it's more or less the same in terms of horizontal directivity. The 2ex is much wider in the higher treble:

View attachment 77286

Which Revel? Yeah my Revel F206 sounded similar in terms of dispersion width, though I think the sound was still a bit more uniformly distributed throughout the beam for the Revel, even if the beam width is the same.

The Salon2’s are an entirely different story though, and they excel at that “wide dispersion” sound more than anything I’ve heard.

It’s pretty easy to test in the same room by using your hands to block the direct sound from the speaker, and listen to how much indirect sound remains relative to before. (Of course the most important thing is how it affects the soundstage and subjective preference — this is just a simple test you can run using your ears.)

What is true about the Salon2 that was not true even of the Sierra 2EX, is that I can stand virtually in the middle of them (nearly 90 degrees off axis) and the sound quality and tonal balance is almost exactly the same — very impressive. At these extreme off axis angles with the RAAL, you’ll hear great treble response (and still bass of course), but it becomes apparent when the midrange can’t keep up with the low directivity of the tweeter. That said, aside from this synthetic test, they still sound great IMO (the Sierra 2EX and the Towers).

 

[TimVG]

Which Revel? Yeah my Revel F206 sounded similar in terms of dispersion width, though I think the sound was still a bit more widely distributed throughout the beam for the Revel, even if the beam width is the same.

The Salon2’s are an entirely different story though, and they excel at that “wide dispersion” sound more than anything I’ve heard.

It’s pretty easy to test in the same room by using your hands to block the direct sound from the speaker, and listen to how much indirect sound remains relative to before.

What is true about the Salon2 that was not true even if the Sierra 2EX is I can stand virtually in the middle of them (nearly 90 degrees off axis) and the sound quality and tonal balance is almost exactly the same — very impressive. At these extreme off axis angles with the RAAL, you’ll hear great treble and bass, but it becomes apparent when the midrange can‘t keep up with the width of the tweeter. That said, aside from this synthetic test, they still sound great IMO (the Sierra 2EX and the Towers).

That's correct, from Amir we 'only' have the M105/106 and F208 but they look 'similar' to this broader RAAL in terms of dispersion.
The Ultima2 series does seem to offer much wider and even horizontal dispersion - I wonder since the surround looks quite thick for a tweeter if it is actually closer to 0,75", but simply a very powerful one. In any case it's an extremely well designed speaker, especially if you consider it's passive.

The Gem2 is on my potential upgrade list along with a few others. Currently with the F206 which after correction are quite superb, but as explained in the loudspeaker EQ thread there's just some things that can't be fixed with EQ.