SVS Ultra Tower Floorstanding Speakers Piano Gloss Black

Product Information

The Ultra Tower’s claimed frequency response is 28Hz-32kHz,+/-3dB; its sensitivity is 88dB with 2.83V input at 1m. SVS recommends amplification of 20-300Wpc; Mason states that “a high-performance 20Wpc amplifier driving the speakers in a small room will result in a great listening experience for many customers. Some customers prefer to listen at higher SPLs in larger rooms, and they may find that more than 20W is required.”

After all this detail, it is easy to confuse the best floor-standing speakers. To help you find the best one for your needs, consider these expert suggestions. What we did like were the various options included for feet. That’s not always a given with floorstanding speakers; more expensive models we’ve reviewed, like the MarkAudio-SOTA Cesti T ( full review here), don’t always have them. These included two sets per speaker of different-length isolation spikes, intended to not only elevate the speaker off the floor and reduce unwanted vibrations, but allow you to level the speaker off if, for some reason, your floor is tilted. While we never use this particular feature, the feet themselves were easy to attach and remove, as long as you don’t mind lowering the speaker onto its side. We couldn’t detect a huge difference in sound between when they were on and when they were off, but we weren’t too concerned about this. With 80% of the sound coming in mids, the drivers unveils the core of the speaker’s timbre. Augmenting high-frequency performance, the Ultra Tower speaker’s aluminum dome tweeter is incredibly transparent and precise. Light, efficient, robust and resistant to distortion, the tweeter’s airy’ reproduction of vocals and tranparent highs reveal as much as the finest loudspeakers worldwide. The FEA-optimised diffuser grants broad dispersion for an exceptionally wide and convincing soundstage with perfect on/off-axis response. Design Process It’s always difficult when you name a speaker something like Pinnacle. Not only do you have to deliver something that really does sound like it’s reached the heights of what is possible, but you also leave yourself open to the question: where the hell do we go from here? We can’t answer the latter, but we can confirm that SVS have definitely reached the former. The SVS Prime Pinnacle floorstanding speakers are arguably the best they’ve ever built. Cast aluminum basket to ensure precise alignment of critical components and additional heat-sinking capacity

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For the most part, we tested the SVS Ultra Towers as part of a dedicated 5.1 setup (although we did spend a little time with them in Hi-Fi mode, which we’ll discuss below), and they performed brilliantly. They delivered fluid and captivating articulation in the mids, with warmth and clarity to voices, and not once did we find ourselves getting confused by muddy and unfocused sound. For the most part, their performance was top notch, no matter how violent or explosive the film was. Speakers that put out solid bass tempt one to pull out pipe-organ recordings. A recent organ recital, at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Pittsburgh, reacquainted me with the sound of a magnificent instrument in a huge space. And I’ve recently received as gifts a couple of CDs by a fabulous organist, Joan Lippincott. On her recording of transcriptions of concertos by J.S. Bach (CD, Gothic G-49275), she plays the Paul Fritts organ at Princeton Theological Seminary. The Concerto in G Major, BWV 592, gave me some of what I want from a pipe organ (thundering bass), but mostly a well-balanced performance on a terrific instrument. Where the recording plumbs the depths, the Ultra Towers came through (they’re claimed to have legitimate output down to 28Hz, after all). But I didn’t expect the delicacy of the organ’s high reeds -- a pleasure!

What we did like about the SVS Ultra Towers, and what we thought the speakers also did really well, with the sense of space and imaging they delivered. This is due to, we are convinced, the toe-out design to angle the woofers, but even if that hadn’t been the case, we’ve no doubt that they’d do a very good job convincing us of the place of the individual elements of the mix. And if you can forgive the slight misstep with the highs, which will probably end up getting fixed the next time SVS release a new iteration of these, you have to applaud their overall sound quality. In terms of floorstanding speakers, they deliver audio that in our opinion is beaten by perhaps only one or two other models in the same price range. It’s a very good look. By the way, SVS has an excellent speaker positioning guide - far more intuitive than anything we could put together here. You should make full use of that if you buy. The premium drivers need an equally capable crossover so no expense was spared with the smart SVS SoundMatch 3.5-way crossover. Its tapered array is designed so the top mid driver crosses over to the tweeter while the bottom midrange is crossed over to the woofers to prevent beaming. This results in an expansive yet precise soundstage with frequency response and imaging at all listening positions. Performance Driven

Frequency Response / Acoustic Data:

way crossover with premium-grade capacitors, air-core inductors and heavy-trace printed circuit boards Two years ago, SVS changed ownership, and you could say it’s simultaneously a remarkably unchanged yet very different firm. It’s unchanged in that many old hands are still with the company, and the concentration on high-performance home theater products remains. But it’s different in two major ways: It’s now making products in China, and it has expanded beyond subwoofers with a full line of speakers. Standing toe-to-toe with the finest speakers in the world, the flagship SVS Ultra Tower is a reference floorstanding speaker built without compromise for the most discerning audio fans. Dual opposing 8-inch woofers command a room with deep, articulate bass while the innovative driver design, premium materials and optimized cabinet geometry combine to convey incredible resolution, absolute transparency, and crisp, powerful dynamics.