These Speakers May Be Your Last Audio Upgrade | SVS Ultra Evolution Pinnacle Review
As anyone who is really into audio knows, and as anyone getting into audio is about to find out, there is a serious illness you contract when you get into this hobby. It’s called upgrade-itis, and to date, there is no known cure. Now, I'm not foolish enough to say that I’ve found the cure, but I have found what I believe to be a vaccine of extremely high efficacy. Now,
you might expect this non-medical marvel of an inoculation to cost big bucks, but I’m pleased to tell you that, at least in the world of high-end audio, this sonic salve from an audiological apothecary is, relatively speaking, a bargain of epic proportions. These speakers, the SVS Ultra Pinnacle, are so excellent in so many ways that, honestly, you’re going to find what I have to say hard to believe—possibly. But give me a few minutes, let me see if I can convince you. Welcome back, everyone! I'm Caleb Denison, and before I go any further, let me state very clearly that we’re talking about loudspeakers, okay? You hear me, algorithm? I am not a medical professional—I just play one on TV—and I'm not giving medical advice, okay? So don’t de-rank this video like I’m some quack selling snake oil. You know who else isn’t selling snake oil? SVS. They've never really been in that business—even their accessories are high in quality and very reasonably priced. But we’re talking about SVS speakers here, and while I really wish it could go without saying, yes, the SVS Ultra Pinnacle is the latest evolution in the SVS speaker lineup, and they are indeed the pinnacle of their speaker lineup. The name actually means what
it says, which is more than I can say for others' marketing efforts, but I digress. Before I get into these speakers, let me share a little bit of my history with this company. See, at one point in my career, I considered SVS the enemy. Once upon a time, I worked at Aperion Audio—the first and, for a very short, breathless time, the only internet-direct speaker brand. This was back when the idea of selling audio and video gear sound-unheard and sight-unseen was basically considered lunacy. But it wasn’t long until others hopped onto
the internet-direct bandwagon, cutting out the middleman and saving customers money, all backed by a risk-free 30-day trial. SVS was one of the competitors I had to contend with at Aperion. Now, at first, SVS was just competing with subwoofers—that’s all they did—and they pretty much dominated the boutique subwoofer space. As far as I'm concerned, they kind of still do. But then SVS decided to jump into speakers, and, well, my job got really complicated because I spent a lot of my time on the phone trying to convince folks why they should buy my speakers instead of SVS speakers. It was a tough pill to swallow because I had already spent hours upon hours on the phone with folks saying things like, "Well, I think our subwoofers are prettier, and they are also really good, but, I mean, yeah, SVS makes insanely good subwoofers. I can’t refute that." And truth be told, in those early days, I didn’t care for the SVS speaker sound. I felt like the treble was too harsh, too forward, and that was a non-starter for me personally.
But then, after I left that speaker company and started reviewing audio gear for Digital Trends, here I found myself in receipt of the SVS Ultra Series speakers and, a little later, the SVS Prime Series speakers. And, I mean, honestly, I was blown away. I still felt like the treble was a little bit crispy for my liking, but those speakers got so much right, and the sheer value was undeniable. I had to recommend them because I knew tons of folks would love them if they could embrace the sort of, I don’t know, industrial, utilitarian look—like, those speakers meant business, and they looked the part. I have no problem with that. But though folks don’t like to admit it, when shopping for speakers, we’re shopping with our eyes as well as our ears. It’s rare when the latter can completely overrule the former, especially when it comes to putting speakers in living spaces versus dedicated sound rooms or home theater spaces. Which brings us nicely to the SVS Ultra Pinnacle series, and for this review,
specifically the top-of-the-line Pinnacle model. These speakers are a delight for the ears and the eyes—at least, I think so. Their form isn’t just nice to look at; it’s part of the speaker function. And best of all, I think the voicing here—the sound tuning—is not just the best work SVS has ever done; these speakers are among the best sounding you can buy, even at two or three times the price. In fact, I like them so much that if you told me these were the last speakers I was allowed to own for the rest of my life, I’d be thrilled with that. Now, I’m going to describe how I tested them and how they sound in a moment. First, though,
let me break down what we’re working with here. The Ultra Pinnacles stand just over four feet tall at 50.2 inches, are just under 12 inches wide, and run just a touch over 18 inches deep if you measure from their most forward point to the apex of the angle on the back. Each speaker weighs 96.7 pounds, according to SVS—I did not weigh them. And in their box,
the shipping weight comes in at about 110 pounds. I will say that SVS’s packaging is second to none in terms of protection and presentation. I’m going to have to ask you to take my word for it because even though I swear I shot some photos as I unboxed these beauties, I can’t seem to find the footage—my apologies. Suffice it to say, they are extremely well-padded and reinforced, and not likely to suffer shipping damage except under the most abusive of handling in transit.
And that’s critical because it would be a crying shame to see this beautiful construction damaged. Most of the cabinet is constructed of 3/4-inch thick MDF or HDF—not sure which—while the front baffle is extra thick at 1 inch to help knock down any resonance, both directly from the drivers as well as sympathetic cabinet vibrations. Inside the cabinet, SVS reports extensive internal bracing and damping material, all contributing to an ostensibly inert cabinet that very much passes the knuckle test. Ouch—see, that’s actually good; you want it to bite back. Now, the shape of the cabinet—it’s not made this way just to look cool, though I must admit I do think they look awesome. They give off focal kind of vibes,
but the purpose of this shape is something called time alignment. The idea is to make sure that all the frequencies arrive at your ear at the same time and in proper phase. It’s meant to be especially helpful in three-way speaker designs like this. Now, I don’t have the equipment to verify this claim with measurements, but as you’ll soon hear, I just love the way these speakers sound. Time alignment or no, I love the look as well, so frankly, I’m not concerned about the veracity of the time alignment claim because I love the result of the design choice. We’ve got a woofer-mid-tweet-mid-woofer arrangement, which is like an MTM speaker flanked at the top and bottom by woofers. This is a 1-inch dome tweeter coated in a diamond vapor,
which is meant to strengthen the tweeter without adding a bunch of weight. And this lattice-style grill over the tweeter is meant to do more than just protect it from your kids or pets punching it in. It’s also meant to reduce diffraction and standing waves, so you get pure high-frequency response. Flanking that tweeter are two 5-1/4-inch midrange drivers, and I should mention that these three are in their own enclosure within the cabinet, isolated from both the two front-facing 8-inch woofers and the rear-firing 8-inch woofers.
Now, having multiple woofers obviously stands to increase bass response, but having them opposed like this means that you’re loading the room with bass from multiple locations. That helps keep the bass even or reduce dead zones, but it also means the bass waves inside the cabinet are going to cancel themselves out since they’re 180 degrees out of phase. And that means less sound coloration from the cabinet. You’ll also notice two ports—one at the top and one at the bottom—because each set of woofers is in its own enclosure. Now, you add all that up, and you’re already looking at a premium speaker, but there’s more. The way that SVS designed the crossover for this speaker sees the tweeter
dipping down to around 1,800 Hertz, which is low for a tweeter. But because it can do that, the midrange drivers are freed up. You can theoretically get a more linear response between the low treble and upper midrange, and just a more coherent sound overall. It’s more
complicated than that, but I’m not trying to exceed a loudspeaker 201-level lecture here. Now, I didn't remove any of these drivers, but I've seen pictures of the raw drivers, and they all look super robust, which is exactly what I'd expect out of SVS—overbuilt by design for performance. Now, SVS claims the speaker has a 6-ohm nominal impedance, and, uh, I'm not so sure about that. This acts like a 4-ohm speaker for me.
Now, why is that relevant? Well, as a speaker's impedance drops, the need for stable power increases. As you increase the power you deliver to these speakers, the need for that stable power increases significantly. You don't need a ton of watts going to these speakers all the time, but to get the dynamics and clarity that they're capable of, you need a pretty capable amp.
You want an amp that is 4-ohms stable. And while there are some beefy, high-end AV receivers that are up to the task, these speakers are going to sound better with high-powered two-channel integrated amps or independent amplifiers, like these Outlaw audio amps I have here. I'll get into this more in just a moment, but since we're talking about gear, here's what I used to test these speakers: sources include the EAT B turntable with Ortofon Blue cartridge, a Cambridge Audio Alva Duo phono preamp, a Magnetar UDP 900 disc player—I used the dedicated balanced stereo outputs only—and a WiiM Pro streamer. For preamps and amps, I used primarily this Anthem STR integrated, but I did also use my DIY Pass 3 tube preamp and ST70 tube amp to see how they did with low-powered tubes. I tossed in the Naim Uniti Nova in the mix, and I used this Integra DRX 5.4 AV receiver. I used a mix of pristine vinyl records, Redbook CDs, Super Audio CDs, 4K Blu-rays, and high-res lossless streaming from Apple Music for my content sources.
So now let's talk about how I ended up positioning these speakers, and this gets super relevant to whether you might want to consider these speakers or perhaps instead one of the smaller versions of this speaker line, like the Titan or the Tower. Yes, they are all tower speakers, but one is named "Tower," and I just—I can't with that right now. The non-acoustically technical way of putting this is that these speakers need room to breathe. The closer you get the back of the Pinnacle, where you have both
these two 8-inch woofers and these two large flared ports (all of which are emitting bass), the closer you get all of that to the wall behind them, the more you're going to at least complicate and, at worst, compromise their bass performance. They need some space from the back wall. And in my room, with its unique dimensions and acoustic treatments, I got the best results by placing the back of the speaker about 3 feet out from the wall. That means the front of each speaker sits about 4 feet, 4 inches out from the back wall. A big speaker placed well into the room necessarily makes them imposing in all but the most cavernous of spaces. I mean, I hope those of you considering these speakers aren't concerned with a more stealthy audio arrangement. But if you were thinking you could integrate them tightly with your other gear, like up near the wall, I think you need to ditch that idea. Or, like I said, consider one of the smaller options,
which are still going to need a fair amount of space, I'd imagine. Now, I sit roughly 8 feet from the front plane of the speaker, so I placed the speakers 8 feet apart, as measured from the center of one tweeter to the other. I did experiment with having the speakers point straight out into the room, but I ended up toeing them in such that, if I had laser crosshairs, the speakers were aimed to a point just outside my ears. The speakers have
good enough dispersion that you don't have to be quite so exacting, okay? You don't have to get this specific with the positioning, but this is how I start with any speaker, and it just so happens that everything was super locked into focus for me this way. The depth and the breadth of the soundstage is massive, and within that soundstage, I'm getting incredibly precise instrument placement, depending on how the music I listened to was mixed. The phantom center I'm getting is incredibly convincing—like you'd swear there's a center channel right smack in the TV. Okay, it's that realistic. So, already, I'm hooked, right? The stage was set for an amazing listening experience (if you'll pardon the pun). But then I started really tuning into everything that was happening, and, guys, there's just so much to rave about. I honestly don't know if I can get it all in without the video going, like, over an hour long.
Let me talk about the high-frequency experience I got with these speakers, because that's the one area with which I've not been just totally in love with on SVS speakers in the past. What I'm just head over heels for here is the balance of warmth, sweetness, and detail these speakers give to the region. When I'm listening to a speaker, I tend to hone in on a drummer's cymbals and hi-hats, the sibilance of consonants from a vocalist, the air in a vocalist, and then also brass—but that's getting its own section here.
I mean, I'm a musician, right? I do about 60 gigs a year, most of them live, some of them studio sessions. I am intimately familiar with what instruments should sound like, and in some cases, I use recordings that I recorded on and for which I was at the studio when the recording was mixed and mastered. I use stuff I've listened to for decades on countless systems, and I'm telling you that, on balance, the Pinnacles are among the most satisfying speakers to listen to long-term that I've ever enjoyed. They are warm, but not veiled; sweet, never strident; and detailed, but not forward. They don't shout at you with their resolution—they just effortlessly reproduce truthful sound, full of life. You can listen to them for hours and hours on end
without ever getting worn out, and yet they offer so much detail to delight your ears. The attack, decay, and ring of cymbals and hi-hats is just so honest and organic for me. Breathy vocals envelop you like a velvet blanket. Dionne Warwick on a croon? Forget about it—you can feel her breath hitting the microphone. I've never wanted to be a microphone so bad.
But I'm toughest on a speaker when it comes to how they handle brass instruments and all the complex overtones that come from them. I'm a trumpet player first, so when I listen to, well, pretty much any Quincy Jones record, like The Dude here, or Michael Jackson's Thriller, or George Benson's Give Me the Night, I'm looking for zing, zeal, grit, richness, and the harmonic dissonance and consonance that you can only hear among brass overtones from a horn section. I mean, that's where the Pinnacle really stole my heart. It got reproducing the whole of these recordings right in so many ways, but the horn sections just sound awesome. Vocals? I dug into some Fleetwood Mac, some Doobie Brothers (heavy on the Michael McDonald, of course), some Lalah Hathaway, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, Elton John. All of those
vocal reproductions were among the best I've heard from a speaker using dynamic drivers. I still have an affinity for planar magnetic speakers like Magnepans when it comes to some vocals, but the Pinnacles here got me delightfully close to that kind of openness and air, balanced with richness and tonal authenticity. It's been a long time since I heard them, but I remember the DQ-10 giving me similar chills. For the crunchier end of the spectrum, I dug into Toto IV, as well as some Snarky Puppy and good old Led Zeppelin. Guys, the dynamics, the crunch, and the lack of distortion—unless it was intended in the recording—was really a marvel to behold. I
love it when a speaker can pull off delicate jazz and, like, more aggressive rock equally as well. These speakers can do that. I mean, really, I think the best speakers are genre-agnostic, and that's how the SVS Ultra Evolution Pinnacles roll—they can do just about anything. And part of the reason they can do just about anything is because the bass they put out is, well, it's everything you want and need. No subwoofer required. I mean, for movies with, like, deep-in-the-trenches low-frequency effects that are really just best handled by a sub, sure, have a subwoofer. But for just two-channel movie watching, I mean, honestly, I was constantly chuckling in disbelief. These speakers go low, they go deep, but most importantly,
they go exactly where the music tells them to. So, like, Ray Brown's upright bass on Oscar Peterson records was as woody, organic, and tuneful as you could possibly want. Meanwhile, the electric bass on Brothers Johnson records and some of Lizzo's cuts had punch, snap, and growl. If you want to get down with some Kendrick Lamar, your room will go boom—I'm telling you, they do all of it.
Most amazing to me, though, is how well-integrated all these different sonic aspects are, combined with the soundstage and instrument placement that I mentioned before. These speakers just give you so much to latch your ears onto. Every time I put on a recording, I'm thinking, "What kind of treat are we in for today?" I will say, the best these speakers have to offer will be heard when seated right in front of them. They aren't so directional that they sound completely different when you stand up and move around, but to really hear the inner details, you need to be seated. And as I mentioned before,
these speakers are large, and they need a fair amount of space. They also need some solid power. They sounded great on my tube amp up to a point, but past a certain volume level, the amp just couldn't support them, and the sound got compressed. Definitely do not try to run these at any healthy volume with a Wiim amp or any of the many, many other amps out there built on the same amp topology. Those kinds of digital amps will get you pretty far, but when they're done, they are done. I hear similar stories from bass player friends of mine who love the conveniently
compact, lightweight nature of digital bass amps. They're great for a lot of scenarios, but they only go so far, and you do not want to push them past that point. So, please, give the Pinnacles a great amp. The reward you get from that investment will pay silly dividends. Another important point is that SVS doesn't own the bang-for-your-buck speaker market here—not anymore, anyway. The Ultra Evolution Pinnacles have quite a bit of competition from the likes of the Focal Aria Evo X, specifically the No. 30, I think it is. There's also the Martin Logan
XT-F200 and, from a perhaps less familiar but very awesome brand (or so I'm told, I haven't had the pleasure of a listen), there's the Perlisten R5T. All excellent full-range tower speakers in the same price range, and those are just three of the, like, eight options I can think of. So, perhaps not a no-brainer choice for everyone, but for me, these just do it for me. In this room, with the electronics I have, these speakers will be my reference speakers until or unless something can topple them from their throne. You hear me, SVS? You ain't getting them back. And maybe that's the greatest compliment I can pay the SVS Ultra Evolution Pinnacle speakers—I don't want to be without them. With sound like this and looks like this, my eyes and ears don't go wandering.
The grass doesn't look greener elsewhere. Maybe there is no cure for upgrade-itis, but the SVS Ultra Evolution Pinnacles are the closest thing to a cure that I've ever heard. Thanks so much for watching, everyone. Kind of a hefty speaker review, don't you think? Let me
know about it down in the comments. Don't forget to like if you liked it, subscribe to see more. I'll see you on the next one, and until then, here are two other videos I think you might like. Let me know what you think about it down in the comments.
2024-09-23 15:44
