Great to read your initial impressions, Rob!
Rob and I talked for a while in a previous thread and we've passed a few PM's back and forth. I'm extremely happy and a little relieved that the Ascend Sierra Tower and Horizon Center speakers with the RAAL ribbon tweeter upgrades have, at least initially, been impressive to Rob, and that he is happy with them!
I'll fully admit that I recommended these particular speakers pretty strongly to Rob, despite the fact that I hadn't actually heard the new Horizon Center for myself
I really hate to do that: recommend something I've not heard in person, but I felt pretty confident that Dave over at Ascend wouldn't massively screw up the new Horizon Center
This is definitely a case where it was all about matching the right speakers in the right price range to the room and the listener's preferences. I think the Sierra Tower speakers are great speakers, pretty much regardless. But in this price range, there are certainly a lot of great choices!
So it's tough to pick one brand, and one model and recommend it strongly. But in this particular case, I just thought all of the circumstances came together to make the Sierra Tower and Horizon the very best choice.
In the previous thread and our PM convos, Rob was saying how low volume listening is important to him, but that movies were a priority. Rob's done a lot of listening on his own - but there are usually the limitations of hearing the speakers in a show room, which doesn't always translate to how they will sound in your home! That said, as Rob mentioned, he was really taken with the particular characteristics of the Martin Logan electrostatic speakers. But it can be rather tough to find a center speaker in this price range that is a truly seemless sonic match to the electrostatic towers! And I had certain concerns about Rob's room and some limitations that he has in terms of placement that made me a little uneasy about how well the Martin Logans would work in his basement theater.
I know the "magic" of that planar or electrostatic speaker sound though. I've also heard the RAAL tweeter - which has been modified a little bit by Ascend - but just the overall quality of that tweeter, I didn't expect to be massively different in the Horizon Center. I thought that tweeter, in particular, would really be to Rob's taste based on some of the things he mentioned really liking in his listening demos.
So when the Horizon became available just at the right time, it seemed like a perfect match! While any manufacturer tends to hype their own gear a bit, I've grown to trust Dave over at Ascend pretty well. His measurements at least tend to be consistent among themselves, and I've never found him to be overly hyperbolic about his speakers, or really make any claims that I didn't agree with in terms of their sound quality or capabilities. So when Dave was really excited about the new Horizon and said that it had exceeded his expectations in terms of creating a very good sonic match to the Sierra Towers, I'll admit to putting a little faith into his claims and willingly going with that. Like I say, I hate to recommend anything sound-unheard. But I'd say this wasn't completely blind faith. I was basing it on history and what I've personally found to be pretty darn honest measurements over there at Ascend.
Anywho, this is all to say that I'm just really pleased that Rob is happy with his new Ascend speakers! I would've hated to feel responsible in any way if they had turned out to be a real disappointment to him. But I put a little trust out there with my recommendation, and it was thankfully an ok move
It helped that I wasn't the only person recommending these speakers. But I would've felt bad if they sucked, since I did recommend them pretty strongly to Rob here
So congrats to Rob! And congrats on the acoustic treatments purchase too! I know a fair bit of planning has gone into that decision, so that's great news!
If you're liking the MultEQ XT32 results, do be sure to run the setup program again once you have your acoustic treatments installed! There can be a mighty big difference, so for sure, don't just leave the XT32 settings the way they are right now!
Congrats again! And I don't mind saying I'm envious! I really, really like those Sierra Towers, and with the Horizon having turned out to be such a great match, I'm starting to think I maybe oughta move so I can have a room to match the Sierra speakers, rather than buying speakers that'll work for me in the room I have right now