Ascend Sierra Luna Duo Center/Main Speaker Review

[Todd74]

If you used this speaker horizontally then where the above becomes your horizontal response, you better sit at the axis of tweeter and not move one bit! Never mind about anything else sitting to your left and right.

I brought up something pertaining to this in a thread discussing center channel speakers. For those of us only concerned about our own on-axis listening position, what would make for a better center?

If we use a traditional horizontal MTM center positioned under the screen, will it deprive us of our vertical response and thus make it feel more localized below the TV? .... and if so, would the answer to that be to use a single bookshelf on its side to essentially do the opposite of what we’re seeing in the graphs below, turning the stronger horizontal response into better vertical performance, just like how turning this speaker on its side did?

 

[GWolfman]

@MZKM Do you have a list of all speakers and your preference rating scores? I'd like to compare for upcoming shopping...

 

[MZKM]

@MZKM Do you have a list of all speakers and your preference rating scores? I'd like to compare for upcoming shopping...

Click my signature. I even have a Speaker Selector sheet that you can filter, just need a Google account.

 

[goldark]

Ascend implies they will try to make improvements to the speakers based on these measurements: "That stated, we do not mess around here and we take both measurements and feedback very seriously and as such, we are already deep into working on this. The Luna and Duo will be better speakers because of you, as will our production line testing procedures."

http://forum.ascendacoustics.com/sh...h-center-Luna-S2-or-Horizon&p=64388#post64388

 

[Shazb0t]

Ascend implies they will try to make improvements to the speakers based on these measurements: "That stated, we do not mess around here and we take both measurements and feedback very seriously and as such, we are already deep into working on this. The Luna and Duo will be better speakers because of you, as will our production line testing procedures."

http://forum.ascendacoustics.com/sh...h-center-Luna-S2-or-Horizon&p=64388#post64388

I'm glad that Dave appears to want to fix the Luna series, but some of the members on that forum are pretty rough. I tried to be sensible there, it remains painful.

 

[richard12511]

Ascend implies they will try to make improvements to the speakers based on these measurements: "That stated, we do not mess around here and we take both measurements and feedback very seriously and as such, we are already deep into working on this. The Luna and Duo will be better speakers because of you, as will our production line testing procedures."

http://forum.ascendacoustics.com/sh...h-center-Luna-S2-or-Horizon&p=64388#post64388

I thought that was a great response.

 

[GimeDsp]

I really don't get why Dave says he wishes PGD(AAForum) would have sent not sent it in to ASR and only talked to Dave.

To me it seems the only way for the owner who submitted the Lunas to get an idea of what's going on without spending EXTRA thousands of dollars was ASR and Amir.

AA should take this as an opportunity to work with more qualified acoustiticians to dial in their own testing method or recommend a feasable alternative.
I don't think anyone expects a small company like AA to be perfect everytime, A great company is not one that never makes mistakes but one that fixes them when they find out.

 

[mboilers]

I really don't get why Dave says he wishes PGD(AAForum) would have sent not sent it in to ASR and only talked to Dave.

To me it seems the only way for the owner who submitted the Lunas to get an idea of what's going on without spending EXTRA thousands of dollars was ASR and Amir.

AA should take this as an opportunity to work with more qualified acoustiticians to dial in their own testing method or recommend a feasable alternative.
I don't think anyone expects a small company like AA to be perfect everytime, A great company is not one that never makes mistakes but one that fixes them when they find out.

That is not what Dave said. he only expressed that he wished the person had contacted him first regarding the issue. Here is the quote....

".....I have zero hard feelings as to you sending them in to Amir, but I do wish you would have contacted us first. That stated, we do not mess around here and we take both measurements and feedback very seriously and as such, we are already deep into working on this. The Luna and Duo will be better speakers because of you, as will our production line testing procedures. "

http://forum.ascendacoustics.com/showthread.php?6574-Which-center-Luna-S2-or-Horizon/page12

On that note, I do look forward to further responses from Dave to see what he says and does about this.

 

[RMW_NJ]

AA should take this as an opportunity to work with more qualified acoustiticians to dial in their own testing method or recommend a feasable alternative.
I don't think anyone expects a small company like AA to be perfect everytime, A great company is not one that never makes mistakes but one that fixes them when they find out.

I think it’s a little hard for anyone in any line of business to hear that there are issues with a product if you’ve invested significant time, effort and money in the development of that product.

With that being said, I would be happy if I were a manufacturer and Amir was willing to test my products and either validate my testing, or identify areas where improvement was needed...especially if it could be done pre-production.

 

[GimeDsp]

That is not what Dave said. he only expressed that he wished the person had contacted him first regarding the issue. Here is the quote....

".....I have zero hard feelings as to you sending them in to Amir, but I do wish you would have contacted us first. That stated, we do not mess around here and we take both measurements and feedback very seriously and as such, we are already deep into working on this. The Luna and Duo will be better speakers because of you, as will our production line testing procedures. "

http://forum.ascendacoustics.com/showthread.php?6574-Which-center-Luna-S2-or-Horizon/page12

On that note, I do look forward to further responses from Dave to see what he says and does about this.

Fair enough, I just don't see it meaning anything else.

"but I do wish you would have contacted us first."
The way I see it, if PGD would have contacted AA first, Dave would have:

1. Tested the speakers on his own gear that doesn't show a problem(supposedly)
2. PGD would have had to pay a lot for shipping
3. There would still be no answers as to bad performance
4. Many other users would still be messing with DSP and chaising their tails trying to fix a problem that can't really be fixed.
5. AA probably wouldn't have sent the speaker out for testing because they have enough faith in their testing to brag about it.

As someone who has spent thousands of hours finding and fixing problems in audio systems I can tell you, finding the source of the problem and not just a symptom is eveything!


I just don't see a scenario in which PGD contacts AA first and things work out better for the consumer.

I wish AA and Dave all the best to get things worked out but this whole issue very troublesome. It's up to Dave and AA forum users to not blame ASR, Amir, and especially their own customers for their own bad design and what I believe to be dishonest marketing.

MANY people are willing to buy and listen to bad sounding audio gear that has tons of flaws, however AA doesn't market their products to those people and they market these as "reference".

 

[BYRTT]

In the end it most be enormous help for anybody including manufactures and improve sound quality worldwide that Amir publish over avarage acoustic resolution reviews, thanks for that Amir the educational outcome has simply been enorm for me or us as users ..


Ascend will probably learn themselves some neat development tricks and get themselves higher acoustic quality, below is their manufacture curve ovarlaid to Amir's spindata and can say it takes much more than VAR/ERB/Psychoacoustic smoothing into REW software before Amir's data begin look like manufacture curve, a whooping 1/1 smoothing is needed to reach the same general trend..

In listening test to make sure Amir was not in a bad mood, he replaced the Luna Duo with Revel M105 and was back in heaven enjoying beautiful tonality and clarity, on anechoic objective paper below animation illuminates that change..

Below is directivity index (DI) from the 6 times Ascend models Amir had tested, could be wrong here but will mean a DI curve with resonances (non smooth) indicate port noice or maybe diffraction plus a problematic non ideal crossover slope, in the BM-170 SE model is the only one looking real smooth there it looks there is plenty of irks that could be improved one notch or three..

 

[cistercian]

Here are the posted measurements.
Something is very wrong here, the Ascend measurements look nothing like those performed by Amir.

View attachment 91311
View attachment 91312

- Rich

Smoothing taken way too far?

 

[amirm]

I just don't see a scenario in which PGD contacts AA first and things work out better for the consumer.

I agree. The data about the issue came from my testing, not the owner. It is not like this is an amplifier with one channel dead or something.

 

[GimeDsp]

Even in a well designed 2 way using one of the taller AMT/ribbons you will see less than ideal vertical directivity.

It looks like the only ribbon/amt 3 way posted here is the Phil Harmonic BMR. The plots look great on that in the mid/upper mid but they still have the limitation of the taller ribbons past 10k. Much of the holes and issues we see in ribbon/amt 2 ways have issues in the mid range. By off-loading that frequency range to a better suited driver such as dome mid, BMR, or cone, the issue of poor vertical performance can be corrected.

The other option that is seen in studio monitors is to make the Ribbon/AMT more square shape and smaller. Why HiFi speakers tend to use tall ribbons, AMTs, or Planars when short ones perform better IMO, I don't know.
I am just a consumer and not a speaker guru, but I know what I like.

Here is Erins measrument of the BMR.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...cal-directivity-audio-measurements-png.73665/

Here are the Adams, and rest that follow from Amir.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/adam-s2v-studio-monitor-review.11455/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/adam-t8v-studio-monitor-review.17118/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/ascend-sierra-2-speaker-review.11813/

NOW lets look at some graphs that look like they could be "reference" in more than ONE LP.
Studio Monitor

Hi Fi

SO, we can see that a trade off of using tall ribbon tweeters is that things get really bad(vertically). How this affects your use and how the room interacts can become a bigger deal.

We can also see that both Adam speakers that have chosen to use shorter AMT's reap the benifit of that choice.
Even in a properly set up tall ribbon, planar, amt, you will have these issues (unless of course you have a 5 foot tall array). So in the best case it a limitation and in a worst case it can become a very bad flaw.

Like I said, I am just a consumer who has noticed all these issues in these speakers. This is how I understand things with my limited knowledge but it seems to hold true as I listen to more and more speakers.

 

[Beave]

What is the 'ideal vertical directivity?' How was that determined? Does room affect the ideal (ie, carpeted or not, high ceiling or low ceiling)?

Are there any possible advantages to a narrowing vertical response in the top octave or two?

Why would "a couch or wide LP home theater set up suffer from not having a wide sweet spot" due to a speaker having narrow vertical dispersion in the highest octave?

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Right. I can't think of a more unsettled issue than the importance of broad and smooth vertical dispersion. I recently had a pair of the new KEF LS50 monitors in for an audition. Although they have much more even vertical dispersion than any of my speakers (or most any other speakers) I couldn't hear any sonic quality that I could attribute to that feature.

 

[HooStat]

Right. I can't think of a more unsettled issue than the importance of broad and smooth vertical dispersion. I recently had a pair of the new KEF LS50 monitors in for an audition. Although they have much more even vertical dispersion than any of my speakers (or most any other speakers) I couldn't hear any sonic quality that I could attribute to that feature.

Might it depend on the ceiling and floor -- materials and distances? Or perhaps it has to do with the fact that our ears face the walls directly making them sensitive to those reflections, but the floor and ceiling reflections are in a different plane. I have no idea.

 

[Sancus]

Right. I can't think of a more unsettled issue than the importance of broad and smooth vertical dispersion. I recently had a pair of the new KEF LS50 monitors in for an audition. Although they have much more even vertical dispersion than any of my speakers (or most any other speakers) I couldn't hear any sonic quality that I could attribute to that feature.

While it's true for standard sweet spot, listening room stereo the benefits are fairly unclear, there are still many situations outside of that. I have Genelec 8351Bs and I enjoy having speakers that just sound exactly the same no matter whether I'm standing or sitting, almost anywhere in the room. That's not something that most speakers are capable of. It's particularly useful when you care about more than one listening position.

They also make ideal center speakers turned on their sides, while remaining perfectly identical to the L/R.

 

[GimeDsp]

Of all the ribbon/planer/AMT speakers I have heard I enjoy these brands

PhilHarmonic
Infinity
Wharfdale

Still, I love midrange with body and warmth and I just don't think Ribbons/AMT/planars can deliver in that area for me and my ears.

 

[Shazb0t]

Of all the ribbon/planer/AMT speakers I have heard I enjoy these brands

PhilHarmonic
Infinity
Wharfdale

Still, I love midrange with body and warmth and I just don't think Ribbons/AMT/planars can deliver in that area for me and my ears.

What do you think makes a midrange have body and warmth that isn't accounted for by frequency response/distortion? Most of the ribbon speakers don't even have the ribbon playing the midrange.