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Most consumers believe punchy bass and sizzling highs are key to a good speaker. If that sounds like your taste, then you have a lot of options available for you (because a lot of manufacturers cater to booming bass). But the mark of a truly good speaker is the ability to blend the sound in such a way that you hear it as the artist intended.
Instead of highlighting the low and high ends, you should aim to get a balance so you can hear all voices, instruments, and ranges coming together to form a perfect union.
That's not to say you want a muddy sound (as a lot of low-end speakers will deliver). The goal is to create a sound field that allows each instrument or voice to shine when necessary (such as during a solo or a particularly important passage in a certain vocal range).
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I've experienced a lot of speakers that punch up certain frequency ranges because, well, that's what's popular. And certain musical genres inadvertently place those demands on manufacturers.
But my aural happy place is when a pair of speakers delivers a buttery-smooth blend of sounds that don't force a particular range on me. Instead, I get to hear the music as the artist intended it. For many, such speakers are called "Studio Monitors" because they allow listeners to hear the truth in the sound.
The SVS Prime Wireless Pro powered speakers delivered that very thing to me. And paired with my SVS SB-1000 Pro subwoofer, everything I threw at the setup was gloriously smooth. Hearing music through these speakers was like coming home.
Classical, choral, rock, prog, metal, classic rock…the genre didn't matter, as these speakers could handle it all.
Of course, sound preference is a personal affair, but when you find a pair of speakers that can deliver a neutral sound, without lacking excitement, you know you have something special.
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