he has several , I would assume he used more than one
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Ascend Acoustics Sierra LX Review
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thunderchicken
Active Member
I caught that review and own the LX and the Sierra 1 v2. They are run by an Anthem MRX 540 and are 90% HT and 10% music. All I can say here is that comparison is definitely still the thief of joy. I had a brief pang of disappointment but remembered that I loved the setup before I saw the review and then I went and listened to them gain.
They sound phenomenal in my room and any measured issues are definitely inaudible at the top of my own comfort level. They get LOUD without sounding “loud.” In my experience, things start sounding “loud” when distortion starts creeping in.
Theses are just wonderful speakers and any nitpicking seems to come from people who have not heard them or have edge use cases. For 99% of potential buyers and actual owners, these are probably the most accurate speakers they will ever hear. In my case, they are end game and I have stopped looking at HT setups. I might upgrade the electronics if/when a better mix of SINAD/features/price than the MRX hits the market, but I’m done on the speaker side. These are truly a buy it for life product.
They sound phenomenal in my room and any measured issues are definitely inaudible at the top of my own comfort level. They get LOUD without sounding “loud.” In my experience, things start sounding “loud” when distortion starts creeping in.
Theses are just wonderful speakers and any nitpicking seems to come from people who have not heard them or have edge use cases. For 99% of potential buyers and actual owners, these are probably the most accurate speakers they will ever hear. In my case, they are end game and I have stopped looking at HT setups. I might upgrade the electronics if/when a better mix of SINAD/features/price than the MRX hits the market, but I’m done on the speaker side. These are truly a buy it for life product.
PristineSound
Major Contributor
Well, he said he heard distortion, yes, there is distortion on the data, but there are plenty of other speakers he reviewed with similar distortion that wasn't mentioned. I am not saying there are any motives, I am saying his subjective commentary are also subjective.
And Dave, along with many others didn't hear any distortion (myself included, albeit, I don't play loud and I don't use poor quality amps), so it's subjective vs subjective.
I think at this point, Dave more than deserves an opportunity to publish his findings rather that us (me included) internet sleuths making speculations.
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thewas
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Which I never mentioned, as said above I just care and consider the objective data, not their subjective comments. Also my intervention was about the stated reason of the distortion, not if and how people heared it or not.
PristineSound
Major Contributor
Fair enough. I personally am just looking forward to Dave's writeup of his investigation, strictly for the knowledge of the scientific and engineering findings.
And given Dave's track record, I am expecting nothing less than a master class.
Audio Science Pal
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I have been listening to my Sierra LX for 2 years now and am still very happy with them.
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Same here, love my LX, but the next upgrade is sound is about $6k (elx). I wish they offered a mini tower for around 3.5k.
MarkS
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The Ascend Sierra Tower V2 with the Titan Dome tweeter is $3K/pair
www.ascendacoustics.com
SIERRA TOWER V2 PAIR
Introducing our new V2 Tower "The midrange on the Towers...is a main event. Inner detail is fantastic even on large-ensemble recordings, and they are free from distortion and retain a hefty amount of dynamic headroom when played at spirited levels." -Enjoy the Music.com Combining the most...
www.ascendacoustics.com
My apologies, I wanted to respond back to you but my daughter had a major head-on car accident last week. Thankfully, she is OK now - shaken up, bruises everywhere, mild concussion, car is totaled. My priorities have been getting her and her daily routine back on track. Absolutely horrifying for a parent - when I saw the car but didn't see her, for a spit second - I thought I lost my daughter. I am definitely more shaken up than her. The good news for us is that the other driver's insurance company has been easy to work with and they are covering everything.
As I already mentioned, if this customer was hearing multi-tone or IM distortion generated from the speaker, it would not have gone away with changing to a more powerful amplifier, it would have gotten worse or stayed the same. This is fact. If you don't understand what causes the MTON distortion seen in Erin's measurement, I can explain a bit now, but I will be fully covering this in detail soon enough.
You had brought up a question about power to reach that level of 96dB at 1 meter - and this is a good point, but to begin the discussion on this, I am going to turn that question around and ask you if you know what the voltage level required to reach that output is. I certainly know, and this is not meant to sound condescending at all - but to check to see if you (and others) actually understand what is being measured in those measurements and how. It is a good starting point.
You brought up the Kef Q concerto's MTON measurements. They achieve lower MTON distortion in Erin's measurement because it is a 3-way speaker, and the mids are handled by the midrange driver, thus the woofer is crossed at much lower frequencies. The MTON distortion we are discussing in these measurements is going be on the upper end of the woofer's natural response.
Ascilab uses a very low crossover point for their tweeter (I believe ~ 1kHz) so that frequency range where the woofer will generate the MTON distortion that we are discussing is primarily being handled by the tweeter.
The very first thing I did, which was about 10 months ago - was to design an LX with a much lower crossover point. That was quite simple, and our Titan tweeter, with a very low Fs of ~800Hz, can easily handle a low crossover point. The MTON distortion results were nearly identical to that of Ascilab (to be honest, slightly better). If we received "distortion" complaints from customers who own LX, or if I had thought Erin's MTON measurement revealed an actual issue - an LX V2 would have been released 9 months ago. However, and I am very serious about this, I am not going to change an extremely well proven design, with a continuing overall satisfaction rate approaching 99%, simply because of one reviewer using a new module from Klippel that, after deep and thorough evaluation of it, has practically no bearing on what someone would actually hear with music. I will soon be covering this in much more detail.
Again, after extremely thorough and deep technical evaluation, had I thought there was an actual issue, LX V2 would already be shipping and this discussion wouldn't exist. This is that fine line between real world experience and listening vs evaluating measurements. CEA-2034 is well proven and has been thoroughly adopted, Klippel's MTON - we are not there yet.
Thank God your daughter is OK.
You're quite the man to address this topic after that horrifying experience.
Take it easy.......
thewas
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First off, I am relieved to hear your daughter is OK. Car accidents are every parent’s absolute nightmare, and no measurement or speaker debate matters anywhere near as much as her safety. Please take all the time you need to focus on her recovery, there’s zero rush on this discussion. When you're back in work mode, here are my thoughts on the points you raised:
For a speaker with a nominal sensitivity around 83–84 dB @ 2.83V / 1m (4-ohm nominal), reaching 96 dB SPL at 1 meter requires an increase of ~12 to 13 dB over the baseline voltage. 2.83V gives ~83.5 dB.To reach 96 dB SPL, you need roughly 12V to 13V RMS. Into a 4-ohm load, which translates to roughly 35 to 42 Watts RMS and even with dynamic peaks of 3-6 dB this is well within the clean power envelope of the Denon. This is precisely why I maintain that in a mid-sized room at elevated listening levels, the speaker—not the amplifier—hits its thermal compression, mechanical excursion, and multitone/Doppler distortion limits long before a competent amp runs out of voltage headroom.
Of course the KEF Q Concerto Meta achieves lower MTD because as a 3-way, the dedicated woofer is relieved of mid-band duties, drastically reducing intermodulation between deep bass excursion and upper-midrange frequencies.The Ascilab or Purifi-based implementations lower MTD either through aggressive low crossover points (shifting the upper-mid workload off the woofer) or ultra-low distortion motor designs (like Purifi’s neutral-flux/shorting ring geometry). Your experiment with lowering the LX crossover point using the Titan tweeter makes total sense from an engineering standpoint. However, the fundamental constraint of a 2-way compact speaker remains physics: asking a ~6-inch cone to simultaneously produce large low-frequency displacement (e.g., 40–80 Hz) and clean midrange frequencies (e.g., 500–2000 Hz) inevitably introduces Doppler shift and nonlinear IMD/MTD.
I certainly don't expect you to redesign a wildly successful speaker like the Sierra LX based on a single measurement metric. The LX is a good speaker for its class and design envelope. Where we might respectfully disagree is on the perceptual relevance of multitone testing. CEA-2034 / Spinorama is essential for linear response and directivity, but it is primarily a small-signal model. Klippel MTD simulates complex, dense musical signals (like orchestral or dense electronic tracks) better than single-tone THD because it exposes multi-frequency intermodulation across the entire passband simultaneously under high drive levels. While MTD isn't the only metric that defines a speaker, it provides clear objective insight into how a driver behaves when pushed hard with complex material. Pointing out that 3-ways or ultra-low-IMD drivers measure cleaner in MTD isn't an attack on the LX, it's simply highlighting the inherent tradeoffs of the 2-way format at high SPL.
PristineSound
Major Contributor
Glad to hear you daughter is safe. I remember getting into a car accident when I was a teenager, it scarred me for years.
What is the drawback to crossover at a lower frequency? What is it about the LX's proven design that makes it a solid engineering choice over crossing over at a lower frequency?
Thank goodness your daughter is OK. Wishing her a quick, full recovery.
ShadowBoxer
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Any ideas why Purifi goes to such great lengths in the design of their costly (low distortion) crenelated driver surrounds if multi-tone distortion has irrelevant audible impact with respect to complex music signals?
The MTON distortion being discussed here is caused by the extremely long excursion of a woofer reproducing near steady-state deep bass while that same woofer is also being tasked with reproducing midrange frequencies at the exact same time. Our LX woofer and a few other similarly sized woofers, including Purifi’s extended-excursion woofers, are capable of reproducing such extended deep bass.
These woofers are not suspension limited as a means of preventing them from attempting to reproduce deep bass. Rather, the woofer’s suspension and voice coil are specifically optimized to allow the woofer to produce deep bass. However, one cannot defy the laws of physics. With such long excursion, fewer voice coil windings remain within the magnetic gap. As a result, motor force, or BL, decreases, producing higher excursion induced intermodulation distortion than would occur in a suspension limited woofer that cannot reproduce such deep bass.
Purifi’s unique surround is very effective at reducing surround edge related distortion and distortion caused by suspension nonlinearities, otherwise known as Kms(x) distortion, but it does not affect the excursion relation distortion I have described above. In fact, my measurements of Purifi’s extended-excursion woofers show higher BL(x) distortion than our LX woofer (which is to be expected since these have shorter voice coils than our LX woofer). This can also be seen in many of Erin’s measurements of two-way speakers using Purifi’s extended-excursion woofers.
The only type of woofer that would not be subject to this issue is one that uses what is known as an underhung voice coil. The problem is that a similarly sized woofer using an underhung motor system cannot produce anywhere near the same amount of extended deep bass.
The MTON distortion being discussed here and shown in Erin’s measurements is generated using a near steady-state stimulus that subjects the speaker to a true torture test. In my professional opinion, this stimulus does not accurately represent recorded music, even though it attempts to approximate it. The amount of distortion shown in these measurements represents the distortion produced with that specific stimulus.
The measured distortion level can vary considerably when other stimulus options that also attempt to represent music are used. There are many different stimulus designed for this, including M-Noise, pink noise, white noise, IEC 60268-21, AES2-1984, AES2-2012, and EIA noise. Each produces different measured levels of the distortion being discussed. Some are more torturous, while others produce considerably less distortion. Klippel’s MTON module allows testing with several different stimulus options, including customizations.
I created a custom stimulus using the IEC 60268 stimulus (what Erin uses), modified according to the pioneering, peer-reviewed work of Elowsson and Friberg. They studied and measured the actual spectral distribution of recorded music and developed an average frequency distribution from all of the music they sampled. Their findings also correspond well with other studies examining the same subject.
Using this stimulus, I measured not only our LX but also many other speakers under exactly the same conditions. The distortion being discussed was significantly lower and below any reasonable threshold of audibility. This corresponds well with our customer feedback, the success of the LX, and the overall feedback regarding many of the other speakers I tested that measured relatively high in Erin’s test, as well as my own listening (which now includes 100's of hours dedicated to this issue)
Let me be clear: Erin is not doing anything wrong with his MTON measurements. However, as I previously mentioned, the amount of distortion shown in his measurements of our LX and several other two-way speakers with extended deep-bass capability is specific to the stimulus he uses for these tests.
I have been doing this for a very long time, and one must be able to correlate measurements with subjective feedback. Since the day we released the LX, feedback from owners—both before and after Erin’s review—has been overwhelmingly positive. This includes feedback from musicians, critical listeners, attendees at the live demo's we conduct regularly, and world-class transducer engineers at SEAS, with whom we have had extremely detailed and ongoing discussions. SEAS also uses Klippel analyzers.
I will be following this up with measurements and even a few videos, more likely on our own forum as it is easier for me, but I am a bit overwhelmed with work and family issues right now but this post is the start....
I hope this all makes sense.
Thank you! So you want to hear something crazy? So I already bought her a new car, and she has been a bit anxious / nervous about driving again (understandably, she's definitely got some PTSD from this accident). So as typical as how my family's luck has been this year - what happens? She is at our local grocery store in the parking lot, and a young new driver backs into her. It was extremely minor, just a few mph at most, but she now has a small dent and scuff on her just over 1 week old new car. Crazy!
I have decided to wrap her up in bubble wrap and never let her leave the house again
Thank you and excellent question!
Lowering the crossover point and we end up with wider directivity in that frequency range that the tweeter would now be handling compared to the woofer. It is a minor hit to the directivity matching between the woofer and tweeter.
Thanks for the kind words!
PristineSound
Major Contributor
I know you like a wide soundstage and hence, waveguides hasn't been much a consideration for Ascend.
Correct, and this is immediately audible in my experience, I have also conducted several comparison demo's with people who visit us and their conclusions mirrored my own. Everything is a compromise and while we do heavily rely on measurements (obviously) - listening and continual feedback always drives our choices and that isn't going to change. I think we are now the oldest internet-direct loudspeaker manufacturer that is still in business, just about 30-years now and we aren't going anywhere- there is a method to our madness.
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