SVS SoundPath Ultra speaker cable review

I've been on a bit of a "budget wire" kick recently, exploring various types of lower priced speaker cable, as well as balanced and single ended interconnects.

I'd heard a while ago that SVS got into the cable game, but finally decided to give them a go in my system after reading about them over in this thread: https://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/186015/svs-makes-cables/p1 - These speaker cables are "reasonably priced", at $96 for a 8' pair. I actually ordered 2 pairs - 4 wires total - so that I could bi-wire my PMC twenty.22 speakers using the 4 sets of binding posts on the back of my PS Audio S300 amplifier. Each channel features two pairs of posts, which makes bi-wiring easy even with cables that aren't inherently bi-wire - Thanks PS Audio!



So just what are the SVS SoundPath Ultra speaker cables anyway? In my opinion, these are cables that are being marketed toward music lovers that haven't yet succumbed to the audiophile "sickness". In a way, kind of like a speaker cable meant for people who think all speaker cables sound the same. "My first aftermarket speaker cables", if you will. The focus seems to be on good materials, nice construction, quality terminations, and an attractive braided jacket.

Before we get started on the review, lets take a closer look at one of the marketing descriptors: "12 AWG stranded speaker wire – Each SoundPath Ultra Cable is made with two braided Dual Balanced conductors, with a total of 82 strands of 99.99% pure stranded copper across both conductors." (emphasis added by me)

So if I am interpreting that correctly, each two conductor cable is made with a total of 82 strands of copper wire, meaning each individual conductor consists of 41 strands of copper wire. So on the surface, these are being advertised as "12awg cables", but if I am understanding SVS's marketing material correctly, that's the total gauge of both conductors, not each individual conductor. I believe this is slightly misleading as most people are just going to see "12 AWG" and not read further. Correct me if I am wrong, but with standard 12awg stranded OFC speaker wire I was under the impression that each conductor is 12awg in size. I may have to reach out to SVS for clarification on this, since I feel that as written, the description on their website is difficult to fully understand.

Moving on to the physical cables themselves, they appear to be above average quality. If it weren't for the SVS logos on the banana plugs, I might guess that these were made by Audioquest. Definitely a nice looking cable, with a quality braided jacket that doesn't at all look or feel cheap. Another positive attribute is that I did not detect any foul or off-putting stench/aroma coming from the cables when I removed them from their packaging.



I tested these cables for several weeks, including letting them sit undisturbed for 10+ days while I was out of town. I'm confident that they were able to fully settle in to my system. After weeks of listening, I took a page of notes about what I was hearing.

Let's get started with some of their positive characteristics. Tonality and accuracy are good. There's good "realism", meaning that piano and voices sound as they should. I'm not able to detect any blatant coloration. They have a neutral presentation that is not bright or fatiguing. Very detailed highs and upper midrange, and bass is not boosted nor is it reduced.

On the surface, hearing "more detail" immediately after hooking these up would potentially create buyer satisfaction for most casual listeners. However, in my opinion, there's many more elements of their performance that need to be considered aside from just detail retrieval.

On to their negative characteristics. The first and most blatantly obvious thing I noticed is that the sound seems to be mostly localized to the speakers themselves. The soundstage width seems narrow and relatively flat. The sound does not extend past the physical left and right edge boundaries of the speakers. While there is some amount of center imaging, there are no 3d stereo imaging effects at all which I found very disappointing.

Overall, their coherency is only average. The fact that the sound is so localized really takes away from this. It's as if the sound can't spread out and give each element it's own space, and as a result the coherency takes a big hit.

In regards to general musical engagement and enjoyment when listening with these cables, I wrote the following note: "Where is foot tapping and head nodding?". I was simply not being "drawn in" by the music I was listening to. I realize this is an extremely subjective observation, but it was one that I confirmed during several listening sessions. For this reason, I would rate their musical engagement factor as "average".

They do have some positive attributes, but unfortunately I feel that their negative ones outweigh them. Namely, how the sound is just so flat and physically localized to the speakers. No 3d imaging, no cohesive wall of sound. Your speakers are definitely not going to "disappear" with these.

That being said, let's take a moment to think about price to performance and who these are being marketed toward. I paid $192 to try these in a bi-wire configuration, to which I would say that is definitely not a good value. However, if most people are paying $96 for a pair, and they're able to hear an "improvement" over standard wire, then perhaps that would be money well spent.

Ultimately, even at $96 for a 8' pair, I personally cannot recommend these. I don't feel they bring enough to the table in terms of performance, and I think the money would be better saved and then put toward a higher level of speaker cable. Of course, your mileage may vary. These might have great synergy with other speakers below $1k for example.

In conclusion, I'm giving these a 5.5 out of 10.