Ascend Sierra Luna Duo Center/Main Speaker Review

[wwenze]

BTW, how do members feel when their stuff tests badly?
Hopefully they can still enjoy the stuff or return them somehow?

I found myself stuck in a situation where the response that I think sounds best has a +6dB low shelf filter at around 750Hz, a slight but slow bass rolloff below 100Hz, reduced treble above 10kHz, and somehow the middle treble between 1kHz and 10kHz doesn't matter. In-room measurement, not anechoic response of the speaker. But of course the appropriate speaker + the table are needed to get this response.

And I'm still using this response instead of the auto-EQ by REW.

 

[YSC]

it's always a shame where manufacturer managed to get exotic looks and materials for such good looking yet expensive speakers to perform that badly... I can accept is kind of Asus ROG or similar computer gaming accessories as they might aim for look or amplify certain gaming need frequencies or so, but hifi speaker this broken is totally unacceptable...

 

[RMW_NJ]

Dave did post a response to Amir’s measurements over at the Ascend forum. Bottom line, he said he’d be looking into it more.

 

[amirm]

Dave did post a response to Amir’s measurements over at the Ascend forum. Bottom line, he said he’d be looking into it more.

That's good.

 

[hardisj]

I see their website specifically mentions “quasi-anechoic” as well as a note to ignore response below 250Hz. This tells me that they’re doing the typical measurement method of gating and merging. If so, their measurement method simply doesn’t have the resolution to show narrow midrange resonances. A window of at least 20Hz accuracy would be needed to show these kind of resonances because the Q is so high. Windowing just glosses over these things. It’s the downside to the often used quasi-anechoic method. These can be done pretty easily in a large parking lot, street or driveway with no obstructions, though.





http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/duo/duomeas.html

 

[MZKM]

That's good.

Also part of what he said:

One thing I found interesting is that in Amir’s 96 dB distortion measurement, which applies a 60Hz high pass filter, thus rolling off bass below 60Hz, the fundamental – which is the actual frequency response, looks much more similar to ours with less port resonance. I have never used a near field scanning system for loudspeaker measurement, this is a new technology, we use tried and true MLSSA systems, so there may be differences as to how port output is summed in the near field, resolution differences, or the NFS system might be sending a lot of low frequency information to the speaker at a high amplitude – thus exciting port resonances to a higher degree (this could explain the frequency response differences I noted in the distortion)

http://forum.ascendacoustics.com/showthread.php?6574-Which-center-Luna-S2-or-Horizon/page6

 

[levimax]

Out of the almost 100 speakers tested do any of them with a ribbon tweeter measure well? Seems like a trend.

 

[hardisj]

Out of the almost 100 speakers tested do any of them with a ribbon tweeter measure well? Seems like a trend.

My tests aren’t in Amir’s 100, but I’m 2 for 2 with speakers I have tested with ribbons so far.

https://erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/selah_audio_purezza/

https://erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/philharmonic_bmr/

 

[levimax]

My tests aren’t in Amir’s 100, but I’m 2 for 2 with ribbons so far.

https://erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/selah_audio_purezza/

https://erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/philharmonic_bmr/

Looks good!.... usually it is not the technology but rather the implementation that makes the difference... can you send a speaker to Amir to test?

 

[hardisj]

Looks good!.... usually it is not the technology but rather the implementation that makes the difference... can you send a speaker to Amir to test?

The speakers aren’t mine. Just ones I tested. Sorry, my post isn’t clear.

And no need to send them to Amir anyway. The tests are solid.

 

[617]

He doesn't indicate the key thing which is where the speaker was measured and how he handled low frequency response/reflections. The Mic and software are not important bits. But yes, it does seem like old software and such given the look of the graphs.

Unless anechoic chamber was used (highly doubtful), the accuracy is far, far worse than Klippel NFS.

Quasi anechoic measurement could explain the poor resolution in mid bass, which would gloss over the port resonances.

 

[YSC]

Out of the almost 100 speakers tested do any of them with a ribbon tweeter measure well? Seems like a trend.

Does the Adam s2v count as ribbon? If so that measure remarkably

 

[617]

Looks good!.... usually it is not the technology but rather the implementation that makes the difference... can you send a speaker to Amir to test?

A two way with ribbons is very, very hard to pull off.

 

[Gyroscopics]

My self-assembled version of Dennis Murphy's AA+ has much better FR than this and costs 1/8 as much.

Edit: 1/8 the cost per pair

 

[xykreinov]

The Designer must be a huge Batman fan.

View attachment 91305View attachment 91301View attachment 91302View attachment 91303

I already thought this speaker was really goofy, but this had me dying lol

 

[xykreinov]

Clearly, you're paying for the least deviation from the well-researched Batman target curve

 

[ROOSKIE]

The speakers aren’t mine. Just ones I tested. Sorry, my post isn’t clear.

And no need to send them to Amir anyway. The tests are solid.

Yah Solid indeed. Some of the best around for sure.
Digging your reviews and just saw the Revel. Sick( meaning excellent)

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Does the Adam s2v count as ribbon? If so that measure remarkably

No--it uses a garden variety AMT (aka Heil transformer). A good AMT will generally have superior distortion properties at the bottom end of its operating range (hence its frequent appearance in 2-ways), but frequently won't measure as well at the top end as a good ribbon. To add to the confusion, the unit that Rick Craig uses in his Purezza is neither an AMT nor a ribbon, but some kind of combination I don't quite understand.

 

[Maiky76]

Hi,

Here is the EQ, really challenging to say the least.
Score no EQ: 1.41 poor! 4.26 with sub
Spinorama no EQ

Directivity
horizontal is Ok but vertical is very poor, must stay right at tweeter height
too much energy above 6k compared to the rest of the spectrum.

EQ design:
large deviation from the flat seed showing issues with directivity.
Very uneven frequency response. Very difficult to EQ.
Score with EQ: 4.75 still bad for the price / 7.21 with sub

Ascend Sierra Luna Duo APO EQ Score 96000Hz
November042020-130445

Preamp: -2.6 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 60 Hz Gain 3 dB Q 0.86
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 162 Hz Gain -4.15 dB Q 1.3
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 555 Hz Gain 2.51 dB Q 2.5
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 602 Hz Gain -4.5 dB Q 18.2
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 1655 Hz Gain -6.46 dB Q 3.93
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 2916 Hz Gain -1.83 dB Q 6.59
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 5945 Hz Gain -4.23 dB Q 1.5
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 10910 Hz Gain -4.92 dB Q 0.75
Filter 9: ON HSC Fc 832 Hz Gain 2.9 dB Q 0.88
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 876.5 Hz Gain -2.84 dB Q 5

EQed spinorama

Zoom PIR-LW-ON

Regression Tonal

very large improvements

Like for its little brother, many, many speakers, at much lower prices, measure much better...

 

[617]

No--it uses a garden variety AMT (aka Heil transformer). A good AMT will generally have superior distortion properties at the bottom end of its operating range (hence its frequent appearance in 2-ways), but frequently won't measure as well at the top end as a good ribbon. To add to the confusion, the unit that Rick Craig uses in his Purezza is neither an AMT nor a ribbon, but some kind of combination I don't quite understand.

https://audioxpress.com/article/test-bench-bozhen-new-audio-lab-cq66-ribbon-tweeter

Surely just a big ass ribbon?