# MTS-02 and MCS-02 review



## steve1616 (Apr 6, 2009)

I have been meaning to write this review for a long time. I bought the SVS MTS-02’s and the MCS-02. I was very scared to purchase these speakers because my budget is limited, and there are a lot of options in this price range. I was having a hard time believing that these 2 ½ way speakers could compete with so many 3 way speakers. It was my assumption that a 3 way or 4 way speaker would have more detail and more low end bass. I have seen many internet only order speakers with more drivers at this same price range, and it is easy to feel like more is better when it comes to speakers. 

Ed Mullen is the guy who finally convinced me to give these speakers a try. He was so confident in these speakers that he said I could compare them to B&W 802’s, and as long as I was blindfolded, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in sound. I also gave SVS a try because I have gotten products from them in the past, and the products are always awesome and backed with the best customer service possible from any company. I currently have the PB13-Ultra for my sub. My brother bought the STS-02 speakers right before I bought the MTS speakers so I had a great chance to listen to their lower line of speakers before making the leap of faith on the MTS line. The STS line was very impressive, but in my opinion lacked some of the deep bass that I like for Music. Granted, I still think the STS-02 were better than many speakers in the 1500-2500 price range. I like my music to be crossed over at a lower point, and the STS-02 speakers are meant to be crossed over at 80 hertz or above. I have my MTS-02 speakers set with a crossover of 60 Hertz. 

To give some more background, I have been looking at speakers for a very long time, but I wanted to make sure that I was making a step up in quality with so much money outlay. I have been to a few high end retail shops, and have been left unimpressed. In fact, I brought my old speakers with me to the retail stores to compare them to the products that they had. My old speakers were almost always just plain better, or were at least better in most areas to be better than most speakers in the $2500 range. My old speakers were good performers, except they have one very bad flaw that has gotten more glaring as I have gotten older. The tweater is quite harsh at higher volumes. The mid bass and bass are just plain awesome on my old speakers, but as I was about to find out my old speakers lacked some detail in the bass ranges that I didn’t know was there. 
When I received my speakers, they came in the normal SVS fashion. They were double boxed, and had a generous amount of packing material to keep them safe in case of bad accidents during shipping. It would be almost impossible to harm these speakers with the way they are packed. I ordered the piano gloss black version of the speakers, and I was stunned at how good they looked. I was actually a little nervous about how they would look, but they looked way better in person than I would have thought. 

I quickly got the speakers out of the packages and hooked them up to my Sunfire TGR-3 receiver. I was trying to do listening tests when my wife interrupted me and said that we are definitely keeping these speakers. She said that they were so much cleaner sounding than my other speakers that they were a huge step up. I wasn’t as sure at this point, but I wanted to make sure how much better they were because they were a lot more money than my old speakers.

I actually bought a speaker selector to test these speakers because it is very hard to test speakers when you have to unhook and hook them in all the time. I level matched all the speakers to the same volume. I can do this with my Sunfire. It was now time to listen, but I wanted to be completely fair to both speakers and myself. I had my wife run the speakers selector and my eyes were closed and blindfolded to be safe. These new speakers were so much better than the old speakers. It wasn’t even close. Everything just sounded so much clearer and real. Keep in mind I had tested my old speakers against speakers over $2500 and my speakers were always the clear winner. The MTS and MCS also made movies so much more enjoyable because the flat frequency response really helps to better understand vocals. I didn’t have to put so much work into listening, it was just clear. This is one of the first things I noticed about the STS speakers also. I tested the SVS against many speakers including my favorite budget build known as the Nat. p speakers. The Nat. p speakers are wonderful speakers that will compete against designs costing many times more than the cost to build. These were my favorite speakers until I heard the SVS speakers. One weird thing that I noticed during testing was that the MTS-02 speakers would create a wider soundstage than anything I have ever heard before. To illustrate my point, during testing, I even tested just one speaker at a time. I was in the center of the room, and I was listening blindfolded to the right speaker. Both the SVS and Nat p speaker were exactly 10 feet in front of me and the Nat p was 4 feet to the right of me. The SVS speaker was 1 foot to the left of the Nat p. When I was listening, I clearly preferred the speaker that sounded farther to the right. I was kind of disappointed at first because I knew the Nat p was the far right speaker, and I thought it beat the SVS speaker until my wife told me that the speaker I liked was the SVS speaker. She engaged the SVS speaker again, and it sounded like it was further away again. I took my blindfold off and walked up to the SVS speaker to make sure that the speaker selector was working correctly. Sure enough, the SVS speaker was the one playing. I can’t explain how the SVS threw the image so wide, but it was an eye opening experience. 

I want to describe the MTS speakers in a very logical fashion. I have seen many reviewers call a speaker dynamic, and I found out that they were perceiving dynamic as a trait of a speaker to pronounce the highs and the lows more than the mid frequency range. This is not what I mean by dynamic. I believe that dynamic is the ability to respond very quickly to the frequency the amplifier is trying to send to the speaker. The MTS speakers were extremely dynamic, but yet kept the frequency response even. They sound like realistic music. They don’t mask anything and they don’t make certain frequencies stand out. Some reviewers say that a speaker sounds dynamic and punchy when it is really just got a huge increase in frequency response in the 60 to 80 hz range. The MTS sounds punchy, but it also provides the depth and energy to go along with the punchy sound. Some speakers also make it hard to understand dialogue because they have a dip in the mid range frequencies. I believe that the flat frequency response of the MTS speakers is why I can understand dialogue so easy with them. 

One of the things I was concerned about initially on the SVS speakers Is that they only have 2, 7” woofers to supply both the mids and bass. I see this is possible because the tweeter is using a low crossover point which means the tweeter has to be very good to handle this. Let me first say that the bass is simply amazing on these speakers. I listened with both ports open. This made a way better response in my room. The bass was a touch better than my old speakers which use a 12” woofer for bass, and my old speakers were better at bass than any speaker I have heard before this recent demo. Something that surprised me was the spl that these speakers can achieve so effortlessly. My old speakers had a very forward sounding tweeter, and were uncomfortable to listen to at over 100 decibels. The SVS speakers didn’t bother me at all at levels this loud and louder, and it was very significant how much easier they were to listen to. I like to listen to music very loud, but couldn’t do it with my old speakers because the tweeter would give me bad headaches. The tweeter on the MTS speakers is absolutely awesome. It sounds exactly like the tweeters I have heard on much more expensive speakers such as the B&W 802’s.

I don’t want to keep rambling on. I just want to illustrate that the MTS and MCS speakers were as good as any speaker I have ever heard, including the B&W 802. They are a ridiculously good deal at their price point. They have made my theater experience so lifelike that it has added a huge extra dimension to movies, and I have never heard any speaker do a better job than them on music. These are the best speakers you could ever purchase, but it won’t matter if your wife is like mine, she won’t let you return them even if you wanted to. Speakers are my hobby, but my wife made it very clear that these speakers are hers.


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## ALMFamily (Oct 19, 2011)

Thanks very much for this review Steve! I am currently looking at speakers for a 7.2 and SVS is on my short list.

One question if you do not mind - are you running any of these speakers off an amp?


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## GranteedEV (Aug 8, 2010)

Thanks for the great post. I think much of what you're hearing has a lot to do with Phil Bamberg's complex crossovers designed for great phase tracking:

http://www.bambergaudio.com/technical/phase-comp.php



steve1616 said:


> I was having a hard time believing that these 2 ½ way speakers could compete with so many 3 way speakers. It was my assumption that a 3 way or 4 way speaker would have more detail and more low end bass.


One of the first rules about speakers, that you'll hear many times, is that crossovers are a "necessary evil". Every time you add a crossover, you get vertical lobing (assuming the drivers are spaced apart, like with 99% of speakers), added crossover parts cost (especially with crossovers at lower frequencies), and increased complexity. With most speakers you also get a directivity index mismatch.

So intuitively, a 1-way speaker is the ideal. Every time we add a "way", it's because of the limitations of the drivers... You can't expect a tweeter to produce anything below 1.5khz and so forth. A 2.5 way is a smart design because there's only one real crossover, along with a bit of "augmentation" of the lower midrange/bass.



> I want to describe the MTS speakers in a very logical fashion. I have seen many reviewers call a speaker dynamic, and I found out that they were perceiving dynamic as a trait of a speaker to pronounce the highs and the lows more than the mid frequency range. This is not what I mean by dynamic. I believe that dynamic is the ability to respond very quickly to the frequency the amplifier is trying to send to the speaker.


mm... not quite. Dynamic refers less to frequency response and more to thermal compression - ability to not only play very clean with quiet passages but effortlessly step up when high SPLs are demanded. Of course this does result in improved "Detail" as thermal compression is a big source of smearing.



> Some speakers also make it hard to understand dialogue because they have a dip in the mid range frequencies. I believe that the flat frequency response of the MTS speakers is why I can understand dialogue so easy with them.


"Frequency response - the single most important technical specification of audio components" - Dr. Floyd Toole. :T



> I see this is possible because the tweeter is using a low crossover point which means the tweeter has to be very good to handle this.


Part of what makes these good speakers is the low crossover point. Although they still have some moderate tweeter bloom, the off axis response is nothing like some speakers with 4khz crossover points (including those 802s you mentioned). Even the 60 degree off axis response does manage to maintain roughly +/- 3db tolerance give or take.



> My old speakers had a very forward sounding tweeter, and were uncomfortable to listen to at over 100 decibels. The SVS speakers didn’t bother me at all at levels this loud and louder, and it was very significant how much easier they were to listen to. I like to listen to music very loud, but couldn’t do it with my old speakers because the tweeter would give me bad headaches.


Good speakers should never sound loud... but careful with the volume dial for your ears' sake!!

Speaking of loud, my cousin and myself went to best buy to pick something up and our ears were being pierced by some Polks that were being demonstrated at high SPLs nearby. I couldn't believe anyone actually buys some speakers. I was like 25 feet away from them and I felt I needed ear plugs.


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## drdoan (Aug 30, 2006)

Great review. I love mine! Have fun. Dennis


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## steve1616 (Apr 6, 2009)

ALMFamily said:


> Thanks very much for this review Steve! I am currently looking at speakers for a 7.2 and SVS is on my short list.
> 
> One question if you do not mind - are you running any of these speakers off an amp?


I am running all of my speakers off of the sunfire receiver, but keep in mind that the sunfire receiver is probably more capable than a lot of seperate amps. These speakers are an easy load to drive, but they are very low impedance so the amp has to be capable of handling that. My amp runs cool at even extremely high volumes.


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## steve1616 (Apr 6, 2009)

GranteedEV said:


> mm... not quite. Dynamic refers less to frequency response and more to thermal compression - ability to not only play very clean with quiet passages but effortlessly step up when high SPLs are demanded. Of course this does result in improved "Detail" as thermal compression is a big source of smearing.


I might of had poor wording, but you are saying the same thing that I am. I was saying that so many reviewers seem to confuse dynamics with frequency response. They hear the extreme highs and lows being boosted and confuse this with dynamics when it is really just bad frequency response.

I was basically saying that true dynamics is the speakers ability to put out the same exact frequency response that the amp is sending it. Obviously, when a speaker compresses the signal, it isn't putting out the same frequency response that the amp is sending. 

I do agree with you after researching crossovers about crossovers being a necessary evil. I was very uneducated when I thought that 3 way and 4 way was better than the 2.5 way crossover, although how they are implemented is probably more important than the configurations themselves. 

I will conclude that these speakers are probably the last set of speakers that I will ever buy. I still can't believe how good these speakers are.


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## GranteedEV (Aug 8, 2010)

steve1616 said:


> I might of had poor wording, but you are saying the same thing that I am. I was saying that so many reviewers seem to confuse dynamics with frequency response. They hear the extreme highs and lows being boosted and confuse this with dynamics when it is really just bad frequency response.


I think some reviewers are pretty confused individuals


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## Ed Mullen (Jul 28, 2006)

Thanks for the awesome feedback Steve1616. I was confident that you would love the M-series. I have a 7 channel set in my reference system downstairs and don't plan to part with them. 

GranteedEV is correct - much of the MTS' wide/deep/stable soundstage is attributable to the outstanding inter-driver phase response not varying more than 40 degrees from 100 Hz to 7 kHz. This makes the speaker sound very much like a single driver with excellent coherence over the entire pass band. 

Sounding clean, dynamic, and uncompressed at higher volumes is an M-series trademark. Naturally quality tranducers are required, but this is also a function of the crossover network, with high-grade, high-power components and low-loss trace used through-out. 

Finally, your AVR is doing its part as the Sunfire amp section can easily drive low-impedance loads and will make the M-series shine. I always recommend an external amp (or an AVR like yours) to get the most out of the M-series. We've never had an conventional AVR (like Denon or Onkyo) shut-down while driving them, but they really open up and sound effortless with a quality high-current external amp capable of easily driving a 4 ohm nominal load (which by definition will drop below 4 ohms for a good part of the pass band).


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