LATEST ADDITIONS

Kendrick Lamar is a busy man these days. Not only is the West Coast hip-hop superstar headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl LIX on February 9, 2025, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans and prepping for the Grand National Tour with SZA for 19 stadium dates starting in April 2025, but he also found time to drop a surprise new album, GNX, on November 22, 2024, just six months after his majorly successful May 2024 release, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers—and it’s all in full-on, glorious Dolby Atmos at that. Read Mike Mettler’s review to find out if the Dolby Atmos mixes of two key GNX tracks, “Luther” and “TV Off,” make the 360-degree grade. . .

Performance
Build Quality
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Powerful yet refined sound
Classic design
Adjustable midrange and treble

Minus
Need stands
Take up more floor space than tower speakers

THE VERDICT
The JBL L100 Classic MkII delivers a seamless blend of vintage aesthetics and modern acoustic performance, offering punchy, refined sound whether in stereo or home theater setups.

It’s hard to dispute the legendary status of the original JBL L100 when it comes to iconic speaker designs. Those retro Quadrex foam grilles have become as much a calling card for JBL as the crisp, punchy sound signature itself. After all, they are the descendants of the L100 Century speakers featured in the famous "Blown Away Guy" Maxell cassette tape ad.

With the L100 Classic MkII, JBL has updated the beloved 12-inch three-way design with modern acoustic engineering, resulting in a speaker that seamlessly blends vintage aesthetics with contemporary fidelity. I recently paired a set of L100 Classic MkIIs with a Denon AVR-A1H receiver in both 2.0 (stereo) and 4.1 configurations to see if the new L100s lived up to their near-mythical predecessors. Spoiler alert: They do—spectacularly.

Performance
Features
Build Quality
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Significant upgrades to the driver and amplifier
App is intuitive and responsive
SVS's industry leading Bill of Rights

Minus
Enclosure is fairly deep
Grill doesn't look or feel like it's from a flagship product
So powerful it can blow port plugs out during heavy use (depending upon your perspective, that could be a Plus or a Minus)

THE VERDICT
The PB17-Ultra R|Evolution will likely prove to be a huge success for SVS. It is a noticeable upgrade to their previous flagship, the PB-16 Ultra. This subwoofer excels when pushed, having dynamic range to spare. The app makes tuning a breeze, the resulting sound quality and performance means you’ll probably want to own it for years. This is a long term investment, one you’ll almost certainly be reluctant to upgrade for a very long time.

Introduction
Go big or go home. I'm not sure if that was the theme when SVS was designing the new PB17-Ultra R|Evolution, but it certainly could have been. The motor on this driver is big, the cabinet is big, the sound is big, the feature list is big. There's a saying in the automotive world, there's no replacement for displacement. While forced induction (turbocharger or supercharger) is nice, nothing beats cubic inches. A comparable axiom holds true with subwoofers, if you want a lot of deep bass you'll need a big driver and a large enclosure. It's simple physics really.