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Ascend Acoustics Owners' Lounge
- Thread starter PristineSound
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PristineSound
Addicted to Fun and Learning
- Thread Starter
- #82
He probably realized that those posts may start some drama and Dave doesn't like drama?
Let's see what he will say, if anything, after he gets the license on the distortion module for the NFS and does his full investigation. But at the very least I hope he does mention about the buzzing from the wires resonating on the port as a result of the woofer swap. And he should ask Erin to point out the audible distortion that he was talking about since he is the only person to point out having heard distortions on the LX.
I can personally attest that I have never heard any distortions on the LX when I own them. But once again, I don't listen loud (I probably never got pass 85dBC average from 6/7 feet) I also have never needed to listen to the LX off axis neither. So I too am puzzled by Erin's review.
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PristineSound
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- #84
But Erin deleted videos too in the past, so what does that mean? Especially the one where he blasted Amir, called him all sorts of names. Did we forget about that video that he deleted?
For the record, Dave brought up some very good points.
1) Why was Erin talking about load variant amps on this review, it has nothing to do with the speakers, as such it may have confused viewers to think there was something wrong with the speaker.
2) The distortion measurements are no worst than the S1V2 and Erin raved about the SIV2. The distortion is also no worse than many of the bookshelfs he measured.
3) Erin potentially didn't swapped out the woofer correctly, so the cable resonated against the port at certain frequency and SPL. How did Erin not noticed this? I mean, he supposedly have excellent listening skills but he didn't noticed this? But let's not judge Erin on this yet, maybe the cable got shifted during transport?
And there is something that puzzles me: Erin said that these speakers shouldn't be listened to on axis because of that 2.5dB dip at 3kHz, but other speakers with worse that he's reviewed didn't get that complaint.
Anyway, I no longer own the LX, but I sure do hope Dave publishes a clear report of his own investigation for other potential buyers, because when I had the LX, I had a great experience.
As a general statement, without knowing what the posts were I wouldn't jump to any conclusions. It is entirely possible that your premise is correct and in many cases often is, but as that is the Ascend forum and Dave has never shied away for discussion on any number of forums so I wouldn't think much of it either way. A different story though if he (or any other owner) was going full Tekton and attempting to suppress every outlet.
that's not true at all... "trust" is in actions outside of heated forum posting....the *product(s)* and business model are what is important.. unless of course **drama** is the goal....
perfect point.... as much as I like and value Erin as a source in this hobby , this is the absolute 1st thing I thought about when he posted this review...and I pointed that out to Dave in an Email as well .. I was lobbying Dave to get the cmt 340 v2 reviewed .....at this point I don't think it will happen , I can't fault Dave at all but it's a shame imo...
and he isn't, and doesn't as far as I can tell
robh
Member
Any forum moderator can delete any post for any reason. This is not uncommon. Despite Erin's experience with speakers, I agree his comments on this model are a bit unfair and it's entirely possible that single sample was tampered with.
The single sample (a pair) was definitely not tampered with lol. The measurements that Erin provided are consistent with Dave’s own (they made a stop at Ascend prior to coming back to me). Dave emailed me his impressions after he received them, “They sound fantastic”
They are finally back and I can confirm that they do indeed sound fantastic.
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PristineSound
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- #92
Was this the same exact one you sent to Erin? Or did Dave kept that pair and sent you a new pair?
I ask because Dave said he was going to do more testing once he gets the distortion module from Klippel.
And I assume you have not heard any distortion yourself?
Same pair, same serial.
In regard to distortion, yes, some, at around 10ft in a very large, voluminous room that opens up to the rest of the house ~83-85dba when setup for full range w/ buckeye nc502mp (none while crossed over at 63-80hz w/my speedwoofer 10e and dirac via ddrc-24). When Erin mentioned it, let’s just say I felt it resonated with my subjective experience. I am extremely sensitive to distortion though (38/yo with little to no loss in both ears, according to Apple Health.. ). My pair of 8361a, as a reference, do not distort in the same way, no matter how loud.
However, it is possible my gain staging was responsible for this (through JDS Atom+ preamp). Because the sensitivity of the speakers is so low, I had to boost the input signal to the amp in order to get sufficiently loud volumes from the amp. I might have sent a signal that was too hot. A word of caution if reading into this, I am a newbie to this hobby, and I was more so when in June prior to sending the speakers to Erin.
Right now, in the small 10x11sqft room that the LX’s are in (also crossed over with subs), I can’t play them loud enough to see whether I can hear distortion because it would be very painful. But like I said, they sound great. The woofers were swapped for ones that had tighter tolerance, but they honestly sound just as I remember them when they had the woofers that were ~5db apart at 2khz.
I also want to add that Erin did yeoman’s work in reviewing this speaker. I’m thinking about the amount of communication that went back and forth (between him, Dave, and myself), measurements, a swap of woofers, re-measurements, listening in multiple rooms, etc. Also, these measurements involved measuring variations between both of the speakers, which I believe is pretty uncommon in objective testing.
Remember, the woofer swap and email to Dave was triggered by the initial measured speaker substantially differing from Ascend’s measurements. He could have just left it at that.
I am personally amazed at the lengths he went through to make sure he was fair. I can’t imagine he would have the bandwidth to give a fraction of this much attention to every single speaker he reviews.
In terms of why the LX didn’t shine as brightly in his review as the s1v2, Erin did mention in a YouTube comment that speakers have drastically improved in the past couple of years, so this could be a function of time. We did have a “game changer” in the C6B. The value calculation is just different now.
Remember, the woofer swap and email to Dave was triggered by the initial measured speaker substantially differing from Ascend’s measurements. He could have just left it at that.
I am personally amazed at the lengths he went through to make sure he was fair. I can’t imagine he would have the bandwidth to give a fraction of this much attention to every single speaker he reviews.
In terms of why the LX didn’t shine as brightly in his review as the s1v2, Erin did mention in a YouTube comment that speakers have drastically improved in the past couple of years, so this could be a function of time. We did have a “game changer” in the C6B. The value calculation is just different now.
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PristineSound
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- #95
So the thing is all speakers will have audible distortion when pushed hard enough, I guess the threshold of hard for the LX is "low" for "today's standards."
When I owned the LX, I have an average sized room with highish ceilings and one wall opened up to the entire first floor, I simply don't play loud, because my ears physically can't handle it. At around 7-8 ft away, I play at low 70's to mid 70's dBC on average and it's super comfortable for me. I have never pushed it hard, maybe, I hit low 80's dBC once in a blue moon. So in my personal experience, I have never heard any distortion from the LX.
It appears the distortion is from low frequency, since you said once you cross them over to subs at a certain point, you don't hear the distortion. So the question now is, is the distortion a result of the LX woofer or other resonance from the speaker design. It's hard to imagine that it can be from the LX woofer since they have excellent excursion limits.
Finally this leads to my ultimate question, I own the ELX RAAL, they use the LX woofers too, I wonder if this would be an issue with the ELX, I doubt it since the ELX uses two LX woofers and are towers, so they shouldn't hit the limit of distortion at low frequency (this assumes the distortion was indeed from the LX woofers itself). I would test it a high volume, but my ears are just too sissy to handle high SPL, it physically will hurt.
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I reckon it has to do something with the size of the LX enclosure. Sure, the speaker goes very low and is rated to support 350w continuous…I know of no other passive bookshelf that can do that, but there’s got to be some limitations given the amount of air volume. I wonder if the distortion figures would improve if they were plugged with the included port bungs.
Based on what I’ve read about the ELX RAAL, I would have no hesitation in buying a pair, and have reached out to Dave on a couple of occasions but they were too backlogged for my timeframe. I now have a pair of BMR HTs filling the role I needed them for (another pair of speakers that I can’t hear distortion from, no matter the spl level). I can only imagine how good they sound with the RAAL and 2x the LX woofers. I hope I didn’t burn any bridges with Dave!
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PristineSound
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- #97
I don't think so. Customers who own the speaker can do what they wish with it. If you didn't sent the LX to Erin, someone else may have.
Besides, Dave is a very honest and upfront guy and if anything, this pushed him to by the distortion module for the Klippel.
The one thing to note is that Ascend, like most manufacturers, does try very hard to minimize the amount of different parts in their supply chain, and this is necessary to keep cost and complexity down. That said, the LX cabinet, if I am not mistaken, are the same cabinet used for 3 different Ascend bookshelf models. The downside to this is that, you are now designing 3 different speakers for the same cabinet, so maybe it can be the drivers and cabinet combination that is causing this audible distortion. But everything at this point is just speculations, I hope Dave does a thorough investigation and give the community an update.
Gwreck
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This may be old news but, It’s clear according to Dave himself that this situation has been very stressful and he had to cut out of the forums for his own well being.
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PristineSound
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- #99
Damn, this sucks for Dave. The guys has been nothing but transparent and direct. He's been nothing but a class act, an honest business man and an enthusiast audiophile himself.
At first I did raised an eyebrow with Erin's review, because I had own the LX, never heard any donation and they were bad ass speakers.
But the original owner who sent the speakers are saying he heard distortions at high level too, so we are at a point where the eyebrow is lowering a bit. But this does not explain why Erin didn't hear the cable rattling on the port. If he can hear the distortion, why couldn't he hear the cable rattling on the port?
I would say Dave should take few weeks off then come back to investigate, but I am sure he is getting eager customer inquiries at this point.
Gwreck
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He definitely seems like a diamond in the rough as far as honest businessman with a great product. The internet and forms can be an absolutely toxic place even in relatively calm waters like ASR.
When I bought my ELX/sierra surround system from him he was awesome and went out of his way to make sure little stuff was taken care of even without asking. Oddly enough reading all this about LX’s actually seem like pretty great speakers. I hope all this attention drums up extra business for Ascend.
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