Kudos: Big full-range sound, can play low and loud, great cohesion across front channels
Concerns: Large size/shape may be too much for some, center is physically much smaller than towers
Evolution, in the non-Darwinian sense, is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state: GROWTH.”
And not to imply that they were ever “lower, simpler, or worse,” but evolution aptly describes how SVS has matured and grown as a company — both in our industry and with its latest speaker launch.
When I first encountered its products roughly 25 years ago, SVS was a Web-only e-tailer that sold large, cylindrical, fabric-wrapped subwoofers directly to consumers. (I can remember a customer having one of them in my first-ever Runco CRT home theater.) While not much to look at, they produced some prodigious bass, and the company quickly gained a following for offering a ton of bang-for-the-buck and delivering products that punched way above (or, perhaps more accurately, way below in the case of its subwoofers) their price points.
Over the years SVS has grown beyond subwoofers to deliver a full line of loudspeakers from bookshelves to towers, including the self-powered streaming Prime Wireless Pro, which I reviewed back in July 2023 (review available online).
While SVS still maintains a healthy fanbase among owners — kudos to SVS’ VP of marketing Nick Brown for being so active in SVS’ social campaigns and fostering customer engagement — they also work directly with dealers and buying groups, broadening their reach and supporting the CI channel.
SVS also happens to be one of the few audio companies that still shows up at CES to reveal and demonstrate new products, so I always make it a point to visit and chat. That effort is usually rewarded with something fun — more than just watching them use the massive air pressure waves coming out of a subwoofer to blow things over. Over the years I’ve seen them unveil a variety of speakers, massive subwoofers, wireless speakers, and an in-wall subwoofer.
Approaching SVS at this past CES, I saw company CEO Gary Yacoubian standing next to a pair of large, curved towers sitting prominently in the middle of its booth, so it was clear this was going to be a big reveal. And SVS didn’t disappoint as it unveiled its most ambitious product launch to date: a complete top-down redesign and replacement of its entire Ultra Series.
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With the introduction of the Ultra Evolution (UE) series, SVS has delivered a lineup that reaches higher end not only in performance but also pricing. To get a sense of what the UE line is capable of, SVS sent the flagship Pinnacles along with the matching Center channel so I could get a full L/C/R theater experience. While not “cheap,” at under $5000/pair for the UE Pinnacles and under $800 for the Center, these speakers deliver the high value/performance proposition SVS is known for.
Ultra Series Evolved
Straightaway, the UE Pinnacles are visually striking. Standing over 50 inches tall, nearly a foot wide, and 18 inches deep, they are an imposing presence. But it is the curved (or, more accurately, angled) front baffle with chamfered edges that is the most striking design feature. In fact, my first impression was that these speakers reminded me of Focal Sopras and Wilson Audio designs — certainly great company to keep!
If you’re looking for a speaker to blend into the room, this probably isn’t it. However, if you want a speaker that makes a visual design statement even when silent, the UE Pinnacles definitely draw the eye. After installing them, the first visitors to our home stated, “Wow! You got new speakers.”
So, beyond looking cool, why the curved front baffle? It, along with the acoustically centered driver layout with the tweeter positioned in the middle of the midrange and woofers, is designed to deliver perfect time-alignment, with sounds from all drivers reaching the listening position at the same moment. By eliminating these micro-delays, it creates a more coherent and accurate sonic image. What you can’t see is the extra-thick driver baffles and cabinet bracing and construction designed to keep the cabinet from vibrating even at the highest volume levels.
Beyond the obvious cabinet design change, SVS went back to the drawing board to produce new drivers and components that would push the UE series to the next performance level. The woofers used are a completely new design that is based off SVS’ 3000 Micro dual-active driver design. In the towers, woofers are positioned front and back on the top and bottom of the cabinet and arranged in a force-balanced array, creating a total of eight woofers in the left/right pair. SVS claims that having this many woofers firing in different directions helps to smooth out in-room bass peaks and nulls, while the force-balanced array eliminates any mechanical coloration.
The UE series uses similar glass-fiber composite materials in the midrange drivers to previous Ultra Series, but with a new cast aluminum alloy basket design and different sizes. These are placed in separate, acoustically tuned internal chambers to enhance separation and eliminate the potential for cabinet resonances.
However, it is the smallest driver that received the most design attention, with SVS going to a new diamond-coated aluminum dome tweeter — a first for the company. Per SVS, “Using a modern technology called vapor deposition, a layer of diamond carbon is grown on the surface of the aluminum dome to improve rigidity and critical acoustic properties.” This 1-inch diamond-coated tweeter, along with a new organic cell lattice diffuser — which SVS claims took approximately 20 prototypes before landing on the final design — raises the high-end frequency response to a rated 40 kHz, well beyond the limits of human hearing. It also pushes low-frequency extension of the tweeter deeper for more seamless blending with the midrange.
The entire UE series features seven new models, comprised of three towers, two bookshelves, a center channel, and a wall-mountable surround/height speaker. All speakers use the same, new 1-inch diamond-coated tweeter and feature ports on the rear of the cabinets, with the towers and center featuring dual ports. All speakers are available in either piano-gloss black or white, or real black oak veneer.
The towers — named Pinnacle, Titan, and Tower — are all 3-way designs, and all utilize the same quad woofer and dual midrange layout, but differ in physical size and performance based on the woofer and midrange used in each. The Pinnacle reviewed here features 8-inch woofers and 5.25-inch midrange drivers, while the Titan steps down to 6.5-inch woofers and 4.5-inch midrange, and the Tower drops to 5.25-inch woofers. While top-end performance is rated the same throughout the towers, the Pinnacles are rated down to 24 Hz, the Titans to 27 Hz, and the Towers to 30 Hz.
The UE Bookshelf and Nano are both 2-way designs, featuring 6.5-inch and 5.25-inch woofers, respectively. There is no provision to wall mount either of these, so if you are looking to use a speaker in a surround configuration, you would need to go with the Ultra Elevation. (SVS said they dropped the Evolution from its title as “Ultra Evolution Elevation would be a tongue twister.”) This versatile speaker features the same driver layout as the Nano, however, it can be wall- or ceiling-mounted.
The matching UE center channel is also a 3-way design, featuring dual 6.5-inch woofers, a 4-5-inch midrange, and the same 1-inch diamond-coated tweeter. The center’s cabinet is angled back slightly with the vertically aligned tweeter and midrange, allowing for better time alignment between the drivers.
With subwoofers so ingrained in the company’s DNA, I inquired as to whether there were any thoughts about making an active UE model with an internal powered subwoofer. SVS commented, “It’s certainly intriguing. No immediate plans, but we’ll never say never to an active tower!”
Unboxing and Setup
With a packaged weight over 110-pounds in a box that is over 20,000 cubic inches in size, the Pinnacles immediately announce their presence on arrival. From a customer perspective, when you roll-up and pull these bad boys out of the truck, there is going to be some real, “Damn! Those are gonna sound awesome!” energy with these.
Fortunately, SVS has a history of making it easier (note, I didn’t say “easy”) to open its products, with clear instructions printed on the packaging, I was able to coerce and slide the towers out of their double-boxed packaging solo.
The first thing I noticed was a small design change from the “prototypes” shown at CES, where the woofers on the rear of the speakers were also covered by their own speaker grilles. The production samples shed these extra grilles, and it is a cleaner design. (SVS said this extra grille was deemed unnecessary.) The front grille is faceted, with a “slot” in the middle where the tweeter sits and attaches securely via neodymium magnets. I preferred the look of the speakers without the grilles. Also, with the large amount of plastic bracing on the backside of the grilles, with small openings left for the drivers, I daresay the sound is less impacted with the grilles removed.
The towers come pre-installed with elastomer screw-in feet that are adjustable for leveling, with carpet spikes included as well. All speakers in the lineup, except the smallest Nano and Elevation, also feature dual, gold-plated five-way binding posts that allow for bi-wiring/amping if desired.
For a huge tower, you might expect they would be challenging to drive, but I didn’t find that to be the case. With a rated sensitivity of 88 dB, a nominal impedance of 6 ohms, and recommended amplifier power of 20 to 300 watts, they sounded good even with the small Russound AVA3.1 amp I had in for review. Of course, my Marantz MM8077 amps were able to coax more low-end out of them, however, the takeaway is that a decent AVR should be up to the task.
Compared to the massiveness of the Pinnacles, the Center channel at only 22 inches wide and 7.7 inches tall was a bit visually underwhelming to be honest. This was even more evident in my install as the UE Center was going into my Salamander Quad equipment rack with a fairly large 41-inch opening for the center speaker and was replacing a Definitive Technology Mythos Ten center that measured over 34-inches wide. I would love to see a “Pinnacle Center” that stepped up the driver size and count, however SVS commented that the design of the UE Center “proved capable enough that we didn’t consider making a larger version.”
To experience the speaker performance both out-of-box and “corrected” in my room, Trinnov’s Chuck Back help me run a new calibration on my Altitude 16 with the UE Pinnacles and Center in place, and setup a listening profile that turned off all bass management to run the towers full-range. With the push of a button in the Trinnov app, I could turn different corrections — Acoustic, Level Alignment, Delay Alignment, and Remapping — on/off to instantly hear the effects on the sound.
Performance
From school — remember “Moh’s Hardness Scale”? — I know that diamonds are among the hardest substances on earth, so when I heard “diamond” and “tweeter” I thought that the sound would lean toward being hard and bright. (From an audio standpoint there is probably no correlation whatsoever, but that was my assumption going in.) In reality, I found that wasn’t the case at all. While high frequencies were always detailed, I found the overall sound to be a bit “laid back,” but in a good way. Even at high volumes, audio was never bright, never harsh, never tiring, and never forward.
I noticed the tweeter was able to deliver those small delicate and detailed sounds as well. The swirling, dreamy sand-blown notes that drift back and forth in Hans Zimmer’s “Beginnings Are Such Delicate Times” or the airiness and venue-space surrounding Rebecca Pidgeon’s voice and the detail of the shakers in “Spanish Harlem.”
How many times have I gone back to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue to audition the performance of a new speaker? Well, the Pinnacles had me back for another spin and they did a fantastic job, reproducing a wonderful soundstage, convincingly positioning the players on a wide stage across the front of my room. When you can clearly pick out where an instrument is positioned, you know the speakers are imaging well.
My next thought was that bass might be a little heavy and overwhelming with the quad-array of 8-inch woofers, but, again, this wasn’t the case. To be clear, no one would call these “bass shy” in any sense, and bass is definitely something these speakers deliver, and something I’d say that SVS owners have come to expect. Bass is big to be sure, massive even when called for, but not over-the-top. But when there are deep, low-frequencies in the material, the Pinnacles will reach down and grab it with both hands, shine a light on it, and then display it for all to hear. I kind of pictured Kind of Blue’s bassist, Paul Chambers, giving the album a listen through the Pinnacles and saying, “Yeah, Miles. You hear what I’m doing? That’s it right there!”
I discovered Dominique Fils-Aime at a demo this past CEDIA, and the Pinnacles delivered the layers of texture in her song “Birds.” Her voice is nicely centered, but with some overdubbed vocal spaciousness that creates loads of width and height, with the woofers solidly anchoring the double-bass line.
Another great benefit of the quad-woofers was their ability to reproduce full-range audio even at lower volumes. Often, a big speaker only sounds its best when it is really playing, but if your listening preferences are more at background volume levels, then the Pinnacles will still deliver a nice full-frequency experience.
Of course, when you give them some gas, the Pinnacles will produce bass that is impactful and tactile, especially when it’s there to be had. Tracks like “Disc Wars” from Daft Punk’s Tron Legacy and The Black Eyed Peas “Boom Boom Pow” have some really low drops, and the Pinnacles let you feel every bit of them. With the Pinnacles, I daresay you could enjoy full-range music listening without needing to add a subwoofer.
When going to multichannel for movies, what I most noticed was the terrific cohesion across the front between the towers and the center channel. Audio that panned across the front — specifically when dialog would follow a character moving across the front channels — really matched in timbre and tonal quality, making for a far more believable soundstage. And while I had wished for a physically larger center, with larger or additional drivers, in listening I never felt the UE Center wasn’t up to the task. Dialog reproduction was always spot on and there was always the right weight or heft to a character’s voice.
It was also clear that while these speakers could be refined when playing music, they could easily deliver the massive SPLs required for home theater. Pushing the volume up a bit, the speakers were hitting 105 dB+ SPLs at my listening position, with bullets having a lifelike crack. No matter the volume, I never felt the speakers were under strain, and I would say, “Uncle!” far before they did.
One thing I noticed in my room was that, with the speakers’ “chamfered front baffles,” which create a sharp angle between the side and front of the speaker, I got a mildly distracting light reflection from my 115-inch diagonal projection screen. Ironically, the angles for this only really lined-up at the primary seating position — mine — but this would be an argument for going with the black oak veneer as opposed to the piano gloss finish. Even still, I prefer the luxe look of the piano gloss over the wood.
I felt that the Pinnacles had a wider and broader soundstage with the Trinnov’s acoustic correction turned off, but the phantom center image was a bit less focused. Engaging the acoustic correction snapped vocals into a more precise area right in the center, so much so that I had to check more than once to make sure I was in stereo mode and not using an upconverter. Trinnov’s correction also seemed to lift the audio’s soundstage a bit, as well as giving a more refinement and control to the deepest low frequencies, along with some “snap” to the higher frequencies, which I preferred. My room is not ideal in any way, so overall I preferred the speakers’ sound with Trinnov’s Optimizer engaged, even though the tradeoff was losing a bit of width and space beyond the towers. Ultimately, I did most of my listening with the Trinnov’s Optimizer engaged, but, of course, different flavors of room correction perform differently, and every room/listening environment has its own challenges, so your results and preference will vary.
With its new Ultra Evolution Series, SVS has clearly taken a big step forward in audiophile performance. The flagship Pinnacles, with four 8-inch woofers, flanking dual 5.25-inch midranges, and a centered 1-inch diamond-coated tweeter, deliver audio that is both refined and smooth, but are also ready to deliver potent, chest thumping low-end and massive SPLs when called on. The UE series is a case of lots of changes adding up to a much better, evolved whole. From the pinpoint timing accuracy due to the angled cabinet design and driver positioning, to the force balanced opposed array of four 8-inch woofers working together, to the airy detail and clarity of the new 1-inch diamond-coated tweeter, I can’t pick one thing that has made the biggest impact. But I do know that I like it!
877-626-5623; svsound.com
Product Specs:
- Flagship 3-way floor-standing tower speaker
- Features four 8-inch woofers in dual opposing array, dual 5.25-inch midrange, and 1-inch diamond coated tweeter in an acoustically centered architecture with dual 3-inch wide-flared rear-firing ports
- Time-aligned speaker cabinet geometry
- Rated 24 Hz–40 kHz (±3 dB) frequency response
- Nominal impedance: 6 ohms; 88 dB sensitivity
- Dual gold plated 5-way speaker binding posts
- Ultra Evolution product family has seven models, including matching center, bookshelf, and surround/height speakers
- Available in piano gloss black, piano gloss white, and real black oak veneer
Dimensions and Weight:
- 2 x 11.81 x 22.6 inches (HxWxD); Weight: 96.7 pounds
