SVS Ultra Towers

Optimal Placement

Best Placement Near Front Wall

Wayne Myers (AudiocRaver)

Configuration/Specifications

Design: 3.5-Way rear-ported bass-reflex with two woofers, two midrange drivers, and one dome tweeter

Frequency Response: 28 Hz - 32 kHz (± 3 dB)

Recommended Power: 20 - 300 W

Sensitivity: 88 dB (2.83 V @ 1 meter full-space, 300-3kHz)

Impedance: 8 Ohms

Woofer Size: 8"

Midrange Size: 6.5"

Tweeter Size: 1"

Top midrange-to-tweeter crossover: 2 kHz

Bottom midrange taper frequency: 700 Hz

Dual midrange-to-woofer crossover: 160 Hz

Dimensions: 45" H X 13.8" W X 16.25" D

Weight (Each): ~75 lbs. (18.0 kg)

MSRP (Pair): $1,998

Setup and Placement Flexibility

Impressions

Frequency Response, Bass Extension

Soundstage and Imaging

Power Handling

Performance Close to the Front Wall:

Physical and Visual

Overall Listening Experience

Many good qualities.

Far from perfect.

Jam-packed with innovation and well-thought-out design features -- those guys really did work overtime on these speakers.

A little over-bright in our room.

What These Speakers Are Best For

Leonard Caillouet (lcaillo)

Joe Alexander (ALMFamily)

Sonnie Parker (Sonnie)



In chatting with Dan Marks at SVS, we had it set for them to ship the Ultra Towers to me right before RMAF, so that they would be waiting on me when I got back. However, to my surprise they got here the first part of October, about two weeks early. Naturally I could not resist taking them on to the house and setting them up for a listen. At that time I did not have the Anthem 225 in yet, so I connected them to my Rogue Cronus Magnum integrated tube amp... which we used during our $1,000 evaluation. After a few placements I was able to get a pretty good soundstage and fairly good imaging, so I continued to listen. The more I listened, the faster my heart beat. I was having a nervous flash because I was hearing a very bright speaker, and was dreading the fact I would have to say so publicly. I even connected them to my Denon 4520 just to make sure it wasn't the amp... yep, same brightness. I had heard these at the Capital AudioFest and never remembered them being anywhere close to this bright. I enjoyed them very much at CAF and was excited about how well they sounded there. I ultimately decided I just needed to wait until they had more time on them and until I had more time to focus on placement, as it could simply be the combination of those two things that were causing the issue.



Fast-forward a couple of weeks to Rocky Mountain Audio Fest and the SVS room. Once again, I did not get a sense of brightness in the Ultra Towers... although I have to admit they did not sound as good in that small room as they did in the much larger room at CAF. I was somewhat relieved and just kept things to myself, not mentioning the brightness to anyone.



Fast-forward to the event. For whatever reasons I had not really thought much more about the brightness I had previously heard... until about the time we were getting ready to bring them into the room. My mind started to working... what would they sound like and would the other guys think they were too bright like I was thinking? I could not tell whether they were bright or not when I was not in the PLP, so I continued to keep quiet. When I first sat down, up near the wall I did not notice them being bright at all... although the bass did seem a bit heavy (and a lot of people will like this bass, especially for movies). For the record, we plugged the ports to help tame some of that bass. However, we knew this would not be their best location for two-channel listening. At CAF and at RMAF, SVS had the Ultra Towers pulled out from the walls, and for good reason, as it improves the sound all around. When it came my time to listen to them out from the wall... I was totally surprised by the difference in what I was hearing. This is when I finally said something to the other guys. Seriously, it was like night and day difference. Was it the break-in time? I have never been one to think much about break-in, but being one that doesn't think I would hear that kind of difference between a tube amp and receiver versus an integrated amp, what else can it be attributed to? Can our ears change what we hear from one day to the next? After giving this even more thought over the last few days... I am now convinced it may have very well been placement. My memory is escaping me for absolute sureness, but I think I had them a good bit closer to the listener, maybe just behind the Arx A5 tape that seems to be a permanent marker on my floor. Moving them farther back could very well tame some of the brightness I was hearing. Whatever the reasons, I was totally relieved, to say the least. I see now that Wayne mentions them being "over-bright", but I think he might be

overly dramatic, possibly downright obsessive, maybe even going crazy. After all... he did just get a little older between the event and this write-up. (You know I love you Wayne!)



I liked the SVS Ultra Towers, especially the bass when they were out into the room a little, although the move was not a lot. We moved them about two feet closer, but it did tame the bass a little and got them down on the floor level, improving a lot of things. So... we can partially blame the stage once again for being in the way. I did note on a few songs they might have still been a bit on the bass heavy side (not excessive by any means)... but on most songs they were just right. As for imaging... I was happy with what I was hearing. Soundstage was good and so was depth of soundstage, although maybe not quite as deep as I have heard, likely because we had them farther back from the listener than most of the other speakers. I think in a home theater setup where these are likely going closer to the front wall and crossed over at 60-80Hz... or serving dual use as mains and subs with Audyssey equalization, they will be excellent. We did not get a chance to hear them this way, but I suggest what I do because of what I heard at CAF and RMAF (I believe the only home theater setup at those shows). The Tron movie sounded spectacular... as was the Sting concert... and even the little bit of opera music we heard (and I am NOT a fan of opera). I wish we had a chance to hear them in my room with the full home theater compliment of Ultra's, but it wasn't to be. To be fair... there were several of these speakers I would like to hear in a full HT setup. Overall, the SVS Ultra Towers are a very good speaker and with a free in-home trial, you will not go wrong giving them a round in your room to see if they fit your wants and desires.



No code has to be inserted here.No code has to be inserted here.The SVS Ultra Tower features a 1 inch tweeter with FEA-optimized diffuser; two 6.5 inch midrange drivers with composite glass-fiber cone and an aluminum shorting ring to reduce gap inductance, lower distortion, and enhance high frequency response, a cast aluminum basket to ensure precise alignment of critical components and additional heat-sinking capacity, and a Vented voice coil former to minimize air compression artifacts at high drive levels; two 8 inch woofers with aluminum shorting rings to reduce gap inductance and lower distortion, a long stroke motor and suspension for high output, and vented voice coil formers to minimize air compression artifacts at high drive levels. The ForceFactor Woofer Array consists of dual 8" side-firing horizontally opposed SVS woofers resulting in mechanical force cancellation, enhanced modal density and reduced distortion for a smooth, accurate bass at all listening locations. The SoundMatch Crossover Network consists of a 3.5-way crossover with premium-grade capacitors, air-core inductors and heavy-trace printed circuit boards.Getting the SVS Ultra Tower to behave the way we wanted it to was an ordeal. They really taxed our patience. Admittedly, not every speaker out there is made to do what we what them to do, even some really nice ones. As we have emphasized, we are looking for a deep soundstage and that requires off-axis orientation relative to the Listening Position (LP). Some speakers handle that well, some do not. The Ultra Tower did not like the idea. Although we ultimately got satisfactory results, we were not blown away by them, and it took degree-splitting toe-in matching and precise measurements double- and triple- and quadruple-checked to get there.Those final minute adjustments, though, as ridiculous as they seemed even as we were making them, made a huge difference in settling the sound down from rough and undeveloped to very natural and satisfying. And we got a pretty nice soundstage, the main reward for our struggles.Before we moved them out of the room, their spots on the floor got thoroughly marked with tape and their laser-alignment reference points on the back wall were carefully documented. No way we were going to go through that exercise again.We are a speaker-designer-stressing bunch, and we are first to admit it. Our listening requirements and goals are NOT TYPICAL. But we also believe we have come across a quality of listening experience that few have an appreciation for, and so there we were, lasers in hand, splitting hairs and complaining about things that have speaker designers wondering what planet we hail from, all for the purpose of spreading the word about that mesmerizing soundstage and what it takes to achieve it.A lot of people like the SVS Ultra Tower, and there are things about the way it sounds that I really like, too. It is capable of DEEP bass for a speaker its size. It is an innovative design - very cool, forward thinking, with the opposing woofers, non-parallel cabinet walls, the tweeter sandwiched between mid drivers for tight integration of imaging information, innovative driver design. Most innovative speakers do one or two things differently, SVS did almost everything differently, at least a little.They play loud, handle bass well, have a high end that goes on forever.....As reviewers and reporters in the audio realm, we have to learn to trust our ears and hearing and impressions. I have learned to do that more and more in recent years, but have also become very aware of how impressionable they can be, susceptible to bias and expectation. They even get overconfident and get fooled sometimes, other times confused. That is when we have to exercise some tough love on them, be willing to test them, question their results.There is nothing wrong with letting our hearing impressions roam free and have a good time with whatever they come up with in private, but when we hope to be able to share them with others meaningfully, even make purchasing recommendations, those impressions need boundaries. We end up walking a line that bounces between devotee and skeptic, advocate and cynic, in relation to our own abilities.After spending much of the last 24 hours digging through notes and comparing REW plots and reviewing psycho-acoustical principles, I am ready to say this about the SVS Ultra Towers:They sounded a little over-bright to me.Overly dramatic? Downright obsessive? Going crazy? Sonnie - bless his heart - will say yes to all three. There are reasons why I struggled with making this statement, and had to be sure it made sense.My introduction to the SVS Ultra Tower came in October at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. One big impression I came away with was that the highs had anquality about them like they were machined out of steel with the edges left rough and covered with little burrs and snags. I listened at different heights and angles and distances to different kinds of material and could not get past that impression.I was so relieved to hear the Ultra Tower pair in Sonnie's room. The highs, while quite strong, had an even, honest smoothness that was very listenable, the edges smoothed and rounded, still with the strong shininess of steel, but not harsh or dangerous.Only later did Sonnie reveal how bright he had found that same Ultra Tower pair when he first heard them (he thought they sounded great at RMAF), and that he found them sounding so much better at our evaluation weekend.Add to this the difficulty we had in setting them up. These experiences and comments by the other evaluators add up to questions about stability and repeatability. Will they sound the same next time I set them up? Will they be as hard to place? Harder? Part of the character of a speaker is what you grow to expect from it over time. To me,andare not as inviting qualities asandAnd over-bright. Which does not make sense when you look at the data, which says they are pretty flat. I have heard flat speakers plenty of times in plenty of rooms and did not think of them as over-bright. But I believe there is an explanation. It will be published in the general observations post, as it applies to the entire weekend of listening and to our listening goals and methods for achieving them. For now, let us say the Ultra Tower high end had a lot of nice qualities, but sometimes was just too hard, too much, too bright.The SVS Ultra Towers have exceptionally flat response above 2 kHz, extending well beyond 20 kHz with no sign of drooping. There is a slight presence peak between 1 and 2 kHz, then steadily increasing bass response down to 60 Hz.The SVS Ultra Towers were simply a bit bright in Sonnie's well-treated room. The bass was very strong, on some tracks pushed way too much. But I prefer flat bass, and the majority of HTS readers lean toward at leastbass emphasis, some a LOT of it (you know who you are!), so the Ultra Tower's bass might be just right for the average reader. Note that the Cedar Creek Cinema room has an audio black hole that gobbles up most vibrations below 50 Hz, except those produced by the eight 18-inch subs themselves - hmmm, the subs acting out on some bass-envy issues, absorbing it all? Intriguing idea. Worth ripping them out to see the difference it makes? Sonnie might object, have to do it when he is not looking. Not a word!The bass seemed mushy, not as tightly defined as I expected. I remember it being very articulate at RMAF, not stellar, but good for the amount of deep bass coming from a cabinet that size. There is a sense of unevenness to the Ultra Tower sound, through the mids mainly, that made the tonality and definition clarity murky on busier instrumentals.Those flat tweeters handled cymbals beautifully onCymbals and complex synthesizer harmonics on most tracks really stood out with strength and clarity. The vocal duet onhad a wonderful quality of blending and contrasting at the same time. The delicate drum stick clicks startingseemed ultra real.I liked the way sharp vocals sounded, like Lou Reed onalthough it was an almost surreal tonality that might wear thin with time.The soundstage was fair-to-good, although the depth definition was rather vague. This is the case with most speakers we have evaluated, so it is not a crippling complaint. The Ultra Tower is a quite listenable speaker.Imaging was good, a bit soft - grapefruit-sized images from pinpoint-recorded sources - and fairly stable. Driver matching has to be very tight for the best imaging, and the REW plots showed that mid and tweeter matching between cabinets was good but not as good as with many other speakers we have looked at.The tilted-back front baffle was working against the Ultra Tower now. They were located well away from the LP. That is where we got the best soundstage, but imaging seemed to never settle down to its very best. Experimenting, I raised up about six inches, and there it was - a really solid image and much better clarity in the soundstage. A thick, firm pillow gave the amount of lift needed to reach that high sweet spot nicely. But it broke our LP assumptions and added another variable and had to go. We made do with the lower "normal people" LP.The SVS Ultra Tower can handle lots of power and play loud comfortably. They are on the low-efficiency side, but we had plenty of clean power to drive them with and I noticed no tendency toward sounding compressed or strained.Up on the Cedar Creek Cinema stage, they were far from their best. Their front face has a backward tilt that wants to sit closer to the listener. There was always asensation with them that far away. Home theater users might want to consider this carefully, as typical setups will locate theater mains well away from listeners. It is not a stage-friendly design, for those with stages in their rooms.I really enjoy working with speakers that look different and that break the rules for how speakers should look. The Ultra Tower boasts a form-follows-function design theme with a futuristic yet simple appearance. They are heavy. The oak veneer finish is easy to like and place in a room.As I finished my turn in the LP, I had no trouble turning it over to the next evaluator. I had enjoyed many aspects of the SVS Ultra Tower listening experience, but was ready to move on, felt no compulsion to fight for more listening time.I AM intrigued by all of the design work that went into those speakers, though. Something tells me we are going to hear great things from SVS in the coming years, and maybe that is the best way to look at the Ultra Tower:In summary, a speaker that many will like, some will love, and some will find a bit finicky to work with. If you are nuts for the deep soundstage and want to be able to play them off-axis to achieve it, they are not the best choice to work with. But that is not going to be their typical use. If you want to use them on-axis and have a room that is fairly dead at high frequencies, you are going to love the tweeters - if my assumptions are correct about their high end in our room.The SVS Ultra Tower in a home theater setting almost does not even need a subwoofer in a smaller room that will not be run at bone-crushing volumes. I know, I know, the bass-lovers are already posting about the need for proper sub support, 5-Hz extension, heavy lifting, etc., and they are absolutely right if those are your priorities. For a two-channel guy, remembering how they sounded at RMAF, away from any low-frequency-vibration black holes, their bass would sound pretty awesome to me.They might be a little unrefined for the most serious two-channel listener. But watch those SVS guys, I have a feeling some really great speakers are going to come through their doors.SVS Ultra Towers on the stage were the most predictable. Closer to the wall the bass emphasis was too much for me and the reflections in the mids and highs smeared detail and left the image flat. Overall it is a good sound, with nice transients, wide soundfield, even on the stage. It was clear that this would be a fine speaker when placed more optimally.These were a significantly harder to place for a really detailed and precise depth of image and image stability. Even at their best location, image detail seemed to change with frequency. I attribute this to a slight balance difference between the left and right speakers. The toe angle seemed particularly critical. Detail was good, with nice balanced character top to bottom. Overall I found the speakers to lean toward a slight brightness with a little sibilance. The brightness was not extreme, nor offensive, on most tracks, but more a slight emphasis that assists in providing ambiance and clarity. In some cases, however, the edge is too hard, such as trumpet or electric guitars. There is sometimes a fine line between enough detail and brightness. Most speakers that cross that line seem to do so because of either poor balance between the drivers or poor ability to handle transients. I did not hear either here, other than a very slight tendency to sibilance on rising notes. The overall balance is good. Maybe a bit like having a slight loudness contour if you had the speakers near walls or just a little extra treble when placed optimally.I would like to hear a pair of these with better matching between speakers. Some of the issues may be due to a slight problem with one of the tweeters. If we have learned anything in these listening sessions with many speakers is that there is much more variance within models that we ever expected. Some of that may be shipping related, but some is obviously parts variability. That said, these would perhaps move into the upper tier with a better matched pair. The midrange was clear and musical, the mid-bass that I am very critical of was no issue at all, and bass was both powerful and detailed as deep as just about any of the speakers. They won’t knock you down, but you don’t feel lacking at any point.The SVS Ultra's cabinet design starts out with a standard box design, but the front baffle has some contouring and the rear of the cabinet slants back giving the Ultras some character. The finish is the black oak which blends really well in the HT – if I was doing 2 channel I would go with the high gloss.We started on the stage as usual and had the ports sealed, and these still felt a bit too bass-heavy – they sound a bit boomy to where it seems to overpower the vocals and other instruments in the Jennifer Warnes "Way Down Deep" track. Soundstage was not very deep which we have noticed on pretty much all the speakers - check out our general thoughts and reflections for more on that. Vocals – especially female – do feel a bit bright in comparison to the midrange.When we moved them to the floor, these seemed to be a bit tricky to locate as we were moving a matter of parts of an inch to try to get the image to tighten up. In the end, we located them closer to the stage and toed them in a bit. After lots of maneuvering, we swapped speakers and discovered a difference in the tonal balancing of the speakers of about 3 db through the midrange. Once we had figured that out, we pressed on realizing this difference existed.The first thing that I noticed during my listening time in the PLP was there was nowhere near as much boom in the low end - there were several tracks where you could tell a noticeable difference in the tightening of the low end image as well as a tempering of the boom such as the Jennifer Warnes "Way Down Deep" and the Rory Block "The Spirit Remains" tracks. Instrument detail was very good - piano and high hats stood out especially for me on the Ultras. I did note that the female sibilance was a tad harsh on a couple tracks - notably the Nickel Creek "Reasons Why" track. As far as imaging, they did image a bit forward for me which gave me the feeling they were a bit on the bright side. However, they did disappear for me entirely - I could not really point to a specific speaker and say 'the sound is emanating from there'.Overall, I thought this was a really good speaker - the instrument detail and low end (once they were moved off the stage) both stood out for me. For me personally, I would probably go a different way for two channel speakers as I prefer a bit less low end and more of an open, airy tonality for vocals and high end instruments, but could definitely see myself with these in a HT setup.