Ascend Sierra 2 Speaker Review

[napilopez]

Right and if you've bought and handled and looked at enough drivers you can tell what price class they belong to just by looking at them. In this case, it looks like a SEAS curv cone which uses a woven polypropelene if I am not mistaken. Cast frame, free air resonance below 40hz, weighs 3 1/2 pounds, 20mm xmax, advanced spider design. 90 dollars at retail.

Meanwhile the driver used in the Pioneer Bs22 is a cast frame, and only 4" in diameter, so less than half the radiating area, with less xmax, and we're supposed to believe they're in the same universe? I'm not even talking about just bass, a 6" woofer will have a lot more headroom at midrange frequencies as well.

I would love it if a budget speaker came along which blows away everything, but unlike in DACs where the parts are generally cheap and small, good speakers require large amounts of powerful magnets, heavy and large cabinets, and for passive speakers, a good amount of copper and large capacitors. That stuff costs money.

It is pretty cool that we're getting data points from all price brackets but I think we've seen what really cheap speakers can do at this point.

I think this is a key thing about the preference score that needs to be understood and written in big bold letters: It's only useful within a speaker's comfortable range. So maybe the pioneer would come close or win in a small room at lowish volumes with certain program material that doesn't stress dynamic range much, but it is intuitively unlikely it would do so at high SPLs or perhaps even 'normal ones' for the reasons you stated.

Unfortunately, we don't really have a great way of consistently determining that comfort range right now, so we have to use our intuition to at least some degree.

Not to say there aren't measurements for determining that, but a system isn't currently in place and it could significantly increase the effort involved. Here thorough listening tests could be useful, as there are occasional surprises (I never found myself stressing the Devialet phantom reactor in my everyday listening despite its size, for example) but understandably Amir can't do those yet.

 

[Ron Texas]

This thread is making me dizzy. Someone here obviously does not like that the RAAL tweeter has limited vertical dispersion, so he wants to shoot the messenger, metaphorically.

 

[617]

I think this is a key thing about the preference score that needs to be understood and written in big bold letters: It's only useful within a speaker's comfortable range. So maybe the pioneer would come close or win in a small room at lowish volumes with certain program material that doesn't stress dynamic range much, but it is intuitively unlikely it would do so at high SPLs or perhaps even 'normal ones' for the reasons you stated.

Unfortunately, we don't really have a great way of consistently determining that comfort range right now, so we have to use our intuition to at least some degree.

Not to say there aren't measurements for determining that, but a system isn't currently in place and it could significantly increase the effort involved. Here thorough listening tests could be useful, as there are occasional surprises (I never found myself stressing the Devialet phantom reactor in my everyday listening despite its size, for example) but understandably Amir can't do those yet.

It's hard to measure; I've thought about it a lot and I don't know how I would do it. Klippel sells some kind of module for this I'm sure, but even developing a standard is hard. SPL at x% THD at y frequency?

I normally just look at woofer surface area * xmax.

 

[Sancus]

It's hard to measure; I've thought about it a lot and I don't know how I would do it. Klippel sells some kind of module for this I'm sure, but even developing a standard is hard. SPL at x% THD at y frequency?

I normally just look at woofer surface area * xmax.

I think the sound and recording graphs with Max SPL for 3 and 10% are pretty useful. But as I understand it Amir previously stated he doesn't want to get into stressing speakers that way due to damage concerns...

Really? "Who cares?" Part of the reason people misuse SINAD is due the fact that SINADs taken at different output voltages are being placed on the same graph, and I think that's an issue too. ASR positions itself as "pro-consumer," shouldn't presenting data in a way that is less misleading for consumers be something that the ASR community cares about? I think that would be a win for everyone.

OK, but just removing the preference score doesn't make anything "less misleading" it just makes all the data less useful. Nobody criticizing it has referenced any possible replacement or solution.

Anyways, we have a problem shitting up every speaker thread with endless responses to the same criticisms. Preference score discussion is here.

Perhaps we should make a FAQ, honestly, and just refer people showing up with the same criticisms to it. "preference score, whine" and "measurements not accurate made in garage, whine" for example.

 

[Thomas savage]

All whiners qualify for a refund.

 

[Xyrium]

Oftentimes I feel like I’m the only person outside of the DIY community who understands and appreciates this. The constant push towards thinner and slimmer towers with 6” drivers is all a marketing stunt... blame it on consumer taste, blame it on the companies driving the market forward and the innovation leaders... I don’t know. But it’s stifling and I’m getting so sick of it.

I'll just opine that "there's no replacement for displacement".....

7" drivers aren't any more antiquated than 5" drivers. They all have their purpose, and proficiency. Dynaudio makes a living off of 7" drivers, and they chose that path since they make their own, or at least used to. Not that they are the best manufacturer in the world, but they're no slouch.

 

[database]

OK, but just removing the preference score doesn't make anything "less misleading" it just makes all the data less useful. Nobody criticizing it has referenced any possible replacement or solution.

My whole point is that if the preference rating isn't accurate often enough, it is less useful than not being there at all. I've referenced a proposed replacement/solution a few times now:

Again, it's not clear that the preference score even has value when it is used correctly, depending on how much error it has. But we can't know either way how well it is working for the speakers that have been reviewed until large scale blind tests are being performed on them. Looking forward to the blind tests actually happening eventually. It would be nice if the preference score was still available, but a separate "user score" was tracked based on blind test results, to see how well the preference score is or is not working. This would allow ASR to essentially test the accuracy of Sean Olive's work on the preference score, and perhaps even refine it to work better, as opposed to accepting its somewhat unusual results outright. Just as science should work.

 

[direstraitsfan98]

It's hard to measure; I've thought about it a lot and I don't know how I would do it. Klippel sells some kind of module for this I'm sure, but even developing a standard is hard. SPL at x% THD at y frequency?

I normally just look at woofer surface area * xmax.

Beyma and JBL publish detailed distortion measurements for their low frequency drivers. You could/should start to look there if making a DIY system and are seeking great performance. I always thought the general consensus was double digit distortion was bad, and audible. I've seen that number and statement thrown around on other forums before but no idea if its true. I've also seen people here say that those THD numbers don't matter because its masked by the music.

 

[617]

Beyma and JBL publish detailed distortion measurements for their low frequency drivers. You could/should start to look there if making a DIY system and are seeking great performance. I always thought the general consensus was double digit distortion was bad, and audible. I've seen that number and statement thrown around on other forums before but no idea if its true. I've also seen people here say that those THD numbers don't matter because its masked by the music.

It's complicated; it's not so much the THD doesn't matter as THD doesn't accurately predict how sound quality is diminished by non linearity. We can assume vanishingly low THD is a good thing but that's not very helpful if we're using THD as a measure of limiting output headroom. Other metrics have been created which can predict sound quality better than THD - it seems that the things which matter are both frequency and level dependent, and masking plays a roll as well.

 

[Jon AA]

My whole point is that if the preference rating isn't accurate often enough, it is less useful than not being there at all. I've referenced a proposed replacement/solution a few times now:

And it appears you have no idea how difficult a scientifically valid blind test is to pull off. Reading the Salon2 vs M2 shootout threat should give you an idea of how much time, effort and planning goes into such a test to only test two speakers against each other--and nobody was even trying to claim that test was as scientifically controlled and valid as the Harman tests (in a facility built for the purpose, robotic speaker switchers and all).

I'm sure Amir could pull it off and do a good job, and it seems he's planning to do that. But would that limit speaker reviews to a couple a month, a handful per year? Claiming such a test should be a requirement for every $100 speaker review is not a realistic replacement/solution.

 

[Thomas savage]

Please stay on topic , it's especially important in these review threads. There's likely existing threads for your off topic posts but if not feel free to start a new one.

I'm getting tired of saying this so don't be surprised if your off topic posts start disappearing.

 

[JohnBooty]

This is off-topic in one sense, but I think it's on-topic in the sense that folks are talking about the limitations of affordable speakers and seem to be indicating that further reviews of budget speakers are a waste of time. I'll leave it to the mod(s) to decide if this post is offtopic and should be moved... I'm cool either way ‍

I think this is a key thing about the preference score that needs to be understood and written in big bold letters: It's only useful within a speaker's comfortable range.

Totally agree! I would add, though:

The "comfortable range" of speakers like the BS-22 is quite usable in a small room (without a sub) or in a medium room (with a sub). There aren't a lot of reputable $100ish bookshelf speakers that fail to manage this in my experience.

Then you have the variable of adding subwoofers. Seems like either the Sierra 2 or the BS-22 needs help from a subwoofer to be a full-range speaker. No doubt the BS-22 needs help from a subwoofer a lot more, and maybe to be crossed over higher to hit (or try to hit) the decibel levels some folks like.

With a subwoofer, this is not a problem for the BS-22 in a medium-sized residential setting. In my 5.1 living room setup (15' x 25', give or take) the BS-22 and matching center channel climb well past comfortable/safe listening levels, which I generally define as 80-85dB average. (Hopefully, nobody is listening at 85dB for extended periods of time, I'm usually closer to 75dB or less)

Currently I've let Audyssey do the setup for me. It detected the BS-22 as "large" speakers; not sure what that means in absolute terms when it comes to the crossover. In the past when I configured things manually I used a 60hz crossover which worked well.

My main music systems are elsewhere, but the Pioneers have been enjoyable enough for home theater (where my standards, admittedly, are lower) that I have not been moved to spend a chunk of cash replacing them.

I only type this out because it seems like folks assume the Klippel and/or the preference score is flawed because it ranks the Pioneers highly. Guys, They're pretty competent and enjoyable speakers if you don't need a lot of bass output!

 

[thewas]

Controlled breakup is still breakup, though.

Have you seen the effort that KEF does so their mid/woofer breakup is significantly reduced?
https://us.kef.com/pub/media/documents/rseries/rseries2018-white-paper.pdf
By the way nodal drive is something known to good loudspeaker manufacturers already 40 years ago, my 1979 Technics SB-10 have a flat 13" which has its first breakup mode at 3 Khz! http://jahonen.kapsi.fi/Audio/Papers/Loudspeaker with honeycomb disk diaphragm/

 

[617]

Have you seen the effort that KEF does so their mid/woofer breakup is significantly reduced?
https://us.kef.com/pub/media/documents/rseries/rseries2018-white-paper.pdf
By the way nodal drive is something known to good loudspeaker manufacturers already 40 years ago, my 1979 Technics SB-10 have a flat 13" which has its first breakup mode at 3 Khz! http://jahonen.kapsi.fi/Audio/Papers/Loudspeaker with honeycomb disk diaphragm/

That's a surprisingly informative paper. For those too lazy, KEF dampens cone breakup in their aluminum bass drivers by using an intermediate paper cone between the voice coil and aluminum diaphragm. The two cones are joined at some vibrationally active point on the aluminum cone, sort of like a BMR but in reverse.

I only saw one piece of snake oil in the whole document...KEF uses a poly 'bypass' cap across large electrolytic capacitors where electros are used.

These honestly look like excellent speakers. KEF really has moved far past B&W at this point.

Would love to see measurements of the r3. Not a cheap speaker but it looks nice and measures well.

 

[DonH56]

Maybe the review threads should just be locked after posting. Any comments can be PM'd to Amir or put into a new thread. I'm with Thomas; most of the review threads are worthless past the first few posts as they devolve into other content.

 

[raistlin65]

Maybe the review threads should just be locked after posting. Any comments can be PM'd to Amir or put into a new thread. I'm with Thomas; most of the review threads are worthless past the first few posts as they devolve into other content.

Or, separate measurements and discussion threads. The former being for the measurements that Amir takes and any other measurements someone has to contribute.

 

[JohnBooty]

I'm with Thomas; most of the review threads are worthless past the first few posts as they devolve into other content.

I think this is perhaps natural.

This data is extremely interesting (and valuable!) but how much on-topic discussion can it really inspire?

I'm not sure there really more than a handful of things that can really be said about the performance of a standard 2-way ported box bookshelf speaker. There's nothing exotic going on with this design, right?

 

[Thomas savage]

I think this is perhaps natural.

This data is extremely interesting (and valuable!) but how much on-topic discussion can it really inspire?

I'm not sure there really more than a handful of things that can really be said about the performance of a standard 2-way ported box bookshelf speaker. There's nothing exotic going on with this design, right?

That's fine , the other avenues of conversation in these review threads need to find their own threads either pre-existing or new one's created.

That way the value of these off topic discussions can be harnessed fully rather than lost in something else.

 

[DonH56]

That's fine , the other avenues of conversation in these review thrads need to find their own threads either pre-existing or new one's created.

That way the value you [receive] of these off topic discussions can be harnessed fully rather than lost in something else.

^^^ This. There are some great discussions difficult to impossible to find because they are tagged onto some quasi-random review thread.

IMO - Don

 

[CDMC]

Interesting how these measure out. Like others, I would like to see what the Sierra 1s measure like. From the graphs on Ascend and subjective reviews, the Sierra 1s should have a warmer sound. The Sierra 2ex look like they split the difference and don't have the same rising amplitude in the mids and highs plus a bit of bass hump which would make them sound warmer.

I was strongly considering the Sierra 1s for my desktop but ruled them out as just a little to large. I looked long and hard at the Luna's but was concerned about their bass roll off below 200hz (even trying to cross over to subwoofer) and the peak about 8khz leading to a bright sound. After careful consideration, I put a deposit on a set of Salk WOW1s. In the one direct review between those and the Sierra Luna (same room, same equipment) the reviewer said the WOW1s were a bit warmer. It will be interesting to see how they compare to my Totem Mites that are currently in use.