This is a review written by Terry Ellis July 2024.

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A BIG move

I love the name Titan for a pair of speakers, its such a cool name. The SVS Ultra Evolution Titan are very cool speakers pushing some modern boundaries at their price point, but they are also quite old fashioned in other ways and so its an interesting quandary of a speaker to assess. Old fashioned doesn’t mean bad, in fact sometimes it can mean very good.

SVS’s new Ultra Evolution range marks the companies move into a higher end, more expensive and more premium area of the hifi speaker market. The Titans in the UK cost just under £5000 for the pair and I think they cost just under $2000 dollars each speaker in the US and for me these are not crazy expensive speakers but they are premium so my expectations go up, as does what the competition is doing.

Expectations

You are getting a lot of speaker here for the money.  Seven drivers per speaker is a lot and there is an impressive almost curved cabinet construction that is very cleverly designed because its not actually curved but it gives the impression it is. Kudos to SVS for the design. However I think all of this comes with some compromises and I want to get them out of the way because they are minor but premium products bring premium expectations, so I think they are important to mention.

The first compromise for me at least is with the speaker cable terminals, the build quality is just fine but the recessed into the back of the speaker approach I have always disliked that design. It makes access for speaker cables and jumper cables more difficult than it needs to be and it feels an old fashioned approach as most speakers in this price range have bespoke designed terminals that are not recessed, such as the KEF R11 Meta, similar priced speakers I have here too.

My second niggle is with the included spikes, they are the bog standard “cheap” spikes you get with lots of affordable HiFi speakers and there is nothing wrong with them of course. At this price of speaker a lot of manufacturers have designed something bespoke and that always has an extra touch of special about it. I can use KEF as the example setter here again with the R11 Meta spikes and legs as both are bespoke and make you feel like this is a small detail SVS has overlooked and premium priced speakers should not give you that impression.

Lastly for me are the looks of the Titan speakers which will definitely divide opinion.  I really don’t mind the design, I appreciate the curve of the cabinet of course, its very stand out and I like the chamfered baffle, especially at the top of speaker because it makes quite a chunky speaker look slimmer. Apart from this the Titan is a very plain speaker with minimal character to it.  In black in a darkened home cinema I appreciate why that would be a good thing.  In white for a two channel setup in a fancy modern décor room I do wonder would the SVS look nice enough? As I said, I really don’t mind the look of the Titan but it doesn’t really excite me either,  its inoffensive but not lovely.

Its very telling how bland the SVS are when you put the grills on them and I think the speakers look better in some ways because the grills add a little bit of character or they seem to complete the look.  They also colour matched the whole front of the speaker, I think its the black speaker drivers and surrounds that is the reason the speakers look less “classy” side by side with the KEF R11 Meta.

Diamonds – no way

I think I have probably overdone this point by now, it is what it is. The Titan might not the best looking speakers at this price point but they are very technically ambitious because this is to the best of my knowledge the most affordable speaker that is using a diamond tweeter, well diamond coated but still its a diamond tweeter.

When you think of diamond tweeters I bet your first thought would be Bowers and Wilkins 800 range speakers and we all know they start at around £8k for the stand mount 805, For diamonds I think of the Marten Parker Duo Diamond speakers which are superb, but they start at around £20k. So getting a diamond tweeter at the £5k price point and below I have tip my hat to SVS because its not something I ever expected to see.

However I am not stating SVS are using the same tweeter as Bowers or Marten, I think its very unlikely, I would assume the Bowers and Marten diamond tweeters are solid rather than coated. But the manufacturing process of adding a layer of synthetic grown diamond to a substrate, in this instance to an aluminium dome is going to be very similar I am sure. SVS say the diamond coating vastly improves the rigidity and acoustic properties of the dome, solid or coated, either way call me impressed by the ambition here.

I think a lot of audiophiles will be interested to know the treble sounds nothing like from a Bowers speaker. For me the diamond tweeter here has more good soft dome tweeter sound properties, which is how I have been told diamond is supposed to sound. The Titan treble is clean and clear very detailed but its presented a bit softer and quite a bit smoother than I was expecting. I was expecting some treble emphasis for a more home cinema sharp type of sound but I haven’t found that to be the case with them at all. I have found the Titan treble to be very forgiving, not lacking but forgiving so you could call it a refined treble, but that means if you like a zippy or very attacking treble these might not be for you.

The next thing that impressed me is the use of four 6.5 inch bass drivers in what SVS call a force-balanced array. This is also known as dual opposing bass drivers, or maybe dual dual opposing bass drivers, you can see why they call it something else. That means two bass drivers in the front and two on the rear of the speaker directly opposite each other. This technology works by balancing the back pressures of each driver for less resonance or mechanical energy going into the cabinet. This is nothing new, we have seen this in subwoofers for years but I don’t recall seeing it many speakers, certainly not in any of the speakers I have reviewed.  We do see it in the KEF Blades which are far more expensive but I do wonder why we do not see it more as it seems to make obvious sense as a good way to go?

What also made obvious sense to me is that an SVS product would deliver a lot of excellent bass and the Titan are some of my favourite speakers at around this price for their bass delivery. That is firstly because there is a lot of it and I don’t just mean deep bass I mean all bass from the upper registers down with the exception of the very deepest of bass notes.  The spec sheet says 27Hz at -3db which is impressive, that’s good 12 inch subwoofer numbers and it seemed about right to me based on what I was hearing from them. I would have said the Titan are good to around 30Hz and by good I don’t rolled off I mean good big output to around 30Hz and that is not the same as the number just being written on the spec sheet.

I get more excited by whats going on with bass 40Hz and above and the Titan can deliver a great mix of bass detail but also with a great amount of wrap around you bass like how subwoofers do it. Not all speakers do both, the Titan do. Its like you have speakers and a small subwoofer here all in one package so most people including me would be happy listening to them without subwoofers. I would probably still end up adding subs for a bit more room fill and bass bounce deep down but normally I want a sub to fill in bass higher up in the frequencies for a more full warm sound, but the Titan take care of that already and I really like that about them.

The Titan deliver a lot of bass but importantly its tight and articulate and detailed bass in the main so I am a happy audiophile, however it is still SVS bass which I always find to be just a little thick and a little throb-by. I really don’t mind this but it’s a point of distinction with other speakers that deliver bass with a little more nimble or fast approach. Remember this bass while detailed  might not be as room warming or chest hitting or as wrap around you as a pro and con and I am thinking of the Wharfedale Elysian 3 that are similar priced, also the Revival Audio Atalante 4, both I have reviewed recently.

Listening more and comparing

In a direct comparison between the KEF R11 Meta the SVS delivered substantially more bass, more room hitting and filling and that is more to my taste. However if you placed the speakers right up against a wall then the SVS might present too much bass room size depending, so bear that in mind. In my room they ended up being perfect right on the tip of the “T” of the blue masking taped T I have as a marker on my floor.  That makes them about perfect for my taste in my small but very acoustically treated listening room.  I have later slightly adjusted the position of the “T” forward about an inch, this seemingly small difference helped with the overall bass balance and I know its a better spot and thanks to the Titan I found it.  My reference spot in my room is now improved going forwards and that is great.

I have often said or written that its always the bass that gets me first or it maybe doesn’t and the Titan have got me with their bass. Its not perfect it can be a bit heavy but its full and its bouncy and they can do jazz fast double bass with detail and authority just as well as drum and bass with the same presence but I think they lean a little more towards modern music in terms of their delivery. That is what I listen to mostly so I am good with that balance.

Speaking of balance I am a fan of how the vocals and mid range are delivered here too. Like the treble it’s a little on the reserved side but I really don’t mind that. This is where the design of the Titan stand out. Rather than the lean back design we see with a lot of speakers intended to time align the tweeter behind the mid and bass drivers.  Instead the Titan lean forward around the tweeter so the dual 4.5 inch mid range drivers still time align with the diamond tweeter and the bass drivers, its a very interesting way to do it that we don’t see very often.  I think Focal do it with their higher end speakers but I don’t remember the design with any speakers around this price.

There is another very big difference in vocal region between the Titan and the KEF R11 Meta.  The Titan I find to have quite an old fashioned sounding mid range that as mentioned is quite reserved, quite easy going and quite mellow but not slow, nor sluggish or lacking in detail. Its definitely more of a you go to the vocals or the small details kind of sound rather than them being very present in the overall picture and that feels more of an old fashioned presentation to me.  It might be more old fashioned but I don’t mind it at all.

What I really like is the integration between the vocals and the bass because the big bass from the Titan gives the vocals this lovely foundation to sit on. That means both male and female vocals can sound nicely rounded and three dimensional without the bass vocals can never sound like that.  In stark contrast the KEF bring out the smaller details, the subtleties and nuances making them much easier to appreciate. They sound the faster of the two speakers with a more tightly focused vocal and more tightly focused everything across the whole sound stage,  but you very much notice it in the vocals.

But as their bass is noticeably leaner, more dry and wound very tighter I find the KEF emphasise the small details in favour of the fullness and tone of the vocals so while I like the small details and the clean cut music edge they present vocals too lean for my taste.  I prefer the warmer more sultry not as clear cut but more fleshed out, I think more pleasing vocals from the SVS, they keep me coming back for more.  I would want to add subwoofers to the KEF to balance this better, I don’t feel the need to with the SVS so that is a big difference maker here.

Amplifiers

It’s a similar story for the sound stage, the SVS are not the most invisible or transparent speaker I have had in my room, but they are far from the worst. I am referring to much more expensive speakers here for my reference point so do bear that in mind too. They do give music a great sense of scale due to their big bass and if you listen to movie sound tracks you will love that about them.  I found their left to right imaging to be very good, I think likely due to the d’apollito MTM type of driver array.  Some weeks later I changed some system components (IsoTek mains conditioning products) this showed me more of what the Titan can do in terms of their three dimensional soundstage imaging and transparency, and they ended up being better than I thought at the time of the review which is great and important that you know this..

Interestingly the Titan did go toe to toe with the KEF in the sound stage department which surprised me, I expected the KEF to have the very obvious edge here. In some regards they did but there were some parts the SVS did better. Overall I would say they are about equal just different with some pros and cons.

When it comes to amplifiers the Titan are rated with an 88db sensitivity at 6 ohms and seemed to like some power and control to get the best results. I think it stands to reason given the design, they essentially have a passive subwoofer built into them. I tested four different amplifiers, two Class D and two Class A/B amplifier and I got good results from all of them, but different results. One gave a cleaner, clearer sound, one better vocals, one a punchier bass, one a drier bass you get the idea. The best overall sounding amplifier was no surprise the best overall amplifier from the group the Gryphon Diablo 300.  It sounded best because it had the most drive, energy and the best control over the whole speakers sound, especially the deepest bass frequencies.

I think the forgiving nature of the Titans will make them flexible for the amplifier quality to a point, they wont punish less than perfect sounding amplifiers but they will still reward you if you feed power them from something better and that balance of speaker will be great for many.

To me it’s again a more old fashioned balance where the audiophile chases more clarity from the speaker with the system they put before it, rather than the speaker being extremely clinical clear and the audiophile has to try and put warmth or tone in the system before it. In saying all that I don’t think I would put low power tube amplifier with the Titan as the bass could get a little tubby but maybe something tube thats “ballsy” like a Galion TS120SE could be good, I wasn’t able to test this so it’s just a best guesstimate.

Overall I think SVS have done an excellent job with the Ultra Evolution Titan speakers, they are not perfect and they are definitely a little unorthodox and that will of course divide opinion.  I think maybe some things should be better with them being premium priced speakers, but if these were the compromises needed in order for there to be the curved shaped cabinet, all the drivers that create this type of sound quality I think they are compromises many could live with including me.

I have had some great listening sessions with the Titan, difficult to finish sessions and as a result they are staying here with me, I bought the review pair.  I think they are a great benchmark speaker to compare others against and I think I can best sum things them up like this – if you are looking for a good all round speaker that’s refined but still with a very good amount of bass fun and if you want an easy going speaker that’s never going to rip your head off but is still lively enough to be an engaging fun listen these are well worth checking out.

They also have the coolest name

Special Performer Award is Pursuit Perfect Systems highest accolade and is in recognition of exceptional product performance regardless of price

For the full specification of the SVS Ultra Evolution Titan speakers see their website linked here