Today we would like to bring to your attention the test results of active two-way Royal 2R multimedia speaker system produced by SVEN Company. It should be noted that the appearance of this novelty initially was an important event, because quick-selling, relatively affordable, competently executed acoustics do not appear every day, moreover, an addition of the Royal series could not go unnoticed.

First of all, pay your attention to pair of important facts. In the first place, the producer does not initially try to deceive you relative to the lower limit of playback frequencies. Well, sincere 35 hertz, without any advertising husk about twenty, and we stand all chances to hear them.

In the second place, pay attention to the diameter of a high-frequency tweeter and then compare it with the total dimensions and power of the system. It seems that it will be interesting.

Design and manufacturing

The system came to our editorial office just as you would receive it after purchasing, i.e. a complete package. A heavy, massive box was designed tastefully, with true colors of the Finnish flag and sufficient information. The packaging arrangement is traditional: the system proper with integrated power cord; RCA interface cables, powerful feeder made of the durable twisted copper of good quality to connect the second speaker to the active one, user’s manual and remote control with batteries.

Well, there no false panels, loudspeakers are open and will be visible for the whole time of use. Design style is the same as it was – defiant and simultaneously impressed. The front panel with mirror black coating of à la Royale type looks very aesthetically and attractively. The case is the whole MDF plate with noble coating of black veneer sheet. Touch it, draw your hand along it, knuckle on its side and rejoice for a while. Everything was done from the heart. Small legs are integrated and non-removable. We can debate for a long time regarding the urgency to place the phase inverter at the rear side, but, believe me, I have already heard many times about that, but perhaps this is only actual solution for the system with such dimensions and power – and it is quite successful. But only do not put such speakers in old houses nearer than 30 cm to built-up lath walls and in modern concrete houses, perhaps, nearer than 50 cm – and you will be happy.

By eye speakers are practically identical, at least their acoustic design. In practice the active speaker is much more massive and more complicated. Let me say a few words about the system appearance before starting “entrails” examination. Connection of the second passive speaker for especially sensitive people – even the feeder polarity is indicated. The connection is classic, no comments. The twitter is as large as life. The feast for eyes. But we did not yet disturb its screws. The broadband speaker is the principal organ of the system. It has standard dimensions; its design is of high quality. And this “bullet” on it, certainly, it is decorative one and has zero sense load, only aesthetic value.

Here it is, the active half of the «Roya». The surface mounted small panel is interested due to its small light-emitting diode, which will inform you about the system condition, but you should be ready that everything will be controlled from the remote control – this is much more handy and more practical.

There is no point in going through ergonomics. You can see yourself – it is simple, comfortable, practical. The active speaker rear side. There is a handy located fuse, as well as an easily found out by touch the switch. Output to passive speakers. There are two line inputs, as they were promised. And now, the most interesting thing – the disco; let us start to disembowel the system and see what is there inside.

I confess, before opening I worried more about the broadband loudspeaker, i.e. its quality. Well, just look at it, a male is in all its beauty, with a smart double powerful magnet, sturdy base and magnificent cone. There are 50 watts of input power with six ohms – and looking at these magnets I believe that the wound coil in this loudspeaker will cope with the this duty boldly and without overload.

Of course, we can grumble with sadness about paper cones being relegated to oblivion. In my view, they had nevertheless softer low frequency damping with heavy loud. Yes, warm tube sound, which hardly anybody remembers, etc. But you know, I will again however pay your attention to the magnet assembly. How do you think, how long the paper would live with such powerful loosening without disheveling? That is why a plastic cone and especially rigid rings on periphery, to my mind, are justified absolutely. With total power, the movement amplitude there is minimum one inch: so no matter how heavily you impregnate that paper, it would be torn much sooner.

Tweeter. I held for some time in my hands that rather weighty creation: that tweeter maybe was developed for much more powerful speaker systems. Pay your attention to the cherishingly laid damping pad in the place with thread: a loudspeaker is placed not directly on a wooden plate, but on a cherishingly lined special spacer. And then it was carefully screwed on with self-tapping screws. By the way, the whole construction, I mean the acoustic portion, is assembled with screws: there is not a single bolt or nut there. The work is one-time, manual.

We are practically near the finish; let us now rummage a little in power supply filter. But before this I would like to pay your attention to some more important moments in the construction of SVEN Royal 2R speakers. The installation and assembling are extremely qualitative as usually.

Surprisingly high-quality filter. In our time such decency in circuitry engineering against a background of the total economy for normal components, excuse me, even slightly shocks. Then: the real torus, well-wrought high-quality torus, metal and heavy, on which the power supply wire is winded.

Finally, let us pass on to the most interesting things. According to the duly old good classic circuitry engineering, the primary amplifier is located on a separate board, but the liner with all power supply components is located on the other one. The preliminary amplifier operating system is carefully embedded in infinite amount of electrolytes, there is a separate stabilizer, ratings of critical resistors were chosen with a safety margin, overall, whole-hearted.

Power supply filter. Power sully is filtred at the astounding level – there are two 10,000 μF capacitors there!

The final amplifier is the most important thing. It is assembled on TDA7294 produced by ST Microelectronics Company. By the way, the radiator on the active speaker rear wall is just for it.

Within this article framework we will not go into greater detail of characteristics of this assembly. I will only mention, for the sake of propriety, that TDA7294 nameplate power is 100 W within the load range of 4-8 Ohm, and the declared nonlinear distortions on a frequency of 1 kHz at full power and at load 4 Ohm only must not exceed 0.01%. I think that it is enough, not to talk so much, and let us move further.

Test results. Conclusions

SVEN Royal 2R speaker system was in our office quite for a long time to have heard plenty its sound collectively and individually and to make a reasonable verdict about it. According to the old customary tradition we do not use any equipment for such estimations, only Laboratory Ears™ – in this case my ears – with strong conviction that there is not at all such a robot or program, which would be able to prompt to a tester something more additional after estimating quantitatively amplitude-frequency characteristic and other parameters, what is impossible to hear with your own ears.

Royal 2R system sounded reasonably predictable with small, comfort volume of the order of a few watts: quite deep transmission of vocal, especially colorful on female soprano, soft, clearly intelligible reproduction of picture of all stringed musical instruments, positive bass section.

Then the volume was increased to the maximum level and some typical compositions were listened to. From the standpoint of transmission of the playback character and its saturation, perhaps, the classic jazz was sounded the best of all: the violoncello and contrabass were lifelike, speakers played very effective Louis Armstrong – in every imaginable range, from his hoarse, unique vocal up to solo accents, for ten of decibels of more concrete accents of his pipe and back-vocal band.

The classical rock music was heard very well, even Pachinko performed by The Pogues with soft crescendo at the beginning: every banjo string during the whole composition was heard distinctly and was not padded out by the vocal or powerful bass-percussion section. There was suspicion that middle-high frequencies would not be heard. Guitar “licks” of Craig Chaquiso ruined those apprehensions as well: the sound was clean, transparent, without any equalizers.

Steven Tyler with his Aerosmith brought some happiness – his quite hard Nine Lives sounded unexpectedly clear, and Kiss Your Past Goodbye responded generally with all vocal nuances and every instrument. With AC/DC it seemed that the percussion section was lacked a little bit however. Maybe, hard-rock lovers should put a subwoofer near their feet, I do not know, I really did not catch any habitual crushing accents during Thundertruck play.

However, the most serious thing is with the classic music. Unfortunately, standard «Requiem» by Mozart sounded poorly. I mean Lacrimosa, the very place, where the clear chorale plays. Sound transparency was at the top level; distinguishing of separate voices, general purity of sound – there were no complaints at all. Overall comprehension of the chorale turned out a little bit... distant, and habitual accents were slightly blurred. Liszt, Albioni, Mendelssohn, practically all Beethoven sounded very well. Wagner was perceived especially fine – profoundly and richly.

The verdict will be the following: for 200 US dollars, i.e. Royal 2R system price, you undoubtedly will get qualities for every paid cent. I do not remember for a long time that I estimated anything in such a manner from the heart, but this SVEN speaker system, undoubtedly, was succeeded. It, of course, not Tannoy and not Nakamichi, but go to seek at the market for this money anything, which is comparable by sound. And the sound, undoubtedly, is very nice.