[h=1]Listening Impressions[/h]
*Disclaimer* Results can vary depending on room – but the room interaction can be affected by speaker design too. Always give a test audition in your own room. Much of the listening was done with the speakers toed-in toward the center, although I later listened with them firing straight forward. The listening room is roughly 22 x 16 x 10 give or take, with the speakers having about a meter to the sides for sound to travel and reflect back towards the listener. I mentioned earlier that SVS is known to bring the low end, and I’ve never even had a chance to try one of their subs. Since the Ultra Towers are deep-reaching tower speakers - all listening was done in “Source Direct” mode with no subwoofer.
I started with Nas and Damien Marley’s track “Naw Mean”. I definitely experienced chest-hitting bass, plenty of clarity, fantastic stereo imaging on the “Yo, Yo, Mr. Minister” part, and a surprising smoothness to the lower midrange.
Next I threw on Monica’s “For You I Will”. The chorus sounded great, but I suspect individual vocals might have been more distinct in a more acoustically dead room. The cymbals in particular really hit with aplomb, resulting in a very believable presentation that could be able to draw emotion.
It was then time for a pair of tracks I will always use when auditioning speakers: Dvorak’s “From the New World movements III and IV as performed by the Cleveland Orchestra. Starting with “Scherzo molto vivace”, I turned the lights off and listened. Low level instruments were fairly clear and distinct. Around the 1:45 mark I could make out the chimes which I love so much, but I did think they were lacking in fervor. They honestly sounded a bit weak to my ears. The tweeter really shone here, maintain composure around the 5:09 mark during a rather complex passage. This is not only a sign of a good tweeter, but also a sign of a well-implemented crossover by the designer. I also thought the scale of the dynamics near the end was just startling!
As Allegro con Fuoco began, I asked myself whether the horns were “epic”-sounding. The recording itself is very epic sounding, but combined with a great sound system and it can be jaw-dropping. Things were pleasant for the most-part, but I did detect restraint in the presentation of soundstage – it lacked a certain depth and width that I am accustomed to. I believe that I heard a strange “vinyl” colouration to the otherwise beautiful clarinets; making them sound deeper in character than I would expect.
In a switch-up from that came Shakira’s “Waka Waka K-Mix (This time for Africa)”. I like this song and
love it loud. I’d be damned if I knew hakf of what she was singing, but Shakira can just get me smiling, and on these speakers she sounded great. The bass in the track… was very tight, although I felt it lacked the sheer weight a true subwoofer would provide. The guitar in particular was precise and ever-present… awesome stuff.
I moved on to a track called “Rose” by Anna inspi’ NANA. Overcompressed (Japanese) punk rock… in other words this song should have sounded somewhere between awesome and awful on great speakers at high volumes. Well… how did the guitar sound? Perfect. For the first time I thought to myself “I want to buy these speakers”. To be honest though, I did encounter a bit of trouble making out the bass guitar on the right, but it was present. I really noted the loudness that the tweeter is capable of. Despite all the compression, I never felt the need to tap out listening, and that’s how I like it!
I let Monkish54 on these forums know of a track a few months ago called Naruhodo Ruuichi - Objection! from the Phoenix Wright soundtrack. I think his comments to me were “New reference track!”. The bass was tight and tactile. The bass clarinets sounded natural to my ears, but I felt the chimes and xylophone had a relatively dull sound to them, despite the excellent tweeter. I again felt the soundstage lacked width and depth although the imaging around the 1:30 mark showed decent instrument placement. In my second round of listening without toe-in, I felt that the soundstage width had expanded greatly.
Next came Kanye West’s Amazing. Ah, 808s and Heartbreak. On paper so detestable, yet in execution, some kind of awesome. The processing on Kenye’s voice in this track has a fascinating “flat as a sheet of paper floating in an infinitely deep space” effect on the soundstage when I listen on my other speakers, so I was very interested to see what I would hear on the SVS Ultras. The song honestly sounded a bit more typical… the aforementioned effect did not appear to be present. The Ultratowers did have an outstanding synergy with the autotune abuse, and the bass was nothing short of dramatic.
A track I really enjoy, which I felt was a bit of a switchup from everything so-far, is “You won’t see me coming” by Jean-Jacques burnel. I thought the decay on the guitar here was just perfect, accompanied by energetic highs and mesmerizing vocals. I truly thought the drums were right there in the room with their tightness and snap.
I had the honour of seeing the Legend of Zelda concert live at the Jubilee auditorium here in Calgary last year. Sitting there I came to the conclusion that the presentation and timbre my speakers gave was so similar to what I was hearing live, that my opinion on “Type of Soundstage” a speaker should have was greatly biased in that direction. So how do the SVS Ultra Towers fare?
On “Gerudo Valley” from the 25[SUP]th[/SUP] Anniversary Collection, I could not help but feel that the brass sounded dull and muffled to my ears. The xylophone did not “float in the void” that way I have come to expect not only on my main speakers, but also from my little EMP E41-Bs. This was to me a clear tradeoff in exchange for the smooth listenability I had thus far experienced. The bite and openness were simple gone.
That’s not the only track I use from that disk though. I freakin love “The Main Theme Medley”. Upon listening, I again heard a lower pitch to wind instruments that just didn’t sound “right”, although it was perfectly clear. The deep bass didn’t quite blow me away, which a true subwoofer can do. But beyond that, percussion was overall stunning in its replication. Choral parts sounded a bit too smooth however to my ears, without the dynamic snap that I thought should have been there.
Another one of my favorite demo tracks is also from a soundtrack – “Baf Baf – Do you love being so… fired up?” from Gurren Lagann. I know this track like the back of my hand , so I discovered that the percussive element in the upper midrange beginning at the 2:45 mark was almost completely blurred and lost in the mix, and what was left had a dark tonality to it. If I didn’t know what to listen for, I may have never noticed its presence entirely.
Also from Gurren Lagann is the track “Libera me from Hell”. What is it? A foreigner rapping in broken English overtop of a beautiful keyboard loop and absolutely epic opera performance! I have heard lesser speakers – particularily basic bookshelves, royally choke and die when subjected to that combination, yet at its finest this is just jaw-dropping. The Ultras sounded very smooth at earbleed levels, just as I desired. I was a bit scared of blowing a tweeter on some notes, but they were just cruising along. The keyboard, bass, and vocals were all simply coherent. Lyrics were mostly clear and easy-to-follow, and the opera just made me grin. Near the end I did detect some loss of composure though… which was admittedly a pure torture test to cap off a long listening session.
I had to squeeze one last track into this review, and that is “Too Many Rappers” by the Beastie Boys and Nas. That’s because the bass synth, for lack of a better word, sounded off-the-wall. The soundstage, with the speakers facing straight forward, extended well beyond the horizontal plane of their placement. That said, the aforementioned “dark vinyl coloration” reared its ugly head and compounded with the poor recording quality, so vocals were tough to decipher – they were more clear on my other speakers.
In my Blu-Ray, sports, and video gaming, not once did I experience anything objectionable. Freedom from chestiness to male announcers and sibilance was never a problem. This might seem like a short add-on to a long music-listening section, but you can effectively weigh this equally to all of the above. These are fantastic speakers for “ordinary everyday stuff”.
