Still no news over SVS full-range speakers? (1 Viewer)

[Kenneth Harden]

I just want to see what they will end up doing!!!

 

[Des Flurane]

Ron has posted an update over on the Spot.
Medium sized bookshelves to fit with the PB10 ISD if my memory serves also a dedicated centre.
Des.

 

[Kenneth Harden]

That is the sh!tties site EVER in terms of layout. Link, Cliff Notes version?

Hmmmm, wonder if it is something along the lines of M&K. Great drivers in a plane vanilla box that sounds WAY bigger and better than you would think.

 

[SVS-Ron]

Ken,

That's pretty much our playbook for subwoofers so I don't expect you'll see much change for mains.

Nice looking, mid-largish boxes, that play very accurately, very linear, very loud (if you wish) for a very good price. With fit/finish and features that are competitive at least a price class higher.

Not sure if I mentioned it here but the first round will be available in a couple of configurations (stereo pairs, or surround ready 5.0) with or without a sub. The PB10-ISD will be the sub of choice, but a PB12-ISD/PCi class of sub wouldn't be out of place as an option probably (so if R/D recommends that, we'll allow for it on the sales side). This means naturally that styling and color choices will follow that entry level line.

What about Plus and Ultra level customer? Well as the bar goes up on the potential subwoofer pairings, so too will the speakers we intend for our "better" and "best" levels of speakers. Finish options, room-size recommendations will all be in synch. Of course this will take some time, but it's just a matter of time, the R/D is already proceeding as are website tweaks to accommodate it all.

We have a self-imposed deadline of July for wrapping up prototyping for our first package, but only SVS R/D says "enough" when it comes to R/D. They know they're the tail that wags the sales and marketing dog though, so it's critical we hit a gate (like engineering cut-off) and are satisfied before production timelines and ensuing pre-orders start.

All that's a long about way of saying that if we're not offering "from scratch" 5.1 system stemming from all this research and design work, say by Christmas... well it's probably because someone died. Frankly if we wanted to have done something "turnkey" we could have been done a year ago. Just not our style however.

One thing that's affected mains roll out is that there are some subwoofer surprises still in the pipe too. Nothing to shake up current offerings, (in other words, no upgrades or replacements to existing products envisioned in the near-mid term). Rather, something totally different that's not in the lineup today. Think, truly small SVS's. Not everyone wants a big sub, no matter how good it is. The PB10-ISD took care of a "cheap" SVS, we know "small" is still a hole in our lineup.

The difficulty in making a small sub we're not afraid to affix an SVS logo is the reason that's not been done sooner. It's really hard to hit an acceptable price point, acceptable size and better than "acceptable" performance. We think we're finally close on that however. This year might not happen, but R/D is a tricky thing. You can go months, years even, without a breakthrough... and all of a sudden several things can happen at once to finally make the math work. We still rely on math at SVS and if the numbers don't work (especially on the performance side, cost usually is a secondary if not tertiary consideration with us) a great idea just stays on the back burner till it does all add up.

Hope that helps some. I'm actually behind on a newsletter to all our customers and much of the above was slated for that.

Ron

 

[Kenneth Harden]

Very cool!

Thanks for the reply!

I cannot even fathom not just making one line of speakers that offer something the few hundred other speaker companies offer - but making many lines for entry level, mid-level, hi-end, and maybe an 'ultra' option - that is reguardless of price even, which is certainly an issue for you, too!

As I am typing, I am looking at a issue of Stereophile where the Evolution T6 system was tested, looks like the sort of thng you guys would put together. Also, the M&K B-1600's look like a SVS product already!

 

[Eric:F]

hi ron,
a lot of us with svs subs have been waiting to see what you guys cook up for your full range speakers.
are you planning to offer a dedicated home theater set up?
if so, will you offer a dipole surround option?
if it's not too personal, what speakers do you (or any of the other svs crew) use in your own home systems?
thanks,
eric

 

[Mark Russ]

Don't mean to hi-jack here, but Ron, what's the latest on the SVS mini cubes?

 

[Eric C D]

I think he answered that above [bolding mine]:



enjoy,

 

[SVS-Ron]

Mark,

Eric CD nailed it. We think we're close. Our product meetings in July might be able to tighten up some prognostications some. Can't promise. You don't ask a bunch of sweaty guys "how's it going" too often.

And as you know, invention is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration. Or something like that. ;^)

Anyway, we originally thought we could do main speaker packages and a small SVS this year. It might still happen but we're throwing our entire weight (and that's considerable) behind the mains project right now.

Eric F,

I probably didn't make that very clear. For sure we are talking about a package that is R/L front and rear, with a dedicated center. The entry level package (provisionally called the SBS-01... for small bookshelf speaker - v. 01) will be geared to the PB10-ISD in terms of performance and price. And yes, we know that on the entry level that's a pretty high bar we've set for ourselves.

So you'll be able to get a 5.0 speaker package (probably in one box) or the same package as a 5.1 system with a matching PB10-ISD.

Of course we'll sell them in stereo pairs with or without a sub, which will allow people to do up a 7.1 package easily.

Final dims, prices and pre-order dates will have to wait until at least engineering cut-off, expected in the first week of July.

We're well aware there are some fantastic entry level mains out there. Just look at Rocket, Ascend, JBL etc. We know unlike the subwoofer world there are more good mains than you can shake a stick at. If we're "only" as good (at the expected price point TBA) for a 5.1 package as the best out there, we'll probably be pretty pleased with ourselves. Of course if we can achieve a heretofore unattained price/performance ratio that's fine too.

This will remain true as we move up market over 2006. With one or two small subwoofer variants, and potentially a couple other surprises, subwoofer choices at SVS are about as rich I think exists at any OEM.

While the bar is already quite high and the market quite crowded, we intend to be as relentless on the main speakers we offer as we have been on subwoofers.

I'll do my best to polish the crystal ball a bit more but that's all I can think of that's fairly solid at the moment on mains and small subs.

Ron

 

[John S]

SVS-Ron, with responses like that, SVS is definetly a company that people should want to do business with.

Do you gus have a demo room in the Springs there? I am in Denver and would love to demo a couple of your higher end subwoofers.

Actually, I'd love to do a face off with like a Velodyne DLS-5000R. I'd even bring the Velodyne down myself.

 

[SVS-Ron]

John,

We do have a demoroom in C. Springs (well it's my personal HT, I loan it to myself frequently ;^). Drop me an e-mail. Customers stopping by is a great excuse to pull away from the PC for a while ;^).

We have a showroom in the factory in Ohio too.

Ron

PS Feel free to drag whatever sub you want with you, we'll give it a whirl after a quick calibration.

[email protected]

 

[Rory Buszka]

Have you considered midbass drivers that use a combination of phase plugs and vented magnetic gaps? That removes air cavities and, as a result, all cavity resonances.

 

[SVS-Ron]

Rory,

I'm just a marketing guy that grew up in an engineer's house (so right and left brains are equally stunted in growth ;^).

I know R/D is mostly focused on high performance entry level technology to meet the deadline on work in July for the SBS-01 system. There's no doubt some pretty exciting stuff will be in the bag-o-tricks as they move up the ladder and have more budget to play with.

I missed the question above along those lines on dipole surrounds. For sure that's been considered for the entry level, but I'm pretty sure it was discarded as needlessly complex and expensive for a basic 5.1/7.1 system. I know the concept speakers we designed that I was given to kick around in our suite at CES were not dipoles.

90% sure then it'll be identical speakers in all locations except for possibly an MTM horizontally oriented center. Lots of work on frequency response, vented v. sealed etc so a nice THX 80hz crossover would result in a perfect match with a PB10-ISD sub. Just the sort of stuff to spend a few hundred hours on with about $50K in finicky state of the art test gear. The R/D types get off on that.

I'm just worried about making sure the manuals, cosmetics and website is up to date when the production decision if finally given ;^)

Anyway, you can expect both simple tried and true materials and design, as well as "why hasn't anyone done THAT before?" ideas, as stuff is developed for more costly lines. Subwoofers are fairly simple compared to mains technology and if it's vented magnetic gap technology that's needed to get the performance and costing we're looking for you can bet Tom's team is already using it.

Probably blew a few up too, but you won't hear about any of that till round one is already in pre-order at least.

Ron

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Ron- If you do an MTM center, is there anything special you're doing to reduce/eliminate off-axis lobing due to interaction between the two mids? Or ... any hope of when you do a more upscale center, that you'll do a woofer/tweeter-above-midrange/woofer design? So far, that seems to be one of the best ways of avoiding off-axis freq response problems.

 

[Chris Quinn]

Here is a good read about the misconceptions of M-T-M and M-TM-M design and lobing from an experienced speaker designer.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Not misconceptions, simple physics.You have to join the web site to see the figures...

 

[Chris Quinn]

You do get the the M-TM-M pushs the outer mids farther apart cause more lobing in the ranges they produce? To counter that the little single mid is required to handle fairly low frequencies that would be better done by two larger mids. You say listeners ears are the same height off the floor but do you have the M-TM-M with the TM spaced with the mid and tweeter evenly above and below the listeners' ears so their signals arrive at the same time? Are you getting that if your center channel is above the tv the mid reaches before the tweeter and if below the display the tweeter reaches before the mid. You are trading horizontal lobing issues to design around for the idea that you are reducing vertical lobing which may or may not be true based on how well the the design is excuted. Vertical symetry is the mids and tweeters centers are in a straight line and thus all reach your ear at the same time. In the post I referred to he does mention how close together the M-T-M are in his design to counter the problems of poor M-T-M designs. You understand that adding another crossover adds a point for more issues in frequency response? Simple physics. Measures of just vertical lobing w/o measures of horzonital lobing and frequency response doesn't show the whole picture. It is like evaluating a speaker over a slice of it's range instead it's performance over it's whole range.

Both have design issues. Both can be very good. It all depends are the skill of the designer. I would not assume one is superior to the other

 

[SVS-Ron]

Kevin,

Thanks for the link. I have not been given any details about the specifics on the design as it stands today, or even that MTM will make the final cut. It's just what I know we started with. I would be shocked if Tom V (who's heading this project up) wasn't intimately familiar with those articles, and the one Chris linked.

We're voracious readers at SVS, especially in R/D. If it's been published it's probably been read and validated (or not validated) by our R/D team. No theory goes untested that's for sure. Conventional wisdom is never taken at face value. "Experts" can be wrong. Some experts are more expert than others too (When TN talks however, everyone listens, or should. The two Tom's know each each other pretty well BTW).

In the end this first SVS speaker effort, and the implications of it being a first effort will not change the fact that no speaker is without limitations; and in particular, entry level speakers are clear exercises in managing compromise.

Ron

 

[Kenneth Harden]

We need not loose site that speakers are supposed to sound good - who cares if they use a MTM or MMT or *&#^$ design - as long as it delivers, who cares!

 

[FeisalK]

"lose sight"

sorry, language police