Ascend Acoustics Owners' Lounge

[Gwreck]

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.

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.

 

[PristineSound]

Added two more absorption panels to the front wall, the ELX sound much better than before. Spatial performance is even better, specifically imaging and holography.

Folks, all you need is to spend most of your money on quality speakers, room treatment and a load and frequency invariant amp with enough power and less than or equal to .05 THD+N.

Everything else, you can get the cheap stuff.

 

[Gwreck]

What does the group think about his “upgrades?” Danny in this video basically explains why the the Sierrra EX2’s RAAL tweeter is a poor choice due to the high 3khz crossover frequency. He also describes the crossover components as cheap and therefore blunting the benefit of the RAAL ribbon. He makes other critiques of the Ascend speaker showing measurements. He compares the Ascend to his speakers and how his company’s speakers do not have the issues he accuses the Ascend of having.

I realize Danny’s videos are controversial to say it nicely. But seriously I’m not a speaker designer and was wanting to see what other who may know more what they think of his statements.

 

[Beave]

All Youtube videos linked here need a summary of the content plus a reason why we need to watch.

In the case of Danny videos, I try not to watch as a matter of principle. Views, even when the viewer is rolling his/her eyes the entire time, are still views.

 

[Gwreck]

All Youtube videos linked here need a summary of the content plus a reason why we need to watch.

In the case of Danny videos, I try not to watch as a matter of principle. Views, even when the viewer is rolling his/her eyes the entire time, are still views.

I will edit my post and summarize, I don’t mean to break any specific rules of ASR.

 

[tw 2022]

All Youtube videos linked here need a summary of the content plus a reason why we need to watch.

In the case of Danny videos, I try not to watch as a matter of principle. Views, even when the viewer is rolling his/her eyes the entire time, are still views.

I watched it because it was the ascend Sierra ex , but I agree : it's not productive to give Danny views from our forum.. He obviously knows how to mod speakers, but..... Way too much voodoo nonsense in general terms..

 

[Beave]

I saw that DaveF of Ascend has commented on Danny's video. And, not surprisingly, the comments show that Danny once again doesn't know what he's doing.

I'm not watching the video, but from Dave's comments, Danny thinks the crossover frequency should be lowered. That not only degrades the PIR but also increases THD in the crossover region and puts enough stress onto the RAAL ribbon to make it easier to damage the tweeter.

I'm sure people could point out Danny's mistakes in the video comments, but I'm just as sure that Danny would just delete those comments because he thinks he knows more than he does - and doesn't want his followers to see that the emperor has no clothes.

 

[Mark609]

I saw that DaveF of Ascend has commented on Danny's video. And, not surprisingly, the comments show that Danny once again doesn't know what he's doing.

Seems that way, more of an ego thing. Dave knows what he helped design, that RAAL tweeter with all the design ramifications that go with it. https://forum.ascendacoustics.com/h...ies-electronics/6604-new-sierra-2ex-v2/page22

 

[PristineSound]

I saw that DaveF of Ascend has commented on Danny's video. And, not surprisingly, the comments show that Danny once again doesn't know what he's doing.

I'm not watching the video, but from Dave's comments, Danny thinks the crossover frequency should be lowered. That not only degrades the PIR but also increases THD in the crossover region and puts enough stress onto the RAAL ribbon to make it easier to damage the tweeter.

I'm sure people could point out Danny's mistakes in the video comments, but I'm just as sure that Danny would just delete those comments because he thinks he knows more than he does - and doesn't want his followers to see that the emperor has no clothes.

I don't see Dave's comment, can you take a screenshot of it for us?

 

[PristineSound]

In the case of Danny videos, I try not to watch as a matter of principle. Views, even when the viewer is rolling his/her eyes the entire time, are still views.

If I watch his videos, I make sure I give it a thumbs down, because that is my honest assessment.

This guy Danny Richie sells cryo'ed cables and makes all sorts of claim, that alone says it all about this guy.

 

[Gwreck]

I saw that DaveF of Ascend has commented on Danny's video. And, not surprisingly, the comments show that Danny once again doesn't know what he's doing.

I'm not watching the video, but from Dave's comments, Danny thinks the crossover frequency should be lowered. That not only degrades the PIR but also increases THD in the crossover region and puts enough stress onto the RAAL ribbon to make it easier to damage the tweeter.

I'm sure people could point out Danny's mistakes in the video comments, but I'm just as sure that Danny would just delete those comments because he thinks he knows more than he does - and doesn't want his followers to see that the emperor has no clothes.

I suspect his grift is trolling but also catching enough people with his BS th

If I watch his videos, I make sure I give it a thumbs down, because that is my honest assessment.

This guy Danny Richie sells cryo'ed cables and makes all sorts of claim, that alone says it all about this guy.

I suspect like most scams Danny doesn’t require everyone to fall for the BS for the scam to be successful. If there was a meaningful upgrade path on the Ascend speaker Dave would probably offer it. He will sell you the ultra expensive diamond tweeter as an upgrade but he will tell you if it’s not a good idea for your situation (from personal experience).

 

[Ktacos]

What does the group think about his “upgrades?” Danny in this video basically explains why the the Sierrra EX2’s RAAL tweeter is a poor choice due to the high 3khz crossover frequency. He also describes the crossover components as cheap and therefore blunting the benefit of the RAAL ribbon. He makes other critiques of the Ascend speaker showing measurements. He compares the Ascend to his speakers and how his company’s speakers do not have the issues he accuses the Ascend of having.

I realize Danny’s videos are controversial to say it nicely. But seriously I’m not a speaker designer and was wanting to see what other who may know more what they think of his statements.

Yeah this really displays the extend of Danny's arrogance. I hate even commenting on this because I can't stand the guy and wish he would just go away. He's a literal poison to the hobby. This video also shows how much some of the old notions around speaker design are BS.

While his xover mods are massively overpriced, they do tend to linearize a speaker for the better (sometimes it's worse because he doesn't know what dispersion is) but this one is just hilarious. It looks like he has v2 which is klippel nfs measured and shows excellent characteristics in just about every metric. I don't think I can even fatham how large one's ego must be to look at the data on that speaker and say "I can do better with my jank-ass dated measurement process". I swear if someone showed him vituixcad (modern speaker sim and design software, basically the standard currently) his head would just explode.

I didn't watch more than a minute or so becuase I'm not really a fan of watching a man convert diahrea into spoken word, but I assume his complaint with the high xover point is that it will result in poor vertical lobing. This has definitely been disproven with various designs out there, and if one looks at the vertical dispersion of the Sierra v2 here, it's excellent. It's funny that Danny would state his speakers don't suffer from this, because they absolutely do and it shows up in the data. Vertical lobing isn't even really a problem most of the time so I'm not sure why he cares so much about it.

As for the Sierra v2 and the RAAL 64-10 it uses, pretty much no one crosses them below 3khz because you kind of cant. The tweeters response naturally rolls off at around 3khz and distortion increases quite a bit below that. These ribbons already have elevated distortion compared to even cheap domes, so best not to make the problem worse.

Danny wishes he could make a speaker as good as the Ascend Sierra.

 

[Beave]

I don't see Dave's comment, can you take a screenshot of it for us?

He made some comments on his forum, linked here: https://forum.ascendacoustics.com/h...ies-electronics/6604-new-sierra-2ex-v2/page22

 

[Mort]

 

[PristineSound]

I suspect like most scams Danny doesn’t require everyone to fall for the BS for the scam to be successful.

I just watched the video. Yeah, you're right. You just have to trick some of the people some of the time to make money.

One thing you noticed with guys like him and Ted Denney is how confident they are, that's why they are con-artists. He often starts off with his videos by saying that something is a "teachable moment" as if he is some sort of master, yet he's been schooled by Amir on multiple occasions.

Man, con artists like him has a very inviting face to be slapped with a glove.

And I know for a fact that this guy hires some poor soul in a developing country to scrub the comments from his videos. That is why I always hit the dislike button, because his army is scrubbers, can't undo the dislike.

 

[PristineSound]

Now on the other hand, we're in February now, I wonder when Dave will provide his assessment of Erin's LX review.

 

[Mark609]

Danny wishes he could make a speaker as good as the Ascend Sierra.

Yep, that's the bottom line - a sales pitch, weak one at that as he cherry picks his way thru a smoke and mirrors video.

Klippel measurements tell all.

 

[Mark609]

Email response from Dave month ago or so regarding my ELX/RAAL towers -

"Woofers and Mid cross at ~600Hz. Mid and Raal cross at ~2800Hz......."

 

[Gwreck]

I just watched the video. Yeah, you're right. You just have to trick some of the people some of the time to make money.

One thing you noticed with guys like him and Ted Denney is how confident they are, that's why they are con-artists. He often starts off with his videos by saying that something is a "teachable moment" as if he is some sort of master, yet he's been schooled by Amir on multiple occasions.

Man, con artists like him has a very inviting face to be slapped with a glove.

And I know for a fact that this guy hires some poor soul in a developing country to scrub the comments from his videos. That is why I always hit the dislike button, because his army is scrubbers, can't undo the dislike.

I suspect he changes a few parts in a speaker with identical spec parts as “upgrades” so most of the time he doesn’t damage the speaker too badly. But I assume the cheap parts come at a big expense for his customers.

 

[Ktacos]

After interacting with Danny for a bit on this speaker, I think he has some issues with insecurity and self esteem. He seems to engage in anti-social behavior to the degree that I don't know if he knows he is running a con. He seems to take open offers from the community as threats, that's not healthy. There's definitely something going in with the guy that has shifted me from "laugh at this con man" to just feeling pity for him as he's locked himself inside a distorted reality.