I soooo wanted to love these...
Alright, where to even begin. As a matter of background information, I'm an audiophile, but at my age now., my audio endeavors are centered around my desktop PC. Over the past two years I've been using various powered speakers from Edifier - those being the R1700BT, R1950DB, R2000DB, and S3000 Pro., and do a bit of audio blogging about various gear.
When I saw a review on these Stage Right monitors (there was only one review on You Tube - from Zeos Pantera), I thought I'd give them a try since I needed to begin blogging about some new and different active monitors - so I ordered them.
Needless to say like any anxious kid would be, when the SV25's arrived, I was excited. Upon opening them I was surprised at the very nice build quality and appearance of the two speakers. But that's where it all ended. Now let's keep it real in that all eviews are subjective, based on what other gear we have connected to the particular item being used, and also the condition that the gear is in. To start it off, sound-wise, they were nice, but.....
Just so you know the gear I was using when I evaluated these, I used upgraded Blue Jeans cables LC-1's, along with Audioquest RCA cables. The monitors were being fed via two DAC's - one being the iFi Zen Dac, and the other being the Schitt Modi 3. Both DAC's were connected via USB to a Lenovo desktop system. The USB cables used were higher-end Audioquest Pearl USB models.
So let's talk positives first:
1. The SV25's have a superb sound-stage, with excellent front to rear depth, and unrivaled imaging. These speakers put each instrument in its place and layers them. to the point the speakers disappear. Some of the finest speakers I've heard in this regard.
2. Excellent mids and highs - a very neutral monitor-like sound. No added DSP added here to be sure. What you feed them is what you'll get out of them.
2. Appearances - this is solid feeling speaker and the drivers look outstanding - all high end in appearance here.
Now on to the negatives, which caused me to give them only 3 stars, and I was being gracious in even doing that!
1. Both left and right speakers (the ones that I received) had an issue with both a low level hum and a higher level buzz that was pronounced enough that it made you turn your head. I even changed out the power cords - using several of them (all audiophile higher end models) to see if it was a cord issue - all to no avail. The hum and buzz were persistent. I even had the power cables plugged into a high-end sound conditioner which provided clean power, so it was clear the hum/buzz were emanating from the electronics in the speaker cabinets.
2. On my copies, if the speakers transitioned to stand-by mode (red lights instead of blue), and if the period of time they weren't being used was long-term (as in 5-8 hours or more), it was impossible to get them out of stand-by mode, even with music playing. I had to go behind each speaker (very inconvenient since the speakers were in cabinets on my desktop) to turn them off each and every time. This was a very frustrating and inconvenient experience.
3. With a 5" woofer, you would think that bass would be ample enough (at least to 60-80 Hz or so) - but noooooooo, the SV25 copies I received had little to no bass in what seemed like below 100 - 120 Hz. It was horrible. So I hooked up a subwoofer that also had RCA outputs that allowed you to select frequency crossover points. I had the crossover points set first to 80, followed by 100 - but it made no difference. Upper and mid bass was very diminished, radically so - robbing the music of a "full" sound. As I alluded to above, the mids and highs were excellent.
So what turned out beginning to be a mindset of high anticipation, soon transitioned into one of disbelief and sheer disappointment. I had no choice, but to request a return voucher with a refund and as of this writing, the speakers are enroute via FedEx back to Monoprice.
As an aside, one of the reasons in my getting the SV25 system was I wanted to try something different than the powered Edifiers, which had satisfied me immensely. But IMO, the Edifiers put these Stage Right XV25's to shame in a number of areas and that was surprising to me.
This was the first Monoprice product I had ever returned and hopefully, it will be the last.
