SVS Ultra Bookshelf Speaker Review

[patate91]

That's great, but many folks here won't believe you because your subjective observations were obtained without blinding. They may ask you to re-assess whether your subs are still running, but this time with a blindfold on. Also, how did you know there was shipping damage to the veneer if you could SEE IT!?

But If I give all the data about a speaker, then you performe a sighted listening test. How would you scale the validity ?

 

[amirm]

You probably should have made an exception for this one.

Good measurements biased me to not like it? how does that work?

 

[Theriverlethe]

Good measurements biased me to not like it? how does that work?

I didn't say that at all. It might make sense to measure and/or listen with and without the grilles, since they're part of the package.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Mine have been to your house before and could make the trip again... just sayin'

Man--they let anybody onto this forum. You liked the Ultra's better than the Affordable Accuracy's, so I doubt that the dogs would allow you back in the house even with a mask. Over the speakers, of course. I would love to work on one of them, but I'm sure it would end up sounding like the Affordable Accuracy with a nicer cabinet. But if you're serious, I could fix things so you could go back to the old crossover easily.

 

[Theriverlethe]

I'm pretty sure that any deficiencies in the speaker could be corrected with a better crossover. The drivers themselves seem very high quality. Unfortunately, I don't happen to have a spare Ultra hiding in the closet. It might make an interesting experiment if one were to magically appear.
I'm not sure what your definition of "time alignment" is. For a conventional speaker with a perfectly vertical baffle and a 4th order acoustic Linkwitz-Riley crossover, proper time alignment would simply mean that the tweeter output and the woofer output arrive at the ear at the same point in their cycle, e.g. they're both at the crest or trough of, say, a 1 kHz test tone. However, they will be a full cycle apart. If you've done everything else right, that will produce a flat on-axis response. Toole maintains that the ear is not sensitive to phase, so a flat response by itself would be sufficient. I don't know what acoustic slopes are used on the Ultra, or whether cyclic alignment between the drivers would be necessary for proper summing at the crossover point. But I doubt that any anomalies Amir was hearing were due to a phase issue per se.

Are you sure it's not just hot treble in the tweeter and/or uneven dispersion? Would a crossover upgrade improve that?

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Are you sure it's not just hot treble in the tweeter and/or uneven dispersion? Would a crossover upgrade improve that?

I'm not sure of anything. It could just be the tweeter setting that was bothering Amir, in which case that might be fixed with just a change in the resistor padding or a reworking of the high pass filter. I would need to measure the speakers myself, including the tweeter Fs, and see what the best approach would be. But the problem could also be in the woofer low pass filter, causing too little suppression of a breakup mode. I don't remember--has Danny already done a "fix" for these?

 

[Theriverlethe]

That's great, but many folks here won't believe you because your subjective observations were obtained without blinding. They may ask you to re-assess whether your subs are still running, but this time with a blindfold on. Also, how did you know there was shipping damage to the veneer if you could SEE IT!?

I think a blind test with one subject would be pretty meaningless. We would need to blind-test at least 500 people in my living room to find out with some degree of statistical significance if the subs are turned on or not.

 

[ribosradagast]

Man--they let anybody onto this forum. You liked the Ultra's better than the Affordable Accuracy's, so I doubt that the dogs would allow you back in the house even with a mask. Over the speakers, of course. I would love to work on one of them, but I'm sure it would end up sounding like the Affordable Accuracy with a nicer cabinet. But if you're serious, I could fix things so you could go back to the old crossover easily.

LOL! Good memory, sir. Well the preference rating agrees with me with SVS > Affordable Accuracy, so there Anyhow, they've always been used as very near-field listening since I get great results out of them on my desk. I also think I even said that the AAs sounded great in-room...

Moving swiftly on, yeah I'm serious about letting you have at these. Let's take this to PMs though so that we don't clog up everyone's "omg Amir I can't believe you didn't like this!" thread with excitement over a Dennis Murphy-ified Ultra

 

[Dennis Murphy]

LOL! Good memory, sir. Well the preference rating agrees with me with SVS > Affordable Accuracy, so there Anyhow, they've always been used as very near-field listening since I get great results out of them on my desk. I also think I even said that the AAs sounded great in-room...

Moving swiftly on, yeah I'm serious about letting you have at these. Let's take this to PMs though so that we don't clog up everyone's "omg Amir I can't believe you didn't like this!" thread with excitement over a Dennis Murphy-ified Ultra

Wrong Affordable Accuracy. You heard the big guy with the 6.5" woofer that Amir would have loved. It's good out to 150 db <.01% THD @ 10 meters. If I had sent him that Affordable Accuracy it would have racked up a Toole score of 11. Anyhow, we can handle this with pm's or emails. Cheers

 

[aarons915]

I don't agraee that the "measurements don't agree with the subjective listen" argument hinges entirely on the Olive preference score. I think that even looking just at the spinorama, there is still a disagreement that exists between objective and subjective. Going forward in this thread, I think we should probably just ignore the Olive score altogether and focus on what's different in the actual measurements.

I think that carefully comparing the measurements of this speaker against the measurements of the M106, M105 and M55XC can help to show why this speaker doesn't sound as good as those other 3(at least post EQ). Given that those other 3 speakers sounded excellent, there must be some attribute that they share that the SVS lacks. Find the variable contained in A, B, and C, that's missing from D.

Ideas(many of these already mentioned by others):

1. Directivity Error(bottom half of spinorama)
Many have pointed to the directivity error as being the cause of the brightness, but I don't think it's that easy. Both the M106 and the M105 have the same directivity error, and both of those speakers still sound excellent. Some have suggested that the directivity error is due to trying to integrate a 6.5" woofer to a dome with no waveguide, but why does the M106 and M105(which do have a waveguide, and smaller woofer) still show that directivity error? Is there more going on there that I don't understand? I guess that's a question for those who know more than me.

Here is the SVS side by side with the M106, with the directivity error circled. Looking just at this spinorama, the magnitude of error seems about the same, or maybe 1dB worse on the SVS.

View attachment 76628

Good points, I'm curious does anyone actually have the Ultra bookshelves that has the ability to apply PEQ filters? It would be an interesting test case in the EQ thread that is going on at the moment. Based on other speakers, the peak at 800Hz makes vocals sound a bit "honky" but I wouldn't say it would sound harsh. I think that little bump from 3-4K in the ER is responsible, even though it doesn't look like much.

Another interesting experiment would be for someone who owns these to do their own blind comparison with either a Revel M106 or M16 to see if we can make some sense about the differences in the measurements because I'll admit that I'm not seeing any differences that would say that the M106 is easily the better speaker. As far as Amir is concerned it could very well come down to the M106 having more bass and that famous bass hump that he likes on many speakers.

 

[richard12511]

Good points, I'm curious does anyone actually have the Ultra bookshelves that has the ability to apply PEQ filters? It would be an interesting test case in the EQ thread that is going on at the moment. Based on other speakers, the peak at 800Hz makes vocals sound a bit "honky" but I wouldn't say it would sound harsh. I think that little bump from 3-4K in the ER is responsible, even though it doesn't look like much.

Another interesting experiment would be for someone who owns these to do their own blind comparison with either a Revel M106 or M16 to see if we can make some sense about the differences in the measurements because I'll admit that I'm not seeing any differences that would say that the M106 is easily the better speaker. As far as Amir is concerned it could very well come down to the M106 having more bass and that famous bass hump that he likes on many speakers.

Amir does seem to prefer a little bass boost(around 100Hz) over a more neutral bass. Most of the Revel speakers measured so far share that same boost, so I’m guessing it’s an intentional deviation from neutral. Perhaps recent listening tests have showed them that a neutral response is not the most preferred.

 

[amirm]

Amir does seem to prefer a little bass boost(around 100Hz) over a more neutral bass. Most of the Revel speakers measured so far share that same boost, so I’m guessing it’s an intentional deviation from neutral. Perhaps recent listening tests have showed them that a neutral response is not the most preferred.

Bass response in room has little to do with anechoic measurements. So ultimately it may be impossible to find correlation there with me or anyone else.

 

[justcheeze]

I’ve had nothing but good experiences with SVS subwoofers, and their customer service has been top notch. I wasn’t impressed by the Rhythmik I owned. However, I’d really like to try PSAs subwoofers.

Why weren't you impressed with the Rythmik? In fact, let's be a bit more specific - which Rythmik sub did you have prior to your current SVS sub? Did you compare them at the same time, in the same room, and in the same location then verify it with measurements?

Elaborate.

Having a good experience with SVS subs or not has nothing to do with the fact that I said earlier - Rythmik, Hsu and PSA all offers products that are cheaper yet perform at the very minimum, on par with SVS offerings if not better often times.

SVS does have room EQ, which is a huge plus.

The irony is that while their fancy little app is nifty for the quick setup, it's actually pointless without a mic to measure to begin with. Consider the fact that most people won't even realize that they need a mic to get the measurements of their room in order to properly implement correct values, they would use the PEQ section as a glorified GEQ of sorts.

For the people who would get a mic to measure, I'm sure they'd also have the knowledge to use much more advanced DSP offerings from minidsp or antimode which gives them a lot more freedom than just 3 measly EQ bands.

Top that when if you buy a Rythmik or Hsu sub, they would not only cost less than SVS competing model of the same class, you could use the spare change to get that aforementioned minidsp or antimode. So I don't see how that SVS app is a compelling purchasing decision.

 

[MZKM]

Why weren't you impressed with the Rythmik? In fact, let's be a bit more specific - which Rythmik sub did you have prior to your current SVS sub? Did you compare them at the same time, in the same room, and in the same location then verify it with measurements?

Elaborate.

Having a good experience with SVS subs or not has nothing to do with the fact that I said earlier - Rythmik, Hsu and PSA all offers products that are cheaper yet perform at the very minimum, on par with SVS offerings if not better often times.




The irony is that while their fancy little app is nifty for the quick setup, it's actually pointless without a mic to measure to begin with. Consider the fact that most people won't even realize that they need a mic to get the measurements of their room in order to properly implement correct values, they would use the PEQ section as a glorified GEQ of sorts.

For the people who would get a mic to measure, I'm sure they'd also have the knowledge to use much more advanced DSP offerings from minidsp or antimode which gives them a lot more freedom than just 3 measly EQ bands.

Top that when if you buy a Rythmik or Hsu sub, they would not only cost less than SVS competing model of the same class, you could use the spare change to get that aforementioned minidsp or antimode. So I don't see how that SVS app is a compelling purchasing decision.

It uses your phone. You take one near-field measurement and then at your listening position. It then takes that difference to see what the room modes are.

 

[P_M]

Sweeping the full audible band at five different levels we get:

View attachment 76213

I am not trusting the above graph much as it seems to show distortion his higher than lower levels??? I did have to re-calibrate my system so maybe something went wrong there.

yeah something is off with this particular test. Did you calibrate in-between the 5 levels or just at the start ? If at the start then it shouldn't matter. It should be as simple as keeping everything as is and increasing volume.

 

[DeeJay]

Bass response in room has little to do with anechoic measurements. So ultimately it may be impossible to find correlation there with me or anyone else.

So, what's the point of subjective listening test if there is no correlation with anechoic measurements?

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

Why weren't you impressed with the Rythmik? In fact, let's be a bit more specific - which Rythmik sub did you have prior to your current SVS sub? Did you compare them at the same time, in the same room, and in the same location then verify it with measurements?

I owned the SB1000 and the L12, their competing models, at the same time. I fully expected the L12 to obliterate the former, because I was intellectually smitten with the servo construction.

I compared them in the same room, same music, same location(s). Also took some REW measurements. I had a hard time getting rid of a mid-bass bump with the L12, and I prefer to use placement and treatment instead of EQ when I can. The SB1000 just integrated more seamlessly with my speakers and was less picky about placement.

Rhythmik was easily to deal with when it came to returns, and I have no complaints with their customer service.

Have you owned any PSA subwoofers? I’d love to hear one.

 

[samysound]

So, what's the point of subjective listening test if there is no correlation with anechoic measurements?

He is speaking specifically with respect to frequencies below the typical schroeder frequency for a residential room size where the bass response is dominated by room interaction...

 

[amirm]

yeah something is off with this particular test. Did you calibrate in-between the 5 levels or just at the start ? If at the start then it shouldn't matter. It should be as simple as keeping everything as is and increasing volume.

It was at the start. That is an automated test that gathers the response across multiple levels by itself.

I think something generated noise during the first scan in blue.

 

[DeeJay]

He is speaking specifically with respect to frequencies below the typical schroeder frequency for a residential room size where the bass response is dominated by room interaction...

I know that but room will change perceived LF response and LF/MF balance will influence listeners subjective perception.