KEF Blade 2 vs Ascend ELX Towers as End Game

[Kal Rubinson]

We had our listening session this past Saturday, and this is what I posted on Ascend's forum

Thanks Dave!! You and Dina are always great hosts.

Hi All...I am one of the six that made the trek to Ascend.

I am one of three that carpooled from the South Bay area from Los Angeles. We were quite lucky as we didn't hit any real traffic on the way there and back. My first visit to Ascend where this was the case. I wish I knew why. About an hours drive for us, so not bad. A couple guys drove two hours from the Pasadena area of LA and did hit traffic on the way back, they are not on this forum. One guy is fair local to Ascend (Orange County), he had the easiest commute.

All six of us took turns listening in the sweet spot(s), shifting from side to side depending on which pair we (thought) listening to.

First, the visual impact of the KEFs is undeniable. They are not as imposing as I thought would be in person. Whether they will work for you in your room of course is subjective.

I didn't take detailed notes, but did listen to my regular gamut of music when listening to speakers. That said, there were times when I prefered the Blades, others when I prefered the ELX's, and yet others where I could not tell them apart. Often times I had to look at switcher to see what speakers I was listening to, and even then I walked up to the speakers to make sure that I didn't mix up which was which in my head. While listening and shifting left and right a foot or two to be in each set of speakers sweet spot, I thought to myself "am I in the right spot?".

I think all of us had similar experiences. I know one mentioned he tended to like the KEFs in the sweet spot and the ELXs when not in the sweet spot.

One song in particular that stood out because the RAAL was Nils Lofgren's "Keith Don't Go". While tonality the speakers we basically indistinguishable, the leading edge of the guitar with the RAALs have an edge/attack that is ever slight more defined.

When in other areas of the room, there were songs where the differences were very evident. One example for me and the spot I was in, it was the midrange. There was a Harry Connick song that when the listener switched the speakers where Harry's voice and midrange became more prominent and boxy. I don't know which speaker this was.

It was great seeing everyone including Dave and Dina, talking shop and life, and listening to music.

FYI: The Oppo 205 (I think Dave has an enhanced version) handled DAC duties (files on USB, CDs, and also fed by a WiiM Pro Plus streamer that I brought using Tidal). The Oppo fed the Rotel preamp, into the AVA ABX switch, which then goes into the ATI amp (each of the four speakers on its own channel).

Here are some pictures I took. I forgot to get a picture of the group, so most of these are after the session was pretty much over.

That's not a fair comparison. They are not color-matched.
View attachment 475559

 

[courtesy]

That's not a fair comparison. They are not color-matched.
View attachment 475559

 

[Mort]

Hopefully this ends the silly debate?

 

[MarkS]

Ending silly debates would doom ASR ...

 

[Audio Science Pal]

We had our listening session this past Saturday...

I enjoyed reading your review.

 

[2Sunny]

Well, I just want to say thank you to all the folks that participated and especially to Dave for being willing to undertake and coordinate such a comparison. If I am totally honest I think that my biased reason for being interested in this thread and starting the poll was to prove to myself that Ascend Acoustic speakers really do represent, one of, if not, the best, value in small tower speakers since I own a pair, lol. Anyways, thanks again to all especially those who got a chance to listen to both and shared their opinion.

Much appreciated.

 

[Chromatischism]

Yep. It's the dome tweeter. I own 2 different Ascend center speakers. One has the ribbon and one the titan. I'm not sure if the comparison is similar enough to be valid, but listening to the two center speakers with the different tweeters I couldn't hear any difference hence my reasoning for buying the Titan tweeter on the ELX. Regardless it is an awesome speaker and sounds fabulous in my living room, no question.

I would be tempted to save the money, too. But what has me even thinking about the ribbon version is that the measurements posted on their website show the ELX Ribbon Tower to have the better measurements, and it isn't close, IMO. It shows less brightness due to fewer resonances in the treble and, for some reason, it doesn't have the 200-500 Hz dip that the ELX Titan Dome tower has. They should be exactly the same in that area so I'm not sure what explains that.

 

[aarons915]

I would be tempted to save the money, too. But what has me even thinking about the ribbon version is that the measurements posted on their website show the ELX Ribbon Tower to have the better measurements, and it isn't close, IMO. It shows less brightness due to fewer resonances in the treble and, for some reason, it doesn't have the 200-500 Hz dip that the ELX Titan Dome tower has. They should be exactly the same in that area so I'm not sure what explains that.

Did you mean the opposite? The dome version seems to measure better to my eyes which is why I was questioning how more people seem to prefer the ribbons

 

[Chromatischism]

Did you mean the opposite? The dome version seems to measure better to my eyes which is why I was questioning how more people seem to prefer the ribbons

Look at the estimated in-room for both. Extra resonances from 6-10k on the dome and for some reason a dip from 200-500 Hz.

 

[kyuu]

What strikes me is something we've known about for a while—the ceiling, wall, and floor bounce—are not typically shown by Klippel NFS measurements!

What?

Seem to be shown, and this is not an outlier. Those also figure into this:

 

[aarons915]

Look at the estimated in-room for both. Extra resonances from 6-10k on the dome and for some reason a dip from 200-500 Hz.

Yeah I see that but you know you need more info than that. The Spin shows the ribbon seems a bit brighter especially that section from 1500-3k where the directivity drops. To me the dome is more neutral with better dispersion and much better directivity, I'd be pretty surprised if the ribbon beat it in a proper controlled listening test.

 

[mj30250]

Yeah I see that but you know you need more info than that. The Spin shows the ribbon seems a bit brighter especially that section from 1500-3k where the directivity drops. To me the dome is more neutral with better dispersion and much better directivity, I'd be pretty surprised if the ribbon beat it in a proper controlled listening test.

I'm not really seeing the dome as more neutral. On-axis they both start to droop around 1.4kHz but the dome doesn't recover until it crosses 10kHz. The ribbon more or less pulls back even with the midrange after the dip. I suppose you could call the ribbon "brighter" in comparison, but not less neutral. The DI is indeed smoother with the dome in the region you're talking about, but the difference is only about 1dB where it's largest.

 

[Chromatischism]

You're right. I think the format sometimes throws me off, being together vs separated sometimes.

 

[Chromatischism]

Maybe this will help.

Slope: steeper on the dome. This would normally create a less energetic sound, however the uptick in the high frequencies may cause a more "V-shape" kind of sound.

Also, the 450-1450 Hz region may stand out due to being surrounded by dips.

The Ribbon has less overall deviation from the trendline and has to be more neutral, but looks to be slightly more energetic than true neutral by 1-2 dB due to the shallow slope and the uptick in the higher frequencies.

The frequency response shows the tweeters should sound different, with the Ribbon being less edgy. Those resonances in the Dome measurement can mask surrounding frequencies and help the Ribbon to sound more detailed, especially coming off the heels of a small dip at the crossover (seen in both but wider with the Dome).

I don't understand what is causing the big dip in the Titan Dome version from 175-450 Hz. Is this a measurement error?

 

[Gyosa1]

If you ever hear the RAAL ribbon , you’ll never settle for anything else.

 

[aarons915]

Maybe this will help.

View attachment 476951

View attachment 476952

Slope: steeper on the dome. This would normally create a less energetic sound, however the uptick in the high frequencies may cause a more "V-shape" kind of sound.

Also, the 450-1450 Hz region may stand out due to being surrounded by dips.

The Ribbon has less overall deviation from the trendline and has to be more neutral, but looks to be slightly more energetic than true neutral by 1-2 dB due to the shallow slope and the uptick in the higher frequencies.

The frequency response shows the tweeters should sound different, with the Ribbon being less edgy. Those resonances in the Dome measurement can mask surrounding frequencies and help the Ribbon to sound more detailed, especially coming off the heels of a small dip at the crossover (seen in both but wider with the Dome).

I don't understand what is causing the big dip in the Titan Dome version from 175-450 Hz. Is this a measurement error?

I agree that the in room response shows what you're talking about. Some of this is speculation but I'm starting to see evidence in Erin's reviews and in KEF's whitepapers regarding constant directivity regions and either shelving or having a slight downward tilt in the listening window to compensate for that. To me the dome is intentionally shelved a bit because the early reflections are flat in the 2-6k region that you're referring to, as soon as the response starts dropping again the listening window gets a bit stronger so I don't necessarily think it's a defect. KEF has been doing this a lot lately and you can see it in the Ascilab speakers as well.

The biggest reason I think the dome version is probably better is the directivity though, I'm thinking it's much more important than many give it credit for. Some may recall that when I had the original KEF R3 they were a bit fatiguing to me and if you look at the measurements it's not easy to see why. Through a lot of EQ experimentation I ended up finding out that area around 2700Hz was responsible and there is an ever so slight peak there in the early reflections and you see the directivity index actually slightly drops in that region making it harder to EQ. The region between 1500-3k is quite strong in the early reflections and I can almost guarantee it's going to sound a bit bright because of it seeing as it's much worse than what bothered me on the R3 and people in the Ascend LX thread have mentioned something similar with that speaker since Erin reviewed it. So that is my logic, not saying I can't be wrong but overall I think the ELX dome seems to be the more neutral speaker and has very well behaved directivity so they would take EQ better. These 2 would really be a great set of speakers to blind test because I think it would show people how biased they are regarding "upgraded" tweeters and ribbons in general.

 

[PGansz]

Maybe this will help.

View attachment 476951

View attachment 476952

Slope: steeper on the dome. This would normally create a less energetic sound, however the uptick in the high frequencies may cause a more "V-shape" kind of sound.

Also, the 450-1450 Hz region may stand out due to being surrounded by dips.

The Ribbon has less overall deviation from the trendline and has to be more neutral, but looks to be slightly more energetic than true neutral by 1-2 dB due to the shallow slope and the uptick in the higher frequencies.

The frequency response shows the tweeters should sound different, with the Ribbon being less edgy. Those resonances in the Dome measurement can mask surrounding frequencies and help the Ribbon to sound more detailed, especially coming off the heels of a small dip at the crossover (seen in both but wider with the Dome).

I don't understand what is causing the big dip in the Titan Dome version from 175-450 Hz. Is this a measurement error?

But why is there a bass boost compared to the ribbon?

 

[Chromatischism]

I agree that the in room response shows what you're talking about. Some of this is speculation but I'm starting to see evidence in Erin's reviews and in KEF's whitepapers regarding constant directivity regions and either shelving or having a slight downward tilt in the listening window to compensate for that. To me the dome is intentionally shelved a bit because the early reflections are flat in the 2-6k region that you're referring to, as soon as the response starts dropping again the listening window gets a bit stronger so I don't necessarily think it's a defect. KEF has been doing this a lot lately and you can see it in the Ascilab speakers as well.

The biggest reason I think the dome version is probably better is the directivity though, I'm thinking it's much more important than many give it credit for.

The directivity feeds into the EIR, does it not?

I'm not really seeing the dome as more neutral. On-axis they both start to droop around 1.4kHz but the dome doesn't recover until it crosses 10kHz. The ribbon more or less pulls back even with the midrange after the dip. I suppose you could call the ribbon "brighter" in comparison, but not less neutral. The DI is indeed smoother with the dome in the region you're talking about, but the difference is only about 1dB where it's largest.

Even if the ribbon looks brighter up top in that graph, it doesn't in the EIR.

 

[aarons915]

The directivity feeds into the EIR, does it not?


Even if the ribbon looks brighter up top in that graph, it doesn't in the EIR.

No it doesn't really, you need the listening window and ER for directivity to mean much. I'm sure you've seen the many Dr. Toole quotes about how an in room response curve isn't enough information to go on and that's why the Spinorama exists, it's only meant to estimate what your in room response will be close to. For that same reason the EIR also doesn't give enough information, it's nice extra information though. To me the proof of this is that most people consider the ribbon version more detailed don't they? I don't want to dig through a bunch of comparisons but that's what google AI says and I believe from memory that's what most people say when they compare them, more detailed doesn't necessarily mean bright but relative to the dome it seems to have more energy in the highs. Maybe someone who's compared them can chime in.

 

[Chromatischism]

But the Klippel EIR is much more advanced than the old Spinorama and, according to Erin H, matches very well with what he hears on nearly every speaker. So far it seems like out of all of the measurements, it's the one that can stand most on its own and represent the sound of the speaker.