Head to Head Review: Ascend Acoustics CBM-170 SE vs Wharfedale Diamond 10.1

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cschang

Audioholic Chief
Digging up those pictures in my previous post, I came across a speaker I had that would have been another great option for 2ndammendment.

The Usher S-520 (CMT-340SE, Usher V-601, CBM-170SE, Usher S-520):


Loudspeaker_S-520
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
For the highly critical listening 2ndammendment is doing, I actually recommended looking into studio monitors :)
 
C

cschang

Audioholic Chief
For the highly critical listening 2ndammendment is doing, I actually recommended looking into studio monitors :)
Agreed. I would also add that getting them off the actual desk would be a good thing for critical listening. The first reflection/reinforcement is a doozy.
 
D

davef

Audioholic Intern
IMO,
I think Dave from Ascend is fair enough not to talk about other speakers. This seems right to do from a manufacture perspertive as they will not say bad or good things about other speakers manufactures.

Thanks Ricardo. I too don't see how anyone can consider this as a negative. As the business owner and having been in this industry since 1984, I do not feel comfortable having anyone on my staff discuss products other than our own. I am confident my staff is familiar enough to represent our products – but to discuss another company’s products?



Perhaps the better response to inquiries like this is for me to just tell my staff to say “I am not familiar with this product”… Which would not be the truth in some situations as we often evaluate competing products.


Anyone asking us about how this product compares to one of ours expects some degree of “ours is better at this or that and this competing one does this better” I don’t like it – it isn’t right, we prefer to try and avoid this - especially when considering everyone has different tastes and, honestly, who are we to give an opinion on another company’s products? Frankly, there are competing products out there that I personally can’t stand but yet others enjoy. As a professional, it is best to let an inquiring customer draw their own conclusions.


In our 15 years of business and many tens of thousands of customers – to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time we have been criticized for this. That said, I applaud the OP for going through the painstaking process he did to determine which product he likes best. Would our opinion on any of these products have swayed the decision in any way? I would hope not and I certainly doubt it would have…
 
charmerci

charmerci

Audioholic
My CSB's look flawless. (I have excellent near-field eyesight. I can see each individual pixel on a computer screen up close.) No problems there.

I really enjoy how they sound - except I listen almost exclusively to old music - pre-1990 - so while excellent recordings sound great, not great ones' high frequencies are harsh for me when I crank them up and bad recordings...well, they have to be listened to at a low level.

I used to be able to crank up all my music on the Pioneer SP 22's because their highs were a bit recessed and rolled off. Not so with the Carnegies - for example, Chicago's first album.
 
2

2ndammendment

Junior Audioholic
Agreed. I would also add that getting them off the actual desk would be a good thing for critical listening. The first reflection/reinforcement is a doozy.
I tried putting them on stands behind the desk and to the sides. This position seemed to work best. I may try messing around with it some more.

Thanks Ricardo. I too don't see how anyone can consider this as a negative. As the business owner and having been in this industry since 1984, I do not feel comfortable having anyone on my staff discuss products other than our own. I am confident my staff is familiar enough to represent our products – but to discuss another company’s products?



Perhaps the better response to inquiries like this is for me to just tell my staff to say “I am not familiar with this product”… Which would not be the truth in some situations as we often evaluate competing products.


Anyone asking us about how this product compares to one of ours expects some degree of “ours is better at this or that and this competing one does this better” I don’t like it – it isn’t right, we prefer to try and avoid this - especially when considering everyone has different tastes and, honestly, who are we to give an opinion on another company’s products? Frankly, there are competing products out there that I personally can’t stand but yet others enjoy. As a professional, it is best to let an inquiring customer draw their own conclusions.


In our 15 years of business and many tens of thousands of customers – to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time we have been criticized for this. That said, I applaud the OP for going through the painstaking process he did to determine which product he likes best. Would our opinion on any of these products have swayed the decision in any way? I would hope not and I certainly doubt it would have…
I don't want to get too off track here, but I feel compelled to attempt explain myself. I wouldn't expect you to be an expert about anyone else's products but your own. However, there are a lot of speakers out there and sometimes its really hard to know where to get started. I find it useful when a manufacture can tell me how theirs speakers compare to other speakers I have heard. It doesn't have to be anything super detailed, just something simple like "when I heard X companies speaker next to ours, our speaker seemed a little brighter, so if you think X companies speaker is too bright for you, then ours may not be a good option for you" etc. Obviously I am not going to take one persons word for gold. Audio is highly subjective. I do try to gather as much information as possible from as many people as possible when I'm in the market for speakers. If you have heard another competitors speaker and choose to not tell me how they compare to your own speaker, thats fine. Its your prerogative. Most people probably don't care, but to me its holding back information that could possibly be very helpful for me. Maybe I wasn't able to find any reviews of X vs Y speaker and your the only one on the planet that has heard both, thats valuable information to me and could help me in my final buying decision.

If you noticed I wrote that all emails and calls were responded to with acceptable delay. The reason I took the time to include that is because I knew that most people wouldn't take the fact that your policy is to not talk about other companies speakers as a negative. For those who don't care they will see that your company did a good job of doing things like answering the phone and responding to emails. For the few that care about the point I made, I included that as well. On my scale its a negative because it deprives me of potentially valuable information.
 
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charmerci

charmerci

Audioholic
"davef
Audioholic Intern

davef is looking for a job at AH"


Well, that certainly is interesting. Are you really looking for a job at AH, Dave??? :D
 
zieglj01

zieglj01

Audioholic Spartan
Thanks Ricardo. I too don't see how anyone can consider this as a negative. As the business owner and having been in this industry since 1984, I do not feel comfortable having anyone on my staff discuss products other than our own. I am confident my staff is familiar enough to represent our products – but to discuss another company’s products?
While I have not listened to any of your speakers - I do respect the way you do business.
 
2

2ndammendment

Junior Audioholic
My CSB's look flawless. (I have excellent near-field eyesight. I can see each individual pixel on a computer screen up close.) No problems there.
Are you looking at the finish under a point source of light such as a flashlight or overhead round bulb? When looked at under diffuse/ambient lighting I don't see any flaws either. Its only when viewed under a point source light.

If yours is truly flawless as you say, then I am incredibly unlucky.
 
D

davef

Audioholic Intern
I don't want to get too off track here, but I feel compelled to attempt explain myself. I wouldn't expect you to be an expert about anyone else's products but your own. However, there are a lot of speakers out there and sometimes its really hard to know where to get started. I find it useful when a manufacture can tell me how theirs speakers compare to other speakers I have heard. It doesn't have to be anything super detailed, just something simple like "when I heard X companies speaker next to ours, our speaker seemed a little brighter, so if you think X companies speaker is too bright for you, then ours may not be a good option for you" etc. Obviously I am not going to take one persons word for gold. Audio is highly subjective. I do try to gather as much information as possible from as many people as possible when I'm in the market for speakers. If you have heard another competitors speaker and choose to not tell me how they compare to your own speaker, thats fine. Its your prerogative. Most people probably don't care, but to me its holding back information that could possibly be very helpful for me. Maybe I wasn't able to find any reviews of X vs Y speaker and your the only one on the planet that has heard both, thats valuable information to me and could help me in my final buying decision.

If you noticed I wrote that all emails and calls were responded to with acceptable delay. The reason I took the time to include that is because I knew that most people wouldn't take the fact that your policy is to not talk about other companies speakers as a negative. For those who don't care they will see that your company did a good job of doing things like answering the phone and responding to emails. For the few that care about the point I made, I included that as well. On my scale its a negative because it deprives me of potentially valuable information.
Oh, believe me -- I totally get it. But I also wouldn't want our opinion on a product that isn't made by us to, perhaps, push you away from trying that product. We are in a tough position. Our phone line is busy nearly non-stop these days. We often hear nightmare stories about other company's products and then also hear a rave review about the same company. Many years ago, a strong competitor of ours would publicly comment positively about our products and at the same time, bash us privately. This is a truly crazy industry -- I am able to continue doing what I do by preferring to simply stay quiet and focus solely on our products and our customers. I hope you can respect that :)

"davef
Audioholic Intern

davef is looking for a job at AH"


Well, that certainly is interesting. Are you really looking for a job at AH, Dave??? :D
I hope it pays better!!!
 
charmerci

charmerci

Audioholic
Are you looking at the finish under a point source of light such as a flashlight or overhead round bulb? When looked at under diffuse/ambient lighting I don't see any flaws either. Its only when viewed under a point source light.

If yours is truly flawless as you say, then I am incredibly unlucky.
Well, under a small LED flashlight, it sort of looks like that but not as bad. Shorter, lighter streaks going around in a circle like that.
 
C

cschang

Audioholic Chief
I tried putting them on stands behind the desk and to the sides. This position seemed to work best. I may try messing around with it some more.
Yeah...the issue is the reflection caused by the top of the table.

In situations like yours, stands above the table top, is where I would start.
 
macddmac

macddmac

Audioholic General
Definitely & the hours aren't to shabby either...:p

Anyhow, since I know you're not looking for a job at AH...I figure you should be listened to...;)
Way to hook the truly deserving up!
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
Yeah...the issue is the reflection caused by the top of the table.

In situations like yours, stands above the table top, is where I would start.
MoPads :) Decouple and angle them up; adding to the extra slight angle they already have should be sufficient. Those are what I have mine sitting on on top of my stands right now, just at 0 rather than angled up or down. These guys image "high" though, so they throw a stage some of which appears higher than the speaker, so maybe just some boxes to lift them up and keep them level?
 
C

cschang

Audioholic Chief
MoPads :) Decouple and angle them up; adding to the extra slight angle they already have should be sufficient. Those are what I have mine sitting on on top of my stands right now, just at 0 rather than angled up or down. These guys image "high" though, so they throw a stage some of which appears higher than the speaker, so maybe just some boxes to lift them up and keep them level?
I'll be honest as I don't have a lot of experience with that type of setup, but what I have seen in mixing rooms/studios are monitors mounted higher away from the flat surfaces and angled down.

MoPads are definitely a good thing though.
 
2

2ndammendment

Junior Audioholic
I just purchased a calibrated mic and associated equipment so I can start doing frequency response plots of various speakers(trust, but verify). They will be included in future reviews. I may even take the RC-10s and CSB-1s outdoors and do some measurements.
 
ImcLoud

ImcLoud

Audioholic Ninja
The finish on my csb1 was perfect, I can not complain... As far as the price decrease I wouldnt pay $900 for them, but at $400 they are a solid buy... I normally stay away from gloss black but wanted something different and hard to keep clean, so I went gloss black with glass stands... My house keeper has commented that that stereo is hard to dust, lol...
 

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