SVS Ultra Evolution

[cavedriver]

I heard a Dennis Murphy- modified SVS Ultra (pre-evolution) and it was quite good, although iirc Dennis said he only did it as a one-off to see what the potential was and was ultimately not satisfied, suggesting to me that the drivers were the limitation at that point. Given Dennis's ear I wouldn't be surprised if the dome tweeters SVS was using were disappointing him, but I don't remember for sure. Nonetheless, it would be interesting to see what someone like Dennis could do with these speakers to "fix" them. I suspect that the midrange spacing and driver quality would ultimately limit too much what could be done with just a new crossover.

 

[cavedriver]

Perhaps I´d rather ask what you´d take home on those price ranges. I guess it´s not going to be the SVS...

Measurements are out on the Mofi 888, I would get a pair of those before these easily.

 

[Ktacos]

Do you believe your a better/smarter engineer than the guys at SVS?

There are a lot of people online who are just regular Joe's that have very extensive knowledge of speaker design who could have delivered a better speaker. If you think being employed at a speaker company implies some sort of advantage or merit in ones ability, oh boy I have an entire audio industry of junk to show you. Don't forget Zu Audio still exists and sells speakers lol. Have you seen some of the amazing stuff that the DIY community does? Hell I'd wager you wouldn't even need the human element, Xmachina (software used to design mechano speaker excellently reviewed here) could probably come up with better driver integration than SVS did.

Were dealing with cones and domes in boxes with passive filter components here, it is not magic. Anyone can grab REW and Vcad.

Answer me this, why do you think it wasn't done your way?

To chime in, money. It's always money. Perhaps SVS had bought a large stock of drivers for upcoming products and needed to get rid of it all, hence using a mid that's too big. We'll probably never know why but it doesn't matter because the end result is lacking.

 

[Ron Texas]

It might be that I don't connect with large floor standing speakers. I think you can get more for your money with stand mounts supported by subs. Besides, many use subs with floor standing speakers anyway. The caveat is getting the subs integrated is a project. A MiniDSP or AVR helps.

 

[cavedriver]

There are a lot of people online who are just regular Joe's that have very extensive knowledge of speaker design who could have delivered a better speaker. If you think being employed at a speaker company implies some sort of advantage or merit in ones ability, oh boy I have an entire audio industry of junk to show you. Don't forget Zu Audio still exists and sells speakers lol. Have you seen some of the amazing stuff that the DIY community does? Hell I'd wager you wouldn't even need the human element, Xmachina (software used to design mechano speaker excellently reviewed here) could probably come up with better driver integration than SVS did.

Were dealing with cones and domes in boxes with passive filter components here, it is not magic. Anyone can grab REW and Vcad.



To chime in, money. It's always money. Perhaps SVS had bought a large stock of drivers for upcoming products and needed to get rid of it all, hence using a mid that's too big. We'll probably never know why but it doesn't matter because the end result is lacking.

To agree further, SVS sells direct and through stores, but to my eyes, markets to the "general public" that may be mostly unaware of the work of websites like ASR and likely to fall victim to all the classic failures of audio marketing (appearance, pricing, hype, store positioning, etc.) so I expect that an executive at SVS can't be faulted for saying, "build me a speaker with a cool modern looking design and lots of bass" and he'll be right that it will sell well and he'll make plenty of money, even if he didn't put enough money into some of the drivers, the cabinet engineering, or the crossover design. We can revisit this question in a couple years to see how they did with it.

 

[WillBrink]

It might be that I don't connect with large floor standing speakers. I think you can get more for your money with stand mounts supported by subs. Besides, many use subs with floor standing speakers anyway. The caveat is getting the subs integrated is a project. A MiniDSP or AVR helps.

I prefer stand mounts + subs as the best of all worlds in my wants for audio. If I had a really big room to fill, and was mostly HT focused, I could see going with large floor standers. Otherwise, meh.

 

[Oddball]

Yeah these new big towers speakers are also catered to newer bass management and routing options for HT. Each of these can potentially support the subs and LFE as well.

But integration could be an issue. If you have lots of subs and towers, individual speaker integration issues might not pose such a “huge” threat as with the 2 towers and 2 subs.

 

[Sal1950]

Perhaps I´d rather ask what you´d take home on those price ranges. I guess it´s not going to be the SVS...

LOL. I don't know why you'd say that when I just did 4 or 5 posts with positive comments recommending a listen to the Ultra's ? Since I'm not in the market and haven't done the homework on the competition, I'm really not qualified to make any further purchasing recommendations. Short of some catastrophe, I'll probably die with my current JBL's .

 

[Sal1950]

SVS Ultra Evolution Pinnacle Tower Speaker Review

That was posted here already.

 

[ryanosaur]

It’s pretty simple in the end… SVS should’ve, because they well could’ve, brought a little something more to the table.

Everybody in the game knows that Erin or Amir might well end up with one to Klipelize. So why not make certain that it checks the boxes required to pass muster?

Gene (AH) indicated SVS was not happy with the results of Larson’s review and might not maintain their long standing relationship with AH any more.

This seems to say to me that whomever took over product design at SVS is banking on wow-factor rather than engineering prowess. Perhaps they should’ve sent off to Stereophile for review?

Hopefully designs like this and the big Arendal 1723 Tower don’t intimate a pulling away from good design principles and good engineering. We don’t need our Speakers to be designed with alternative facts!

 

[Ktacos]

Gene (AH) indicated SVS was not happy with the results of Larson’s review and might not maintain their long standing relationship with AH any more.

I'd cut ties if there was even a mention of this, tells me the company is dishonest and can't be trusted to work with. They could idk, work with the reviewers to make better speakers but nope.

I honestly thought that the advent of very in depth reviews and sciences of audio were going to make more changes in the industry but it seems like a lot companies are afraid of it. Tells me just how dependent many of them are on their customers being ignorant.

 

[Vacceo]

Measurements are out on the Mofi 888, I would get a pair of those before these easily.

I would take them instead too.

I'd cut ties if there was even a mention of this, tells me the company is dishonest and can't be trusted to work with. They could idk, work with the reviewers to make better speakers but nope.

I honestly thought that the advent of very in depth reviews and sciences of audio were going to make more changes in the industry but it seems like a lot companies are afraid of it. Tells me just how dependent many of them are on their customers being ignorant.

In this house, and for Audioholics too, any manufacturer can provide reasons for how they designed their speakers and how they wanted a particular performance. We have seen that here several times. Cutting off communication sends the wrong message, I'd say.

 

[Robert-Hifi]

Measurements are out on the Mofi 888, I would get a pair of those before these easily.

From Erin's Audio Corner?

 

[Matias]

From Erin's Audio Corner?

Currently for his Patreons only, later for general public.

https://www.youtube.com/@ErinsAudioCorner/community

 

[Oddball]

It’s pretty simple in the end… SVS should’ve, because they well could’ve, brought a little something more to the table.

Everybody in the game knows that Erin or Amir might well end up with one to Klipelize. So why not make certain that it checks the boxes required to pass muster?

Gene (AH) indicated SVS was not happy with the results of Larson’s review and might not maintain their long standing relationship with AH any more.

This seems to say to me that whomever took over product design at SVS is banking on wow-factor rather than engineering prowess. Perhaps they should’ve sent off to Stereophile for review?

Hopefully designs like this and the big Arendal 1723 Tower don’t intimate a pulling away from good design principles and good engineering. We don’t need our Speakers to be designed with alternative facts!

That is interesting and worrying. Would you mind linking to that discussion? I am glad though that there is some integrity left and that manufacturers might not like the results of their mediocre or so labour.

I am not saying that these are bad speakers, and also have worse in one of my systems, but at this price they should probably have done better even if they had to forgo that curved design that I am sure costed a pretty penny.

 

[ryanosaur]

In this house, and for Audioholics too, any manufacturer can provide reasons for how they designed their speakers and how they wanted a particular performance. We have seen that here several times.

Yes, AH does this too. Iirc, there was a section in yellow where SVS had provided some responses to AH. Seen this in other reviews, too. It’s been stated there that AH will share information with the company whose product is under review to confirm findings and discuss issues. Pretty certain I’ve seen Gene say that the company can opt out of publishing a review if they so choose.

Regardless, this gets into the politics between those two companies and I’m not gonna speculate on what went down between them.

 

[ryanosaur]

That is interesting and worrying. Would you mind linking to that discussion? I am glad though that there is some integrity left and that manufacturers might not like the results of their mediocre or so labour.

I am not saying that these are bad speakers, and also have worse in one of my systems, but at this price they should probably have done better even if they had to forgo that curved design that I am sure costed a pretty penny.

Just check the review thread at AH. It was mentioned pretty early on, I think, in that thread.

 

[Sal1950]

Just check the review thread at AH. It was mentioned pretty early on, I think, in that thread.

This one?

Theres also this one,

 

[danzilla31]

This one?

Theres also this one,

The written review on the website in the comments section is where Gene spoke about SVS not being very happy with the review

 

[Ktacos]

I would take them instead too.


In this house, and for Audioholics too, any manufacturer can provide reasons for how they designed their speakers and how they wanted a particular performance. We have seen that here several times. Cutting off communication sends the wrong message, I'd say.

SVS is the one supposedly wanting to sever ties. It's nice when manufactueres chime in on the whys and hows of their speakers, but generally it's just them trying to frame "we didn't do a good job" in a positive light. Dynaudio replied to Erin and basically said "don't worry about the problems, we know what were doing, trust us".

Standards too low here for communication. Any response other than "Dang, we didn't get it right, but we want to so thanks for the review" is unacceptable. Ascend is a good company that shares pretty much every detail and I have heard the owner is a very nice fellow. I see them improving utilizing science and haven't heard any complaints on communication from them. Hard to give companies who can't behave a pass when so many who do exist.