Cool..... The Sierra's are truly some fantastic speakers, and now .v2 is coming out.... thats great...
My only issue with the original speakers is that they are a touch light on the high end, but I like a metal tweeter or ribbon to get the absolute most delicate nature of high end... the Sierra soft dome seems "FOR ME" just a touch veiled.
Tweeters seem to run a fine line - you can be a touch soft or "warm" with a silk tweeter and too harsh with a metal dome.... Ribbons and IMO Paradigms Be tweeter really do it just right for me, delicate but not to soft or screeching and harsh.....
Yeah, and David F. said that the new Sierras with the NrT tweeter will actually have a flatter FR not only vs the current Sierra-1, but also vs the 170SE which was pretty damn ruler flat...
At the risk of I'm repeating myself, I wouldn't say that there's anything
wrong with the Ascend high end, but you could say that it's somewhat polite and not in your face... To me it's not really an issue, if it's
slightly bright, I tend not to mind that much, if it's neutral it's perfect, but if it's slightly recessed (close to 1-2dB from the midrange), I seem to also not mind that much, as it seems to be the case with the Sierra.
I tend to be somewhat forgiving though for the Sierras because they're like 800$, and sure if you compare to speakers costing 2-3 times the price, they can end up a
bit short in some things, though they'll often redeem themselves with other things... vs Paradigm's Sigs, they might lack a bit of high end 'sparkle', maybe max output, but detail, imaging, soundstage, bass, are all relatively close, at less 1/2 the price...
What will be interesting to see now, how better will they be with the new custom Neo ring tweeter... Dave said each tweeter would cost something like 180$ was it to sell retail, which puts it near the price and performance (hopefully) of the Scan Speak AirCirc, SEAS Millenium, etc., and it also supposedly improves not only the high end but also the mids...
400$ for an upgrade is a bit steep, but that would put my Sierra total cost to 1150$ (picked up the 1st discounted run), and if it really take the Sierras a step up... Might be worth it!
As for the new Sierra towers, I can't wait to see what kind of speaker Ascend cooks up
