Ascend Sierra 2 Speaker Review

[Rifmon]

Very interesting discussion.

I owned Sierra 1’s, Sierra 2’s and now the 2Ex. I had the 1’s for 7 years. Last year I sold them and bought Sierra 2’s. Before shipping off the 1’s, I had a chance to hook them up right next to the 2’s using my speakers a and b output of my HK 3490.

I must say I did not hear a night and day difference between the two. I’m not saying there was no difference in sound. There was. The vocals were more distinct and clear. The sound stage was wider. But it wasn’t night and day. This might have been due to my aging stereo receiver (and aging ears). The HK was a budget amp from the start.

This year I bought the 2Ex upgrade kits and installed them. Now there was to my ears, a huge difference. The sound of the 2Ex is fuller and the bass is incredible in my room. Way lower extension and very dynamic. These are incredibly dynamic and articulate. I love them!

I know it was stated earlier but it can stand to be repeated; The Sierra 2’s are being phased out. the Sierra 2 Ex are replacing them. The Sierra 1’s will remain in their line-up.

The Sierra 2EX are different speakers than the 2’s. I give a lot of credit to ascend for proving an upgrade path with the use of the same cabinets. The 2EX uses a different woofer and different crossover. The cross over is at a higher frequency than the 2’s crossover.....Less work for the RAAL. I’m thinking the measurements for the 2EX will be significantly different than what the 2’s presented.

 

[Shazb0t]

I've seen several users state that they were going to submit a RAAL Tower and or Horizon RAAL Center for measurement. Hopefully measurements of one of those, along with maybe the S-2EX, will prove out the upper end of the Ascend line.

 

[goldark]

Very interesting discussion.

I owned Sierra 1’s, Sierra 2’s and now the 2Ex. I had the 1’s for 7 years. Last year I sold them and bought Sierra 2’s. Before shipping off the 1’s, I had a chance to hook them up right next to the 2’s using my speakers a and b output of my HK 3490.

I must say I did not hear a night and day difference between the two. I’m not saying there was no difference in sound. There was. The vocals were more distinct and clear. The sound stage was wider. But it wasn’t night and day. This might have been due to my aging stereo receiver (and aging ears). The HK was a budget amp from the start.

This year I bought the 2Ex upgrade kits and installed them. Now there was to my ears, a huge difference. The sound of the 2Ex is fuller and the bass is incredible in my room. Way lower extension and very dynamic. These are incredibly dynamic and articulate. I love them!

I know it was stated earlier but it can stand to be repeated; The Sierra 2’s are being phased out. the Sierra 2 Ex are replacing them. The Sierra 1’s will remain in their line-up.

The Sierra 2EX are different speakers than the 2’s. I give a lot of credit to ascend for proving an upgrade path with the use of the same cabinets. The 2EX uses a different woofer and different crossover. The cross over is at a higher frequency than the 2’s crossover.....Less work for the RAAL. I’m thinking the measurements for the 2EX will be significantly different than what the 2’s presented.

Have you considered sending Amir the 2EX for review?

 

[Rifmon]

I just considered it.... and quickly dismissed the thought haha...... No seriously folks, I'd need to think about that. I have no back up so I'd be speakerless. I live in PA so not sure how much shipping would cost.

 

[Shazb0t]

I just considered it.... and quickly dismissed the thought haha...... No seriously folks, I'd need to think about that. I have no back up so I'd be speakerless. I live in PA so not sure how much shipping would cost.

Do it!

 

[goldark]

I just considered it.... and quickly dismissed the thought haha...... No seriously folks, I'd need to think about that. I have no back up so I'd be speakerless. I live in PA so not sure how much shipping would cost.

I'd be willing to split shipping costs with you. No pressure, but if you do decide to, PM me and we can work out details

 

[Rifmon]

OK thanks goldark These are my "retirement speakers"... I'd need to think long and hard on this. I am pretty anal with any possible shipping hazards etc...

 

[aarons915]

There is someone on the forum who is local to Seattle who is going to have his Sierra towers and Sierra 2 EX measured so I wouldn't worry about sending them in.

 

[Rifmon]

Thanks for the info aarons915. I will be looking forward to the reviews on both!

 

[Shazb0t]

There is someone on the forum who is local to Seattle who is going to have his Sierra towers and Sierra 2 EX measured so I wouldn't worry about sending them in.

You know this for sure?

 

[aarons915]

You know this for sure?

I know for sure that @echopraxia is in contact with Amirm to get them tested, I have no idea if it will actually happen lol

 

[Roen]

@amirm What other loudspeakers in this price range would you look at as having better performance?

 

[Shazb0t]

I know for sure that @echopraxia is in contact with Amirm to get them tested, I have no idea if it will actually happen lol

Let's hope that it happens! Until it does I would encourage anyone able to lend one to Amir to inquire about doing so.

 

[Roen]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Ascend Acoustics Sierra 2 "Reference" Stand-mount Speaker with "RAAL tweeter. It is on kind loan from a member. I *think* they cost $738 each or $1448 for a pair.

The model I have is made out of bamboo but finished in black:

View attachment 52386​

The back panel shows a large, flared port and nice quality binding posts:

View attachment 52387​

I was impressed with how stiff the cabinet was as even under heavy load of pounding bass, it would hardly transmit much to the outside. It is still a small speaker but even using one unit, it could fill my large space with sound. You won't confuse it with a 6 foot tower speaker but didn't sound like a little clock radio either.

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections. It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room. All measurements are reference to tweeter axis with the grill removed.

Around 800 points around the speaker were measured (from 20 to 20 kHz) which resulted in well under 1% error in identification of the sound field across full frequency response of 20 to 20 kHz. Final database of measurements and data is 1.2 Gigabytes in size.

Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker can be used. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:

View attachment 52388

We don't have a dead flat response but with variation being mostly peaks, a bit of EQ in those areas should tame them.

One oddity is that the company measurements show a rising response climbing to 20 kHz. Don't know what explains the discrepancy. Regardless, I rather have it my way than theirs when it comes to sound.

Directivity index is not perfect either but is close enough that should allow for some judicious EQ per my note above:

View attachment 52390

Finally, this is a prediction of what sound you may get in a typical room:

View attachment 52391

It is as to be expected based on measurements we saw before it.

Basic Speaker Measurements
The company specifies minimum impedance of 6 ohms but my sample dipped well below that:

View attachment 52392

Given the bass efficiency of 85 dB and lower, you better have lots of power for amplification.

Distortion measurements showed a concerning peak:

View attachment 52393

The ribbon tweeter likely hitting some kind of mode and running away on its own. We have a peak in frequency response after it that may be caused by this.

Advanced Speaker Measurements
View attachment 52394

View attachment 52395
View attachment 52396

In the following two graphs, look for least amount of "beard" below the main axis response:

View attachment 52397

View attachment 52398

Eye-candy Speaker Measurements
Contour graph shows that good response remains for a wide window of +- 80 degrees:
View attachment 52399

That means you can have a wide sweet spot, or ability to point the speaker forward and listen to them off-axis.

Vertically is the opposite though:

View attachment 52400

Best to put them at ear height (relative to center of the tweeter as I measured).

View attachment 52514
Casual Listening Tests
I don't have a controlled setting for hi-fi speaker testing yet. I just place a single speaker close to my Revel Salon 2 and use its amplifier to listen to single channel. There, the Sierra 2 produced better than expected sound. Its nice and solid enclosure allowed me to turn it up quite high and most of my reference tracks sounded "good." I could move around the speaker left and right with almost no tonality difference (i did this prior to confirming with contour plots above). Vertically though, the angle is quite limited so per earlier note, use stands that allow you to have them at your ear height.

Conclusions
The Ascend Sierra 2 is not perfect but overall, it seems to be a good package. You are getting much better build quality and SPL capability in a small package. And frequency response variations should be correctable to some extent with EQ.

I personally want more perfection in the speaker so would not be buying it myself but you have the data to decide for yourself.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

I have been so busy with equipment testing that I have not started my vegetable seedlings. Fortunately, I read on the Internet that they sell a special liquid you put on the seeds that makes them sprout 10 times faster! I love to get some but they want $100 for a little bottle. So please donate some money so I can afford to get them and catch up on my gardening using : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

When you say EQ, do you mean lowering treble 1 or 2 dB?

 

[echopraxia]

You know this for sure?

Yeah, I'm in touch with Amir and he is aware
all my speakers are available for him to test when he’s ready for them. He said there’s a queue of other speakers to test first, so I can’t say when it will happen.

Also, I would expect that during the coronavirus lockdowns, testing speakers shipped in and out would be preferable to local exchanges anyway, until lockdowns have eased for quite a while at least. I’m just guessing about that, though.

 

[jonfitch]

Very interesting discussion.

I owned Sierra 1’s, Sierra 2’s and now the 2Ex. I had the 1’s for 7 years. Last year I sold them and bought Sierra 2’s. Before shipping off the 1’s, I had a chance to hook them up right next to the 2’s using my speakers a and b output of my HK 3490.

I must say I did not hear a night and day difference between the two. I’m not saying there was no difference in sound. There was. The vocals were more distinct and clear. The sound stage was wider. But it wasn’t night and day. This might have been due to my aging stereo receiver (and aging ears). The HK was a budget amp from the start.

This year I bought the 2Ex upgrade kits and installed them. Now there was to my ears, a huge difference. The sound of the 2Ex is fuller and the bass is incredible in my room. Way lower extension and very dynamic. These are incredibly dynamic and articulate. I love them!

I know it was stated earlier but it can stand to be repeated; The Sierra 2’s are being phased out. the Sierra 2 Ex are replacing them. The Sierra 1’s will remain in their line-up.

The Sierra 2EX are different speakers than the 2’s. I give a lot of credit to ascend for proving an upgrade path with the use of the same cabinets. The 2EX uses a different woofer and different crossover. The cross over is at a higher frequency than the 2’s crossover.....Less work for the RAAL. I’m thinking the measurements for the 2EX will be significantly different than what the 2’s presented.

I had the 2EX for a while. It's a very punchy sounding speaker but the bass isn't very deep. It's mostly due to the bump from 70-90hz on that speaker. For me I prefer deeper extension and flatter bass as I feel the 2EX is too warm in the upper bass, but it's definitely an improvement over the overly-lean Sierra 2.

 

[amirm]

Yeah, I'm in touch with Amir and he is aware
all my speakers are available for him to test when he’s ready for them. He said there’s a queue of other speakers to test first, so I can’t say when it will happen.

Also, I would expect that during the coronavirus lockdowns, testing speakers shipped in and out would be preferable to local exchanges anyway, until lockdowns have eased for quite a while at least. I’m just guessing about that, though.

I have been making exchanges of speakers with local members. I wear mask and gloves and we do a quick switch and keep distances.

 

[theory]

Looking forward to seeing the 2EX and tower reviewed.

 

[Stump909]

I'm still wondering how the harmonic distortion chart can show a massive 8% spike, at 3500hz, that does not appear on the decay graph.

 

[AnalogSteph]

I'm still wondering how the harmonic distortion chart can show a massive 8% spike, at 3500hz, that does not appear on the decay graph.

The "spike" may be the combination of increasing tweeter excursion at the bottom end plus XO highpass filtering. No issues with decay would be expected then.