Floorstanding loudspeakers — Ascendo System M5

The System M5 is a passive three-way floor speaker from the German maker Ascendo, which first showed its speakers at the High End show in Frankfurt in 1999 and moved production from Grafenberg to a historic building in Ansbach, Bavaria, in autumn 2011. Introduced in 2013 alongside the System Z5, it was one of the first two Ascendo models to use the company's new internal cables and connection methods. It is built around SASB technology, a combination of a current-dynamically damped outer driver and a semi-symmetric bandpass enclosure, and uses a modular construction with resonance-decoupled driver mounting.

Key specs that matter

Ascendo rates response from 26 Hz to 42 kHz, both limits at -3 dB, with 91 dB sensitivity for 1 W at 1 m and an 8 ohm nominal impedance. The power figure is 600 W of program power, stated as a minimum. The complete speaker is 40 cm wide, 132.3 cm tall and 45 cm deep and weighs 71 kg. That height is made up of two parts - a base 11 cm high and a driver module 121.3 cm high sitting on top of it, both with the same footprint.

Engineering and use context

A 28 cm hexacone unit with a woven membrane handles the lowest range, and its fundamental output can be adjusted. Above it, a 21.5 cm driver with an HPC membrane and a phase plug takes care of bass and midrange. High frequencies come from a magnetostatic planar tweeter whose level can be switched. The bass and midrange section is decoupled from the treble unit, and the tweeter position is adjustable for time alignment (VTA), so the arrival of sound from the drivers can be matched to a listening height anywhere between 50 and 190 cm.

The enclosure uses low-magnetic V2A stainless steel, with vibration damping from bitumen layers and compressed fibre board. Black piano lacquer is the regular finish, with further colours made to order. Rhodium-plated terminals allow single wiring, bi-wiring or tri-wiring, so each of the three sections can be fed from its own cable run.

Pairing

The nominal load and sensitivity ask little current from a partnering amplifier, while the high program rating leaves headroom for large stereo power amplifiers or monoblocks. Tri-wiring needs three runs of speaker cable per side, one for each driver section.

Alternatives

Ascendo also builds the System M5S, a taller floor speaker in the same System series that is offered in M5S+, SE and active versions.