System One

Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada’s National Research Council can be found through this link.

At the start of my reviewing career—from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s—I dedicated a lot of time to reviewing compact standmounted loudspeakers, which were almost always two-way designs. That’s because I lived in an apartment and my listening room measured only about 12′W × 14′L × 8′H, so those speakers suited the space best—not just because of their small sizes, but because their limited bass output wouldn’t overload the room.

When I moved into my current house, I created a much larger listening room—about 16′W × 36′L × 8′H, though I use only half of that space for my system. I quickly learned that those smaller speakers just wouldn’t cut it, because they lacked the output to charge up such a large area (the other half of the room is wide open behind my main listening chair). As a result, I gravitated toward larger floorstanding speakers. After I started setting up systems in my living room, which measures about 16′W × 18′L × 8′H, for this System One column, I could properly review smaller speakers again, including standmounted two-ways.

Enter the Frida, the smallest speaker from SV‑Audio, a Danish company based in Rønne on the island of Bornholm. The company originally operated under the name Storgaard & Vestskov—a combination of the surnames of the family members behind the brand, including CEO, designer, and cofounder Casper Vestskov Poulsen; cofounder and vice president of sales Kim Storgaard; and marketing manager Lærke Vestskov Poulsen. Eventually, however, the company gravitated toward the shorter SV‑Audio name because it’s easier to spell, pronounce, and remember.

Description

I dealt directly with SV‑Audio regarding the review samples, which were shipped to me from Denmark. The company made it clear that I could choose any of the three models in its lineup, but because I intended to use the speakers primarily in my living room, I ruled out the flagship Fenja—named after a figure from Norse mythology associated with strength—because of its large size and very high price: US$82,000 or €64,950 per pair.

The next model down, the Gro—derived from the Old Norse verb gróa, meaning “growth”—would have been more manageable in both respects, priced at US$30,000 or €25,245 per pair and with a smaller footprint, but we ultimately settled on the Frida, the company’s only standmount model and the entry point into the brand. Also rooted in Old Norse, the name Frida is associated with beauty. Even so, the Frida is expensive: US$20,000 or €16,950 per pair for satin finishes, US$22,000 or €18,650 per pair for high-gloss finishes, including integral stands. Lærke Vestskov Poulsen acknowledged this in an email to me by stating: “From the beginning, it was not approached as a product defined by cost targets, but rather as a result of a series of decisions around performance, materials, and construction.”

Commensurate with the pricing is the packaging. The Fridas arrived housed in a single large, surprisingly well-finished wooden crate strapped to a pallet. Unpacking them involved unscrewing the top of the crate, carefully lifting it away so nothing fell onto the exposed speakers, and then lifting the speakers out individually.

The Frida is fundamentally a conventional two-way design using a 1.5″ ring-radiator tweeter and 5″ midrange-woofer working together in a crossover topology that the company won’t disclose much information about. But Jens Posselt is credited as the sound engineer behind SV‑Audio’s designs. It was only after we measured one of the speakers at the lab—once my listening impressions were complete—that I was able to glean from the frequency-response and distortion charts that the two drivers are probably crossed over at or just below 1500Hz, which is quite low, and probably has to do with the robustness of the tweeter.

SV‑Audio describes the tweeter simply as a “silk-dome ring radiator with a neodymium motor system,” though the dimple at its center and the surrounding faceplate allowed me to identify it as originating from SB Acoustics’ Satori series. SB Acoustics drivers are designed in Denmark and manufactured by Sinar Baja Electric in Indonesia.

Besides its dimple, another interesting thing about the tweeter is its 1.5″ diaphragm diameter, which is much larger than the 1″ or 1.1″ diaphragms typically used on dome tweeters. This can translate into higher power handling—likely the reason SV can get away with a low crossover point, providing my assumptions are correct—though off-axis high-frequency energy can be compromised because of the increased size. SV‑Audio appears to have made a running change to the tweeter since my review pair was produced. My review pair had no grilles at all for the front baffles and nothing in front of their tweeter domes. The current Frida still omits a conventional grille on the front baffle, but it now employs thin, curved metal rods to protect the dome. I think that is a good change, because left fully exposed, the tweeter practically invites someone to press it as though it were a power button.

SV-Audio says the 5″ midrange-woofer, which uses a woven self-reinforced polypropylene cone, was "selected for its internal damping, structural stability, and long-term listening comfort.” I identified the driver as belonging to the Prestige series from the Norwegian driver manufacturer SEAS.

While the Frida’s drivers are outsourced and therefore somewhat familiar, many other aspects of the speaker are unique and made entirely in-house, which is impressive, given that SV‑Audio is a new brand. Notable is the almost-all-aluminum integral stand, which measures about 27″ tall and is permanently affixed to the cabinet. It has a sculptural, almost architectural appearance, dominated by a cylindrical pillar about 3″ in diameter etched with spiral detailing and anchored by a contoured four-point base. The supplied footers come preinstalled and can be adjusted for height by loosening and tightening them, but they also move slightly laterally to better conform to uneven surfaces. The only nonmetal portion of the stand is the decorative inset section in the base, which I suspect is made from the same painted HDF-based composite used for the main cabinet.

The cabinet is constructed primarily from that HDF composite but is dressed with aluminum elements for the bottom and front baffle, finished to match the stand. The bottom part is substantial—almost 1″ thick—and has the Storgaard & Vestskov name marked across the front. The baffle itself is visually distinctive. Surrounding the drivers is a smooth area outlining them, but beyond that the surface gently slopes rearward toward the cabinet edges, with engraved radial lines spreading outward to the perimeter; I could see these having acoustical advantages, though I’d have to examine some before-and-after measurements to know for sure. Nevertheless, the aluminum treatment unquestionably gives the Frida a bold appearance.

The remainder of the cabinet would appear fairly traditional were it not for two design touches: the slight rearward rake of the front baffle and the upward taper of the cabinet toward the rear at the top panel. The Frida cabinet measures 8.5″W × 13″D at its base. Height varies because of the sloping cabinet, with the rear measuring 14″H and the front 13″H. Around back are high-quality binding posts mounted to a thick aluminum plate engraved with the Storgaard & Vestskov name, this time with the logo protruding underneath. Above the post area is a rear-firing port used to augment the bass response.

The cabinet and top plate of the stand are available in a variety of matte and high-gloss finishes—my review sample arrived in a high-gloss white finish called Crème White—while the metal elements are in either gray or black depending on the cabinet color selected (my review pair came with the gray treatment). Custom colors are also available.

From top to bottom, the finish work appeared excellent on my review pair, which is to be expected from speakers of this price. The warranty is two years straight out of the crate, extended to five years if registered within 90 days, a typical period in the hi‑fi industry.

Amplifier considerations

I first wrote about my review pair of Fridas two months ago, when reviewing Simaudio’s Moon 371 streaming integrated amplifier for this column. Conservatively rated to deliver 100Wpc into 8 ohms—and capable of doubling that into 4 ohms—the 371 isn’t what I’d call a powerhouse amplifier, but it had more than enough power to drive the Fridas properly. (In our lab, the 371 produced 145 and 264Wpc into 8 and 4 ohms, respectively.)

Since then, however, I’ve learned a little more about the Frida, because we measured one of the sample speakers at Canada’s National Research Council (NRC), as we try to do with all review loudspeakers. SV‑Audio rates the Frida’s nominal impedance at 6 ohms, which our measurements found to be fair—the impedance mostly hovers around 4 ohms from roughly 200Hz to 4kHz and remains above 4 ohms outside that range. It’s not a difficult amplifier load, so even a tube amp could be used, providing it offers sufficient power.

Where my initial listening impressions proved especially accurate was with the speaker’s sensitivity. In my earlier article, I questioned SV‑Audio’s 88dB sensitivity claim because I found myself turning the volume control up noticeably higher than I typically would with speakers that genuinely measure around 88dB sensitive (assuming 2.83V/m as a standard). Our measurements ultimately confirmed my suspicion: the Frida measured 83.9dB sensitive, which aligns more closely with what I heard in practice and likely relates to the speaker’s surprisingly deep bass output for its size (designers typically need to trade off sensitivity to achieve better low-frequency response).

SV‑Audio recommends amplifiers rated from 30 to 150Wpc (presumably into 8 ohms). I agree with the upper end of that recommendation. Simaudio’s Moon 371, for example, can deliver in excess of 100Wpc into 8 ohms before clipping, and it proved entirely sufficient with the Fridas. That finding was reinforced by my use of the speakers with T+A’s R 2500 R streaming integrated amplifier, which I also wrote about in that earlier article. The R 2500 R is rated at 140Wpc into 8 ohms and 250Wpc into 4 ohms. In our lab it didn’t greatly exceed those figures—it produced 152 and 272Wpc into 8 and 4 ohms, respectively—but it too provided more than enough power for the Fridas.

While 150Wpc is certainly sufficient for these speakers, and you wouldn’t want to risk overpowering them, I personally wouldn’t be inclined to use much less than about 100Wpc unless the speakers were being used in a very small room and/or at relatively low playback levels.

Small speakers, big sound—in the right room

I thought the Fridas looked striking set up in my living room—a requirement for components entering this space and being discussed in this column, since this room is used for listening and living—but what surprised me most was how different they sounded from what I initially expected, given their small size. In fact, a visitor from another audio company stopped by while I was finishing my listening sessions, heard the pair, and summed it up nicely with three words: “They play big.”

His comment was also noteworthy because of how visually understated the rest of the system looked at the time. I was then using the T+A integrated amplifier connected to the Fridas with relatively skinny and inexpensive QED XT25 speaker cables—the same cables I used with Simaudio’s Moon 371. Nothing about the setup visually suggested the scale of sound the Fridas were capable of producing in that room.

That said, now that I know the Fridas much better, there are important qualifications to the “small speakers that play big” description besides amplifier power. Chief among them is room size.

The Fridas proved an excellent match for my living room, which I’d characterize as medium-sized. In a smaller space, I wouldn’t be surprised if they could sound even better. But in my living room, bass extended to roughly 40Hz; this is impressively deep for such a compact pair of speakers, particularly because they weren’t positioned especially close to room boundaries—about 2′ from the wall behind them and approximately 4′ from the side walls. Those placements limited boundary reinforcement rather than maximizing it, in order to maximize soundstage and imaging.

As a result, the sound expanded well beyond the speakers’ outer edges on recordings with broad soundstages, and depth was easily discernible if it was captured in the recording. More obviously, the midrange had a robust, full-bodied character that almost suggested tube amplification, despite the fact that I used only solid-state electronics with them. There was genuine presence to the sound, which is in contrast to so many small speakers I’ve heard that sound thin. But the sound was also detailed, as is expected from a modern speaker design. What’s more, it was impossible for me to determine through listening where the two drivers intersect—the sound consistently projected cleanly from the front baffle as an entity, not as two drivers trying to sound like one.

I heard this clearly when streaming Bruce Cockburn’s “Pacing the Cage” from The Charity of Night (16‑bit/44.1kHz FLAC, True North Recordings / Qobuz), a longtime reference recording of mine for both tonality and detail retrieval. With this track, I pay particularly close attention to Cockburn’s vocal inflections, the texture of his guitar work, and Rob Wasserman’s bass accompaniment. Through the Fridas, I noticed that Cockburn’s voice had convincing body and presence but with a wholly natural tonality, his guitar had a spirited sound that was well-focused within the soundstage, and Wasserman’s bass reached low enough to provide a real foundation—not as deep as I’ve heard from larger speakers, but deep enough to sound satisfying and complete.

In a much larger room, some of those qualities diminished. For comparison, I moved the Fridas into my main listening room. I already knew the room would be too large for these speakers, but I wanted to hear precisely how their presentation would change—as well as what aspects of the sound would remain intact. There, the speakers were positioned much farther from room boundaries—roughly 6′ from the wall behind and about 5′ from the side walls—because that’s how I normally place speakers in that room. That’s totally unfair to a small set of two-ways, but so be it. Amplification duties were handled by Simaudio’s Moon 761 power amplifier, a considerably more muscular design capable of delivering more than 200Wpc into 8 ohms and more than 400Wpc into 4 ohms, connected via extremely thick QED Supremus speaker cables.

Despite all that amplifier power and the imposing-looking cables, the room and placement simply overtaxed the Fridas’ bass capabilities. Low-frequency extension now sounded closer to 60Hz, so Rob Wasserman’s bass on “Pacing the Cage” lost a noticeable amount of weight and authority. The sound wasn’t thin, but it was certainly thinner. I had the same experience when I played a local-file version of Adam Cohen’s “We Go Home” from the album of the same name (16/44.1 WAV, Rezolute Music). Through large floorstanders with serious low-frequency extension, the bass on that track can literally pressurize my big listening room. Through the Fridas, only a fraction of that physical impact remained, much as I expected. I could also tell that the speakers were reaching their clean-output limits earlier than larger speakers typically do in that room.

Those aren’t criticisms of the Fridas; this is simply what happens when speakers aren’t ideally matched to the room they’re being asked to energize. But what really made me take notice was how many of the Fridas’ other strengths remained intact despite the unsuitable setup. The midrange still possessed good presence and body—not quite to the extent heard in my living room, but enough to preserve the speakers’ overall sense of fullness—and the highs remained impressively extended without ever sounding bright, edgy, or etched. The two drivers in each speaker still congealed like one.

I was also relieved to discover that the speakers didn’t sound dull, which had initially been a concern because of the tweeter’s relatively large radiating diameter. Despite that theoretical concern and the speakers playing in such a large space—which will exacerbate high-frequency deficiencies—the Fridas never sounded closed-in or lacking in top-end air. Instead, they sounded well-balanced.

I explored this character further with another local file: Emmylou Harris’s “Orphan Girl” from Wrecking Ball (16/44.1 WAV, Asylum / Elektra Records). That recording possesses a certain inherent brashness, but the Fridas added none of their own objectionable character, even when I pushed playback levels higher than was probably sensible simply to see what would happen. Again, the speakers couldn’t play as loudly as what can often sound appropriate in that room, but they maintained a degree of liquidity—a term I use positively here, meaning more or less the opposite of brashness—that kept the presentation smooth and inviting. The highs again sounded well extended, never aggressive, and not dull. If that large-diameter tweeter was trading some off-axis energy for increased power handling, it certainly wasn’t obvious on the music I played, which I’d regard as a strong design accomplishment.

What was missing in the larger room once again was much of the track’s deep-bass underpinning. U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr. supports “Orphan Girl” with a thunderous hand-drum sound that the Fridas could only hint at in so large a space. Back in my living room, however, the speakers regained much of that low-frequency authority and delivered some genuine whomp in the bass. No, they still weren’t dominating the room the way only a pair of floorstanders can, but these small speakers sounded pretty darn big.

Even there, though, the Fridas revealed their limitations under certain conditions. I mentioned in my Moon 371 review that when playing Martin Verrall’s C/O the Brain—the first vinyl release from our SoundStage! Recordings label (SRMH‑0001)—extremely deep bass information was being passed from the Denon DP‑3000NE turntable and DL‑103o cartridge I was using, through the Moon 371’s phono stage, which lacks a rumble filter, directly to the Fridas’ midrange-woofers. The result was violent cone movements that were visually concerning but sonically benign—i.e., I couldn’t hear any problems.

Some of this kind of ultra-low-frequency energy can originate from the recording itself, but more often it comes from a warped record or—most likely in my case—low-frequency vibrations entering the turntable through the supporting furniture and feeding back into the system. A rumble filter is designed to eliminate these frequencies because they’re too low to be musically useful—but like I said, the 371 doesn’t have one. The moral of this story is simple: don’t feed substantial ultra-low-frequency energy into a compact speaker like the Frida if you don’t want to see excessive cone excursion.

Finally, I previously mentioned that I felt both the Moon 371 and the T+A R 2500 R provided sufficient power for the Fridas. I said that for two reasons. First, the speakers were already capable of playing loudly enough for my living room with either amplifier. I simply didn’t need more output there. Second, and perhaps more important, I suspected that substantially more power could risk damaging—or at least distorting—the speakers if they were pushed beyond reasonable volume levels. After all, there’s only so much output that can reasonably be expected from a compact two-way standmount design like the Frida.

A tricky conclusion

SV‑Audio’s Frida is a good-sounding small speaker that plays bigger than its diminutive size suggests. A pair won’t fill a truly large room with sound, but in a smaller space they can sound surprisingly expansive when provided with enough power.

Particularly impressive is the way the Frida is voiced, with the midrange projected slightly forward. Whether in my living room or main listening room, I got a sense of robustness and scale, along with a palpability of vocals, that small speakers often fail to deliver. As mentioned, the Frida’s rich tonal balance often brought tubes to mind, even though I always powered the pair with solid-state electronics—but with all the precision expected from a modern speaker design. I also appreciated the speakers’ ability to reveal high-frequency detail without ever sounding bright; the seamless integration of the two drivers, which seemed to help the sound spring from the cabinets and create the wide soundstages I heard; and the speakers’ bass performance, which reached deep enough to keep the overall presentation from sounding thin.

The tricky part of the Frida lies in its price. Whether in US dollars or euros, this is an expensive two-way speaker regardless of where you live. Beyond its sonic performance, the Frida helps justify at least some of its cost with expensive packaging, an integral stand, excellent build quality, premium materials, a distinctive design aesthetic, and a made-in-Denmark pedigree. Still, it’s not only a steep entry point into the SV‑Audio world, it’s a steep price for any standmounted two-way design.

The best advice I can give prospective purchasers is to read this review carefully and then audition the speakers in person to determine whether what the Frida offers—both sonically and physically—aligns with their tastes, priorities, and expectations at this price level.

. . . Doug Schneider
das@soundstage.com

Associated Equipment

• Loudspeakers: Arendal Sound 1610 Tower 8, Arendal Sound 1528 Tower 8
• Turntable: Denon DP-3000NE turntable with Denon DL-103o cartridge
• Integrated amplifiers: Simaudio Moon 761, T+A R 2500 R
• Preamplifiers: Simaudio Moon 791, Anthem STR
• Streamer: WiiM Ultra
• Speaker cables: QED XT25, QED Supremus
• Analog interconnects: Crystal Cable Standard Diamond
• Power cords: Shunyata Research Venom HC
• Power distributors: Shunyata Research PS8, Shunyata Research Hydra Alpha
• Acoustical treatments: BXI Sound Absorber panels (20), Tönnen Sound panels (2)

SV‑Audio Frida loudspeaker
Price: US$20,000 or €16,950 per pair for standard satin finishes, US$22,000 or €18,650 per pair for standard high-gloss finishes, including integral stands (custom finishes available at extra cost)
Warranty: Five years, parts and labor (with registration)

SV‑Audio by Storgaard & Vestskov
Lillevangsvej 6
3700 Roenne, Denmark
Phone: (+45) 8844 8500

Email: info@sv-audio.com
Website: www.sv-audio.com