We got measurements! I ran Dirac calibration with the SVSUEP's (too many words) today, and also benched them against the McIntosh's, which I already had a saved calibration for. I did all the REW runs today so it was same speaker location, same system volume, to make it all fair and equal. Microphone was ear height, in the center of the living room couch.
First, comparison with no room correction applied:
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SVS is on to something with the front and rear woofers. I've never had a speaker look that good with no room correction. The 4 woofers and their spread locations help tremendously with room modes. That one cancellation at 95Hz is the only bad one. But again, this is unadulterated out of the box and the bass region is as high as 12db above 1kHz! And overall, VERY smooth. This is literally as bad as these speakers can sound because I haven't done any correction, and that's DAMN good. The Big Macs' conventional 2x front woofers fall off a cliff below 35Hz and again from 60-80Hz while the SVS starts a more gradual rolloff at 40Hz. Every room is different but the Pinnacles would probably please most folks even without any DSP. It's better to have elevated bass naturally and tone it down to use less power from the amp if you choose.
Here's Dirac active and each speaker pair in my "Preferred" (+7, +0) filter setting:
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Like I've mentioned before, the LS360 has amazing bass extension, and is flat to around 22Hz. But, it's still more susceptible to the room than the SVS, which steals the show. The 95Hz cancellation is improved by 9dB, and outside of it the response is almost ruler flat from 25-120Hz. If you compare just the SVS to the first unprocessed chart, the bass output is lower but also deeper. In other words, setting a +7 bass shelf in Dirac Live is lower than the speakers' natural output! I have headroom to spare if I want to make these things hit even harder. Next time I hook up the laptop I'm going to make a +10 bass filter just for the hell of it. Also of note, the infamous dip/bump between 1800 and 2500kHz is completely smoothed out.
Finally, the non-DSP response vs a Flat (0,0) Dirac filter:
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Nothing new, just again puts into perspective the low end extension potential, and how much bass headroom these speakers have. These speakers are the real deal. I don't consider 97 pounds at all heavy for a true full-range tower. I have 3 other pairs of speakers in the house right now that all weight at least 30 pounds more per speaker. There's no replacement for displacement, but you can work around it by doubling the amount of woofers instead of making the cabinet huger! I hope other brands take note of this for their future flagship designs. Even without room correction these are the least likely speakers to disappoint you when you get them into your room. DSP only makes them even better.
