Once all of the key components are ready, we enter the fun part called “voicing.” Making a great sounding speaker with woofers, tweeters and a cabinet that all work in unison is more involved than just slapping everything together, tossing in a simulated cross-over and calling it done. What kind of processes are involved with “fine-tuning” a speaker once you have the basic build materials and cabinet design finished?
It’s also important to note that nothing was done for show, every Prime Series design feature has a desired acoustic benefit.
From the overall cabinet dimensions, to the internal bracing, to the front chamfers that taper from top to bottom, to how the grills fit the baffle and around the drivers every dimension of the cabinet aesthetic was scrutinized to make the Primes a family within the SVS collection. What inspired the look of the Prime Series?įor industrial design and aesthetics, we set out to make the Primes stunning, but also approachable by featuring some more traditional traits. In a nutshell, a speaker is only as good as its parts and by starting with great drivers that have outstanding performance on their own, it makes for a perfect canvas. Simple changes to certain materials allowed us to save on the cost of the system, but we didn’t venture far from the important attributes that dictate performance. We then looked at every key feature of the Ultras from the tweeter dome and diffuser, to woofer suspensions and motor assemblies, to the cabinet chamfers and bracing, and preserved as much as possible to give the Primes the best possible launch pad. I thought to myself - If we capture the core properties of the Ultra series drivers and cross-over designs, essentially the essence of what made Ultra series amazing, we can surely achieve the mystique of the Ultras at a fraction of the price. The fundamental challenge during development of the Prime Series was: How much of the Ultra series could we offer for half the cost? When we started to plan out the Prime Series, we knew they had to deliver audiophile performance without the audiophile price, and we knew their predecessors, the Ultra series, were a huge triumph in terms of performance for the price. What were your priorities when designing the Prime Series? SVS SoundPath RCA Audio Interconnect Cable SoundPath Tri-Band Wireless Audio Adapter This makes for tighter, more precise sound production.Icons/plus Created with Sketch.
The force serves a valuable function, however - it acts like a spring to keep the driver in the right position. These enclosures are less efficient than other designs because the amplifier has to boost the electrical signal to overcome the force of air pressure. The air will always move to equalize pressure levels, so the driver is constantly being pushed toward its "resting" state - the position at which internal and external air pressure are the same. Both movements create pressure differences between the air inside the box and the air outside the box. Of course, since no air can escape, the internal air pressure is constantly changing - when the driver moves in, the pressure is increased and when the driver moves out, it is decreased. This means the forward wave travels outward into the room, while the backward wave travels only into the box. These enclosures are completely sealed, so no air can escape.
The most common type of enclosure is the sealed enclosure, also called acoustic suspension enclosure. Different enclosure types have different ways of handling these "backward" waves.
But, since the diaphragm is moving back and forth, it's actually producing sound waves behind the cone as well. When we looked at speaker drivers, we focused on how the vibrating diaphragm emitted sound waves in front of the cone. If you simply placed a driver on a table, the table would vibrate so much it would drown out a lot of the speaker's sound.Īdditionally, the speaker enclosure affects how sound is produced. Enclosures are usually built with heavy wood or another solid material that will effectively absorb the driver's vibration. Everything's in one unit and the drivers are kept in the right position, so they work together to produce the best sound. On their most basic level, they make it much easier to set up the speakers. These enclosures serve a number of functions.
In most loudspeaker systems, the drivers and the crossover are housed in some sort of speaker enclosure. In a sealed speaker setup, the driver diaphragm compresses air in the enclosure when it moves in and rarefies air when it moves out.