Spent a short time with the ML ascent speaker last nite at the local AV shoppe. I figure this is about the same price point as the RM40, so a comparo is in order. Positives: Nice smooth upper mids I assume due to the lack of crossover to a tweeter. I love the fact that sound emanantes from a huge area, it adds to the realism and space. Decent resolution from what I remember from previous ML brand auditions. But nothing close to the resolution from the NEOs and ribbon supertweeters, like the ravens in my system...and sometimes with many recordings thats a GOOD thing! A soft (or slow) upper end will tame out some grit in recordings for sure. I noticed no real area of peakiness along the freq range. Would probably be a nice speaker for casual listening and background music. ANd they look kewl.
Negatives. No substantial bass to speak of, with out the added ML sub that was turned on and off throughout the demo... and the sub pretty much was a muddy sloppy mess reminding me of older Sunfire cubes. Lack of midbass resolution and impact. VERY horizontally directional...a degree or two makes a HUGE difference. The lack of resolution smeared a lot of the recording, and individual instruments did not appear individual. This aspect was better than most midfi speakers, but not on the level of higher resolution drivers.
