Loudspeakers

SVS may be better known for its subwoofers but the Prime Pinnacle gives every indication of being a carefully designed and, mostly, accurately specified loudspeaker. The one obvious exception to the latter is the quoted 8ohm nominal impedance which – as is all too often the case with modern speakers – is not borne out by our measurements. We recorded the minimum modulus to be 2.8ohm, which means that even a 4ohm nominal figure would be a stretch. (Conventionally, impedance should not fall below 80% of the nominal rating.) And once impedance phase is taken into account, the EPDR (equivalent peak dissipation resistance) falls to a low of 1.4ohm, albeit at a high 3.3kHz. It dips again to 1.6ohm at 79Hz, so all told the Prime Pinnacle is a harder than average load to drive. The beneficiary of this low impedance is sensitivity. SVS quotes a figure of 88dB and our measurements show that to be right on the money, with pink noise and music figures both being 88.2dB.

Forward responses were measured at 1m on the midrange driver axis as this accords most closely with the typical seated ear height. The response trend is uptilted slightly towards high frequencies and fairly uneven [see Graph 1, below], but response errors of ±3.3dB and ±3.6dB (300Hz-20kHz) are fair, and the ±0.8dB pair matching error over the same frequency range is good and becomes an excellent ±0.5dB below 13kHz. Our diffraction-corrected nearfield bass response measurement suggested some peaking at 70Hz but, once again, a bass extension of 45Hz (–6dB re. 200Hz) is fair. The cumulative spectral decay waterfall [Graph 2, below] reveals a few treble resonances above 3kHz but they are quite low in level. KH