All,
Actually the list is something like a 50watt mono block set, a 75WPC slimline receiver, a 125 watt high quality receiver, and a Crown K1 with about 500WPC. Each pushed to its or the speakers limits, and then some. Keep in mind this is SVS, we TRY to break stuff, because we know a customer might try too (even if by accident ;^).
All worked exceptionally well, without exception. These speakers are NOT as sensitive as some out there. To which we say, BFD. Being the loudest with any given amp was never even on our list of priorities for this product. You want good sounding or loud? ;^) These are both, with virtually any sort of mainstream power. Guaranteed. You won't get "loud" with a 15 WPC flyweight tube amp, maybe (we didn't use one of those in development AFAIK), but short of
that sort of amp no one is going to think their rig isn't powerful enough with speakers like this. I'll personally coordinate their return shipping if that ever happened.
It won't.
And the anechoic FR coupled with the typical slope of a bass management crossover at 80hz and a subwoofer that's equally flat up that high, you will have zero gap in overlapping response. Certainly you
can do a 100Hz setting without a problem (it'll just mean your subwoofer placement would best be up near your front sound stage) but 80hz is equally without issue. The chart below was done on the final pre-production unit right off the line. It's exactly what we wanted to design. Deeper response would have been possible but was utterly unnecessary for a speaker designed from the start to be mated to a high quality sub (and would have required other compromises).
I'm wailing on a stereo pair (with PB10-ISD) right now (in the next room over from my office, it's too loud in there) as part of our continued effort to try and break something (we smoked a couple tweeters early in the year IIRC but I don't recall anyone did it once our crossovers were optimized). The $239 slim-line receiver is driving them as loud and as clean as I could want that's for sure. The room is about 2,500ft3 and I've run them to full reference level without incident (though I was using a Denon 3805 for the most recent test with War of the Worlds, not the slim-line AVR I'm using in stereo mode right now).
Of course I'm just a tad biased but you can imagine if we felt real-world sensitivity was in the least an issue we'd not have ever gone to production that's for sure. We took zero risks on this launch in that regart, that I can promise.
We'll see what Audioholic's own review sessions reveal, but don't be too shocked if they also report that the powerhandling is a non-issue, either on the high or low end of what they might lash them to. Today in any case, having surplus power is far more likely than not enough amongst the $1,000 demographic that's snapping these up. One beta user, and one reviewer both said the same thing so far. Exactly as we predicted. Audioholics and a group at Sound and Vision have a set to do their worst to and it'll only be a short while I'm sure before anyone calls BS on anything I've stated.
Ron
SVS
