Club On-Line Only Vendors: SVS, Hsu, Ascend, ACI, Axiom, Rocket, etc.

[Danbry39]

I'm old timer. Graduated in '69. By the way, even though my handle sounds like it, my name is Keith. Danbry is a combined form of Dana Bryanne, my oldest daughter. Don't feel bad though, a lot of people make that same mistake. Real name is Keith.




Keith

[curtis]

Curtis,

Dude, you're bringing back so many memories of my younger years. My first girlfriend shared time between Rolling Hills and the Palisades (Her name was Charlotte and she sang and danced as a young teen on Lawrence Welk if you can believe it.)

My first big time love lived in a small community right near Manhattan Beach, Playa del Rey. You know where the planes take off from the runway at LAX. There used to be a community there until the city began wondering about what would happen if a plane crashed on take off and, basically, the city condemned the whole community.

A side note: Did Westchester High change its name too?

Dan....when did you graduate?

I think Westchester High still exists.

Yes....I know exactly the community you are thinking of. It was right above the beach, north of Dockweiller. Absolutely nothing there now but concrete with weeds.

curtis




curtis

[Danbry39]

Don't worry about it Doug. I do understand completely. Logistically, I've been thinking there would be obstacles to overcome too.

But, I've had a hoot on this thread anyway. Anyway, I have to go back to work in a few weeks and won't be able to spend all my waking hours at HTGuide, although I'll be here as often as possible. Can't wait to post my first speaker review at HTGuide late tomorrow, Sunday at the latest.

I'm all smiles cause I really like the chaps that have been posting here. If this club doesn't make it officially, we'll all be able to interact and post at other places within HTGuide.


Curtis,

Dude, you're bringing back so many memories of my younger years. My first girlfriend shared time between Rolling Hills and the Palisades (Her name was Charlotte and she sang and danced as a young teen on Lawrence Welk if you can believe it.)

My first big time love lived in a small community right near Manhattan Beach, Playa del Rey. You know where the planes take off from the runway at LAX. There used to be a community there until the city began wondering about what would happen if a plane crashed on take off and, basically, the city condemned the whole community.

A side note: Did Westchester High change its name too?




Keith

[curtis]

Pacific Palisades, The Palisades High Dolphins.

ahhh...I was at the other end of the basin.

Rolling Hills High School.....the Titans. Which no longer exists...got renamed to Peninsula High School....Panthers.




curtis

[Lex]

Keith, it's a difficult decision for me to bring on speakers/subs, etc... clubs that do compete with advertisers. I am not ruling it completely out at this point at least. Just more thought has to go into this by me.

We don't have many advertisers, so I definitely will protect what we have to the extent possible. That doesn't mean censorship of posts to eliminate all talk of competitive goods. But it does mean what we do have control over, such as the format layout will tend to the conservative side to protect advertisers. That's about all I can say at this stage, except I am thinking about it all.

Lex

[Danbry39]

Pacific Palisades, The Palisades High Dolphins.




Keith

[Danbry39]

Sorry, double post.




Keith

[curtis]

Yeah...I wouldn't be looking for a "winner", just another chance to hear a another good speaker.

Where did you grow up....what high school?




curtis

[Danbry39]

That would be super cool. And, you know what, I wouldn't even care which speaker outdid the other. It would only turn me on to another great company that's out there and give me first hand experience with their products. At this point, I'm ecstatic about my new ACI's. Received them yesterday at about 3:00 and already have 16 hours on them.

By the way, I grew up in a beach area of L.A. myself and spent many good days down at Manhattan Beach, although I haven't been there in years.




Keith

[curtis]

Yeah Keith.....your reply made me think about posting it here.

in fact, I replied to you in the thread too.

Would love to get the Sapphires and my Ascends in one room.




curtis

[Danbry39]

Curtis,

You da man!!!

Coincidentally, I just found the thread you originally posted on last night. Read the whole thing, yes all five or so pages. Well, I have to keep myself busy while breaking in my ACI's, don't I?

Anyway, I left a post for you there this morning.

I have to say that was one of the best threads I've read on any board. You guys really did a service for all those who might be thinking of taking the next step in speakers.

I'll be posting my review of the Sapphires and Essence tomorrow night or Sunday morning, after I get in some more break in time.




Keith

[curtis]

I thought I would post a review I did four months ago on speakers from Ascend, Aperion, Axiom, and Rocket.

..............................

First, I enjoyed meeting everyone there. Mad Dog is a great host. The dimsum was good. And ofcourse, good music. Good people, good food, good music, whatelse could you ask for?

The setup that Mad Dog has at his home is extremely nice….his amps made each speaker sound better than my H/K AVR525 did in my home. Mad Dog was always in the room, so I could not walk out with his amps.

Many of you know that I own Ascends. I wanted to be as unbiased as possible when listening to all of these speakers. Since getting the Aperions and Axioms, I did not listen to the Ascends at all. For two days, all I listened to were Aperions and Axioms. I spent about 5 total hours listening to the Aperions, and about 4 hours with the Axioms…..the Aperions had about 15 hours total of break-in time, and the Axioms about 12 hours.

I will not go into detail about the Ref 1’s and the VMPS 626R’s, I will leave that up to the guys that have more experience those types of speakers…and money. These speakers cost 4 to 5 times more than the budget speakers we had there. While I know for a fact there are other speakers that cost just as much and can be compared evenly with the budget speakers, these two speakers definitely outclassed the other four pairs. I was very impressed. Are they worth more that much more money than the budget speakers? That all depends are your ears, what is important to you, and your pocketbook. Remember, my whole 5.1 speaker setup cost less than what a pair of Ref 1’s and VMPS 626R’s cost. If I had a dedicated room for two channel music, and the funds, these speakers would be on my list to consider.

All four of these budget speakers would benefit from the use of a subwoofer, but the purpose of this session, it was best to let them stand on their own merit. They all seemed to be built well. If you gave me a set of any of these speakers, I would not throw them out.

Aperion Audio 522D – I expected a lot from this speaker after reading the Cnet.com review, unfortunately, I did not hear what they heard. This speaker was the smallest of the bunch, and it sounded like it. It sounded “thin” on all counts. Mad Dog’s setup helped these speakers more than the others, which may have been the because these are less efficient that the others. In my home, it did sound better when turned up, but still compressed. It is not a bad speaker, I just think the others offer more. The the medium cherry finish looked good.

Axiom Audio M22Ti – This speaker sounds pretty good to me and I think it would appeal to a lot of people. Detailed with good clean midrange and highs. It does sound bright to me, and a bit metallic, and those characteristics showed themselves a lot with the Norah Jones CD we were using, but when playing classical music, they seemed to sound much better. Good imaging and soundstage. In my home, when turned up, the metallic characteristics seem much more prominent. I didn’t like the finish that was sent to us, but there are other finishes on their website that look nice. More efficient than the Aperions. If you like the bright sound, you should definitely try to give these speakers a listen before you buy.

Rocket RS150 – I wanted to hear these the most, and I am most grateful for Mark sending them to Mad Dog for this session. These are “laid” back, no part of the sound jumps at you. I felt like I wanted more from the speaker, it was almost as if something was covering it or holding it back. Imaging and soundstage seemed to be there, but I was distracted by whatever I felt it was lacking. One thing that Mad Dog demonstrated with this type of sound was it could be turned up loud, and it would not grate on your nerves. They definitely look good. Simply put, the speaker just didn’t satisfy my tastes.

Ascend Acoustics CBM-170 – These are my speakers and I have had them for about two months. Before we got started in all the listening, the one thing that I feared was hearing one of the others “budget” speakers and wishing I had it as opposed to the Ascends. I did my best to make sure that I was honest with myself in forming an opinion about these speakers. After hearing the other three ”budget” speakers, and the higher end stuff , I am even more satisfied with my purchase. Clean, open, detailed, good soundstage and imaging. They are brighter than the Rockets, but not as bright as the Axioms. Other than not having the bass, for the money, I think they compared well with the Ref 1’s. Although the efficiency specs are lower than the Axioms, in our listening, they seemed more efficient. Certainly the black finish is not as refined as the others. The Aperions and Axioms may be able to match certain decors better, but the Ascends may be the most flexible. At the risk of sounding biased, if you are in the market for speakers at twice the cost or more, you need to listen to these.

We didn’t spend as much time listening to the center channels. From what we heard, they all sounded pretty comparable. The CMT-340 had a little more bass than the RSC-100, and the RSC-200 had more bass than the CMT-340. The CMT-340 seemed to have more detail to me. Safe to say if you get Rockets, get a Rocket center….if you get Ascends, get the Ascend center.

It is clear that these speakers all have their own characteristics. It is also clear that people have different preferences. If you can not go out and listen to these speakers before you buy, read as much as you can, and know what sound you like.

If you have any specific questions….feel free to ask!

curtis




curtis

[Danbry39]

Here you go Chris.




Keith

[Chris D]

Danbry- Anything you can link to on that? I'd be interested to read more. Sounds funny.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Danbry39]

Hey George,

Did you read what happened to the owner of GR Research this week?

He posted that he was stopped by one of the infamous white van speaker scam deals, who proceeded to try and sell him speakers. He patiently listened, trying to keep from laughing, while they ranted about how great their speakers are and how crappy all other speakers are. He finally revealed that he owned a speaker company and invited the guy to bring the speakers down to his lab for testing. They never took him up on his offer.

Apparently, he's actually tested their speakers before and he linked his site with the test results. Had me cracking up and thinking of you.




Keith

[Danbry39]

Doug,

I don't have any problem with that whatsoever. I'd kind of like to narrow the focus here anyway.

A question did come up though. Would this include companies that sell speakers, but also have subs in their line that they sell?




Keith

[Lex]

Sorry guys, subwoofer makers are out as online vendors in an online vendor forum. I have to protect our advertisers.

That may not be what you wanted to hear, but that's how it has to be since we have 2 advertisers that sell subs and sub components.

Lex

[Danbry39]

Thanks for the link Curtis.

Frustrating isn't it. :roll:

Again, not putting down non-internet purchases. We've all made those and, of course, great products are sold through B&M shops, but you'd think that so many positive posts by so many knowledgeable folk would eat through some of the fears regarding buying via this avenue.

To me, the companies that sell only through the internet provide me with the opportunity to get ahold of speakers that would be out of my reach cost wise otherwise. Again, I know there are bargains to be had each way, but, logically, one would have to assume that cutting out the distributor and dealer from the equation would equal savings for the consumer.

I guess that I'm also tired of the attitude that characterize some shops. I sometimes feel uncomfortable browsing certain stores because of it. Maybe it's just the shops in my area, but the people I've spoken or corresponded with from the online companies has been pretty obliging and friendly.

You know what would be cool? If a bunch of the internet only companies got together and opened a few demo rooms around the country where someone could go in and actually give a listen to their products. This wouldn't have to raise the price of the product significantly as increased volume of sales would make up a big part of the cost.




Keith

[curtis]

We have to generate good discussion and get traffic here on a regular basis.

The guy in this threadhttp://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=282462 does not want to do the internet thing...but I do not think he knows what he is missing.




curtis

[Danbry39]

Thanks again George,

Yeah, it would be super cool to see a club like this take off. I love hearing about other people's gear. I think the real key would be if we could sustain the activity over the long haul, but you never know. There are an awful lot of people who are fans of these internet-only brands now.




Keith

[george king]

I think this is a great idea. We may want to cruise over to audiocircle and harmonic discord (if it still exists), and maybe audio asylum, to let people know about this site.

Keep up the good work.

[Danbry39]

Great to see you here Curtis. ;b>'> If you think anyone over at AVS might be interested in being a participant here, let them know. It would be really cool. Ascends were one of the brands I was most interested in. When I did my research, it was pretty amazing how many different brands there were to suit different tastes. I wanted to try a million of them. By the way, I have a Hsu VTF-2 myself.




Keith

[curtis]

If you visit AVSForum, you know I think highly of my Ascends and Hsu sub.

The internet-direct model is hard for people to grasp. They just can't walk into a showroom and hear/see/touch the equipment. It takes more work to audition the equipment. Those that do put in the work, are usually rewarded with great value and sound.




curtis

[Danbry39]

Exactly how I feel Chris. And a few of the online only companies represent some of the finest bargains out there.




Keith

[Chris D]

I'm all for this. For some reason, I've found that people are actually a little less familiar with the online products, even though a lot of people do a lot of research and purchase discussion online nowadays. Perhaps it's because when people walk into a store and talk to a sales rep, all they hear about are mainstream in-store companies.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Danbry39]

How about a club dealing with various internet-only hardware vendors. Companies such as SVS, Hsu, Ascend, ACI, Axiom, Rocket and the like. People who are interested in this type of purchase could share their insights and experiences with the different product lines.




Keith