Ascend Acoustics Sierra-1 Review
The Sierra-1s arrived in time to offer some relief for the cabin fever running rampant on the glacier bound, near prairie. The speakers were double-boxed and very tightly packed. I ordered the bamboo option, partly for the novelty of it, partly because I’m bored comatose with the usual high gloss finishes, and partly because I spent eight of my formative years in the wilds of Southeast Asia where bamboo was so prevalent it was impossible to swing a dead rat without hitting some of the grass. Not once in my time there, seeing it used for umpteen applications, did I consider bamboo to be speaker cabinet material. Then again, those were mostly pre-teen years and I was more concerned about being bitten by monitor lizards than the audio bug.
The Sierras are part of a lengthy audition process, the goal of which is to replace a pair of Revel Concerta F12’s. Our opinions of speakers auditioned prior to the Sierras arrival were as follows:
Amphion Helium2 – Exquisite; pricey; hard to find a U.S. dealer. For us this speaker sets the standard: neutral with a capital N, transparent and absolutely, positively, unfailingly musical; apparently able to defy the laws of audio physics and produce a scale of sound that belies its size.
Aperion Audio 5B’s – musical and communicative but so inefficient they never would get up and boogie and absolutely nothing – zero, zip, nada -- below 75Hz.
B&W 685 – yet another vaunted B&W transducer that sounded like a heavy beige quilt was draped between us and the music. Why are people so crazy about B&W speakers? To us they always sound lifeless, flat, uninvolving and harsh when pushed.
Monitor Audio GS10 – superb, enjoyable, very well made and as gorgeous to look at as to listen to; typical Monitor Audio forward presence with that audible MA metallic tang to the sound.
Monitor Audio RS1 – a less capable GS10.
NHT Classic 3 – inefficient, yet so good in so many ways; now that NHT has resurfaced as a buy direct company and offers this model for $700/pair, it becomes even more compelling.
Paradigm Studio 20 – typically PS bright and coupled with a somewhat muddy midrange.
Phase Technology Premier PC3.5 – Jeesuslawdgawd, those puppies could play but $1,800 was way, way above our budget and the cabinet design qualifies them as tweeners, neither bookshelf nor floorstander, thus requiring the purchase of another set of speaker stands.
The set up arrangement in our great room (living/dining/kitchen) was thus: Sitting atop 24” sand-filled stands there was 65” between the tweeters (flanking a 50” plasma TV); 15” from the rear port to the back wall; main listening seat was 12’ from the grill covers. Components at work were an ATI AT1502 amp, B&K Reference 5 pre-amp, piece o’ crap Sony DVD/CD player, Canare and Beldon cables, and an Energy 10” subwoofer, called into action during bang-zoom movies.
To welcome the exotic bamboo speakers way over here to the grain fed, redneck near prairie and commence with the warm-up/break in ceremony I spun Patricia Barber’s Nightclub. First notes read, “deep bass, broad soundstage, clear vocals, easy to discern all the instruments; cymbal and piano work on “Invitation” was revelatory, tactile; may learn to like jazz.” Well doggie, Ellie May, them there loudspeakers sound like they can play music. Sit a spell and let’s see what else they can do.
Cowboy Junkies Trinity Session officially started the audition. On “Blue Moon,” Margo Timmons sounded her aching best while the stage placement of the background cymbals and rhythm guitar were unmistakable . On “I’m So Lonesome,” hair raised as Timmons inhaled and parted her lips before letting loose the first lyrics. Hoo, momma! On the other hand, the audible ambiance of the church where this live to two-track recording was made has sounded better on other speakers.
My wife wanted to hear cuts from Iz Kamakawiwo’ole’s Facing Future. The “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” medley caused tears to well. Iz sounded so pure, so right, that I wanted to believe in something, anything. On these speakers a ukulele played well and matched with such a soulful voice became a powerful thing.
Next came the chesty testy, Johnny Cash’s Unchained. Most bookshelf speakers ruin Cash, making him sound, thanks to the love hump tuned into the ports, like he sang with a chest full of tar-coated phlegm. What a joy to hear him sans respiratory coloration, just the man in black warbling and growling as he lived. “Spiritual” was, um, revelatory. As with the Helium2’s, the Sierras nailed the scale of the heavy guitar reverb that begins the song and when a cello joined to support the emotion in Cash’s plea at 3:40 the instrument also became another voice. Shivers.
Holly Cole Trio’s Don’t Smoke In Bed was all that, too. Cole’s sexy sibilants, as on “Tennessee Waltz” and “I Can See Clearly,” were crisp and clear, on the brink of, but never strident or harsh; her seductively growly lines oozed with the right amount of throaty, vocal heat while the bass fiddle and piano simply sounded spot on. Torchy is as torchy does.
The time came for some real music: Bluegrass. Once asked for a succinct definition of this genre I wrote, “Bluegrass is what jazz wants to be when it matures.” Anyway, too many speakers butcher bluegrass with the dreaded combination of glassy tweeters and wrongly located crossover frequencies. Nasal-driven high harmonies blended with banjos, mandolins and fiddles need room to breathe to sound anything near a live, acoustic performance and the Sierras provided a slightly forward but strain-free field for The Grascals, High Country, Red Molly, Ricky Skaggs, et al. Whoo-hah and boy howdie!
I also spun Alison Kraus’ Forget About It. This CD was mixed to offer an up-close-and-personal, one-on-one kind of listening experience and when “Maybe” began it seemed as if the only thing between me and the bluegrass goddess was the pop screen on her ribbon mic. There is an urgent, sensual frailty to Kraus’ tight vibrato and the Sierras were as effective as the Heliums in recreating the intimate recorded presence. Swoon, did I.
They sort of rock and roll, too. To hear how the Sierras gave it up as the volume count escalated toward unity gain, Ozomatli’s Street Signs was called into service. A west coast fusion of rock, reggae, rap, Middle Eastern and Latino influences, this CD is crammed and compressed to the stops with lively, bouncing, speaker-challenging jams. Immediately evident, the Sierras held their own on the down low. Impressive bass; makes a subwoofer seem superfluous. They also did a good job of staying open and fighting off the usual hardening, glare, and shrinking of the sound stage that accompanies high volume playback.
Issue: Oh, that’s the lyric. On disc after poorly engineered disc of pop/rock CD’s I heard so many perfectly understandable vocals I considered buying Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks and Michael McDonald CD’s. These speakers really can reproduce information – vocal and instrumental --previously stifled by lesser speakers.
Movies. The latest “Star Trek” played well with crisp, clean dialogue, excellent separation and steering during bombastic and moving action scenes, and a wide soundstage. Same for “Terminator: Salvation,” the Bourne Trilogy, etc.
Regardless of the flick, the mid-80’s SPL efficiency rating of Sierras, combined with having to work in a great room, required pushing the pre-amp volume level to zero db to hear audio at anything approaching theater sound levels. Bummer. While the Sierras never ruffled the carpet or peeled paint recreating myriad special effects, they did extremely well with complex, multi-soundtrack scenes and never left us guessing about dialogue.
Issue: Hex heads preferred. Considering the Sierra’s prodigious bass output I was surprised to see the mid-woofer baskets attached by four measly Phillips-head screws. Will they hold for the long run? Six hex heads would be better.
Summing up, the Sierra-1’s are truly impressive speakers. Ignore the usual qualifying disclaimers about price – “for under a thousand dollars” – and size category -- “bookshelf speakers” – these speakers require the owner to sacrifice little. They uncover nuance, reveal, can play fairly loud in a smaller room and hold together and, most importantly, do a fantastic job of playing the music much as it was recorded. Like the Amphion Helium series, but $600 less, the Sierras nailed song after song and were never tiring to listen to. Where the Amphions surpass is the reproduction of scale and their ability to play louder. My concerns are few: Low efficiency; whether four screws on the hard working mid-woofer basket are enough. If I were offered a questionnaire with a wish list, in addition to the aforementioned, I would ask for a wider range of cabinet colors, like candy apple red or desert southwest sunset copper.
Issue: Listening duds. Because the Sierras create so much raised hair and goose flesh, one must consider dressing warm for listening sessions.
Verdict: Recommended.
One final note, cudos to company representative extraordinaire, Dina, who never failed to provide timely e-mail follow-up and answers to my queries.
