Ascend Acoustics Owners' Lounge

[RickS]

Here is a short summary for those disciplined enough to avoid Youtube. It follows Danny's usual pattern of modding just to claim improvements...

1. First, he commends the Ascend crossovers and compares them to his own. Fails to mention how much better the Ascend drivers are than the cheap ones he uses. Everyone else other than GR builds to a price.
2. His usual myopic scale shows the Ascend is pretty flat on-axis. Still, he revoices it based on his usual outdated measurements and does not check for increased distortion, phase, or bass performance (below 200 Hz).
3. Danny's off-axis measures do not align with the Ascend's known performance but his are not an improvement. He claims to have baselined against known measurements but waves some paper at the camera and does not show the actual comparison.
4. He rants about flattening the Ascend's response above 10 kHz, but the net result is about a 2 dB increase at 20 kHz. May look better on paper but is unlikely audible for most content.

There is no published price, but Danny indicates a few hundred. As usual, in a speaker that will take well to equalization, no point in ripping into a good speaker to apply GR upgrades. Save your money for a better investment!

 

[amirm]

There is no published price, but Danny indicates a few hundred.

I saw a price of $475 for the new crossover. Insane amount to pay even if there is an improvement.

 

[amirm]

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.

That's really it. He doesn't level any room, for anyone, to know more than him about anything. None. And he is so confident about it that is hard to believe. He is always insulting if you dare to say anything that he considers negative. Whether it really is or not. With youtube comments usually being very positive (for all creators of this type), it boldens this belief.

 

[RickS]

I saw a price of $475 for the new crossover. Insane amount to pay even if there is an improvement.

Wow, Danny also complains about the Ascend’s tweeter impedance swing. Seems hypocritical given the XL-Encore one is just as bad (maybe worse).

 

[amirm]

Wow, Danny also complains about the Ascend’s tweeter impedance swing. Seems hypocritical given the XL-Encore one is just as bad (maybe worse).

His claim of needing flat impedance reeks of thinking that we are still running high output impedance tube amps. Nothing remotely is bad for a proper amp to have variable impedance across the audible band. After all, just about every speaker is that way. Even after his modifications. Talk about fixing what doesn't need fixing!

 

[Gwreck]

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.

I suppose any good scam artist must believe in the scam to be really effective.

His claim of needing flat impedance wreaks of thinking that we are still running high output impedance tube amps. Nothing remotely is bad for a proper amp to have variable impedance across the audible band. After all, just about every speaker is that way. Even after his modifications. Talk about fixing what doesn't need fixing!

Danny wishes he could design a speaker as good as the Ascend. Maybe Danny could patent his Dunning-Kruger crossover upgrade technology?

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

He rants about flattening the Ascend's response above 10 kHz, but the net result is about a 2 dB increase at 20 kHz. May look better on paper but is unlikely audible for most content.

Kick your EQ up 2dB from 10-20k, see if you can hear it. If I bump things just 1dB because I think I need a bit more on the cymbals for example, I usually end up turning it down after a few minutes. Old ears and all.

There's a bigger issue. We have Klipple measurements, and I take those as the gold standard. His measurements were off from that. He corrected from his measurements.

Does this mean ALL of his mods are off in the 10-20k region? I can't see how it would be otherwise.

 

[Gwreck]

So I think Danny would be the guy who goes to the Doctor’s office and the medical scale tells him he is overweight. He then goes home and his cheap Walmart bathroom scale says his weight is a good number. Danny would then curse the doctor for not knowing how to be a doctor.

 

[PristineSound]

With youtube comments usually being very positive (for all creators of this type), it boldens this belief.

Danny hires a third-party social media management company to scrub the comments. If there is an overly negative comment, question on his knowledge and authority, overly disagreement, it gets deleted. I also am very suspicious of some or most of the overly positive comments are manufactured by this social media management company.

Darko does the same thing, he even said it on one of his videos that he hired a third-party social media management company to scrub his comments.

 

[Ktacos]

Danny hires a third-party social media management company to scrub the comments. If there is an overly negative comment, question on his knowledge and authority, overly disagreement, it gets deleted. I also am very suspicious of some or most of the overly positive comments are manufactured by this social media management company.

Darko does the same thing, he even said it on one of his videos that he hired a third-party social media management company to scrub his comments.

Danny himself appears to have deleted mine, he responds on his personal account which is kind of hilarious.

People asked him to send a sample or schematic to Ascend and he won't do it. He says "They can learn from what I've done". How Danny. How does someone learn when you share no information? What kind of logic is this? Dude is straight up anti-social.

I find it curious that Danny thinks so highly of himself and his skills, yet the only company to ever employ him for speaker development appears to have an owner guilty of charity fraud? How come Elac, or L'acoustics, or really anyone won't hire him?

 

[PristineSound]

I find it curious that Danny thinks so highly of himself and his skills

The answer is either or a combination of (a) from the bottom of his heart and soul, he truly believes in his own BS and that his pseudoscience is real science or (b) he is intentionally a con artist.

 

[RickS]

His claim of needing flat impedance wreaks of thinking that we are still running high output impedance tube amps. Nothing remotely is bad for a proper amp to have variable impedance across the audible band. After all, just about every speaker is that way. Even after his modifications. Talk about fixing what doesn't need fixing!

Good point, despite industry practice, Danny also never shows phase and it could have a significant impact as well. It is very odd as his CLIO plots have the axis markings for plotting phase. So, the data is quite likely measured but not plotted.

The Ascends were so good, he seems to be making up excuses for his mods.

 

[RickS]

Kick your EQ up 2dB from 10-20k, see if you can hear it. If I bump things just 1dB because I think I need a bit more on the cymbals for example, I usually end up turning it down after a few minutes. Old ears and all.

There's a bigger issue. We have Klipple measurements, and I take those as the gold standard. His measurements were off from that. He corrected from his measurements.

Does this mean ALL of his mods are off in the 10-20k region? I can't see how it would be otherwise.

Would depend on the Q of the filter and center frequency. For his mod, there is minuscule impact.

In your case, do not doubt you hear something, but cymbal harmonics barely reach 16 kHz and the fundamental are 900 Hz and lower. Then there is the age factor for many of us.

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

Would depend on the Q of the filter...

I used a high shelf to kick it up when I needed to, which I don't now.

Cymbals were not the best example, but there is a difference I can pick up when those frequencies jump. I suppose "air" would be the correct shorthand term.

I may be particularly sensitive to 10-20k because the back 1/3 of my room has 100 year old floorboards exposed, and they move and kick out sound at high SPL. So at some point (very near my "too loud" point) +2dB volume will spit out a rise in those frequencies of +4dB (for example). Plus 15-20k, when too high, makes me head pulse.

I discovered that floor effect when I put a new rubber backed rug pad there, and everything between 10-20k that was happening from 200-400 ms went away.... for a week. Then it came back. A bit more and more. Luckily, to a lower level than before. And I can get rid of that by setting things up in a certain way in the front of my room.

So that turned out to be a GREAT rug pad purchase!

 

[Ktacos]

I feel quite honored that Danny turned the comments off due to my unrelenting desire for transparency and honesty. Guess he couldn't handle the heat.

 

[RickS]

So mentioned some hand waving by Danny over baselining. Here is how his measures compare to the posted ones for the Sierra @EX v2...

The green trace is from Ascend's posted measurements but have added 1/3 octave smoothing to directly align with the GR measures. Even if we changed the scaling to the more typical 50 dB, it is pretty clear that these measurements do not match.

NOTE: Did not find measurements for an earlier version from Sierrra, but note that Danny does not clearly differentiate and did not post any comparison at all. For the sake of full disclosure,

 

[PristineSound]

I feel quite honored that Danny turned the comments off due to my unrelenting desire for transparency and honesty. Guess he couldn't handle the heat.

Comments are open for me. Not sure if YouTube have the ability to shut off comments per individual user.

I just took another glance at the comments, it's super obvious that his comments were scrubbed by a third party social media management company, there is no way in hell you don't get any negative comments on social media, that goes against the law of human nature.

Moreso, there is no effing way in heaven or hell can you get this many highly positive comments. . . absolutely no effing way, this wouldn't happen even for Mother Teresa on the Internet.

I follow this channel on YT called outdoor boys, basically of a guy doing videos of wilderness camping, he explained on a short why he disabled comments on his videos because of how toxic it is and all the negative comments. If videos of wilderness camping gets this level of nasty, negative comments, how the eff in the world does Danny manages to get so many overly positive comments; on the topic of HiFi audio nonetheless?

So this means Danny also hired this social media company to write fake positive comments.

 

[Ktacos]

Comments are open for me. Not sure if YouTube have the ability to shut off comments per individual user.

He turned them off yesterday and turned them back on today. I can promise you they were definitely disabled for a period of time, I even got a screenshot of it. He's claiming he didn't do that, and if it did happen he doesn't control the youtube channel. Compulsive liar.

If one doesn't believe me go ahead and double check this image for any sort of manipulation.

 

[RickS]

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.

Once again is Danny hyping a position that is hypocritical. He sells speakers with tweeters that cross around 2 kHz. If using a full range driver and crossing lower was such a major sound improvement, why are none of the major vendors doing so? If true, they could have been doing so decades ago.

In another bit of hypocrisy, his full range has a major resonance around 14 kHz. Danny criticizes the Ascend for having a 2 db droop at 20 kHz. His LGK has a 5 dB peak at 14 kHz and is much more audible. As have mentioned before, this hype all seems to be another attempt to move his inventory of crappy LGK drivers.

 

[PristineSound]

He turned them off yesterday and turned them back on today. I can promise you they were definitely disabled for a period of time, I even got a screenshot of it. He's claiming he didn't do that, and if it did happen he doesn't control the youtube channel. Compulsive liar.

If one doesn't believe me go ahead and double check this image for any sort of manipulation.

View attachment 511098

Which is why I wonder if YT has the ability to turn off comments for individual users. Your description here is in line with Danny's behavior. No surprises here.