Our good friends at The Audio Insider just sent me a pair of their Swans M-200 multimedia speakers. TAI is the direct conduit to Swan Speakers, and is responsible for Swan development in North America and elsewhere.
I have been wanting to replace my warn out Altec Lansing ADA-305 setup for some time but I haven't been all that impressed with the models you can find at such stores as Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. and have had my eyes on the M-200s for some time. I am using these speakers with my PC at home and this review will be using this type of setup.
Speaker Design
First off lets look at the packaging of these speakers. They come shipped in the usual packaging but in addition they come shipped in a cloth bag.
This is a shot of the front of the speakers with the grills on. I put a soda can in between the speakers to give you a perspective as to their size. At 7.0×9.2×13.8 in. (W×D×H) these are not your usual multimedia speakers. One speaker consists of the volume, bass and treble controls.
This is a shot with the speaker grills off. The speakers consist of a 5.25 polycone midwoofer and 25mm soft dome tweeter.
Here you can see the back of the speakers that consist of a port for each and hefty binder posts for connection of the speakers with each other. One speaker comes with a detachable power cord for the amplifier with on/off switch and inputs for connection to your computer.
Each speaker in housed in a flat black box with walnut finished side panels. I have them setting on my cherry finished case that I built to hold my laserdisc collection so you can get an idea of their color. The fit and finish is first rate.
Amplification
As these are active speakers they contain a built in amplifier to drive them. The amp is rated at 15Wx2 RMS (5 ohms, 1Khz, THD85dB.
Specifications
System Type: 2-way 4th-order vented box-system
Frequency Rage: 62Hz-20kHz (-6dB)
Harmonic Distortion: 100kHz-20kHz70dB
Listening Tests
To me the test of a speaker is how good it sounds to my ears. (Which in my opinion should be the real test of any speaker anyway). So I put in a multiple of CDs and DVDs to check out how they handled a wide variety of dialogue and music.
My sound card is the Auzen X-Mystique 7.1 Gold. I am listening to 2 channel audio.
CDs
1) Flim and the BBs - Big Notes -Funhouse
2) Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill - All I Really Want
3) Emerson Lake and Palmer - Works Volume I - Fanfare for the Common Man
4) Black Sabbath - Paranoid - War Pigs
5) Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 In D Minor: Choral - Herbert von Karajan conducting.
6) The Beatles - Abbey Road - Come Together
DVDs
1) Terminator 2 - Judgment Day (Two-Disc Special Edition)
2) Toy Story 2 (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
3) Saving Private Ryan
4) Das Boot
5) Heat
6) Firefly -TV Series
7) Perry Mason - TV Series
Conclusion
All I can say is wow! I put these through a lot with checking out the low end to the high end for music and for clearity of dialogue on the TV shows. Bottome line: They sounded great. They were very clean sounding with no muddy low ends or shrill high ends. In short they are high end speakers for your desk top.
At $189 a pair through TAI (
I have been wanting to replace my warn out Altec Lansing ADA-305 setup for some time but I haven't been all that impressed with the models you can find at such stores as Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. and have had my eyes on the M-200s for some time. I am using these speakers with my PC at home and this review will be using this type of setup.
Speaker Design
First off lets look at the packaging of these speakers. They come shipped in the usual packaging but in addition they come shipped in a cloth bag.
This is a shot of the front of the speakers with the grills on. I put a soda can in between the speakers to give you a perspective as to their size. At 7.0×9.2×13.8 in. (W×D×H) these are not your usual multimedia speakers. One speaker consists of the volume, bass and treble controls.
This is a shot with the speaker grills off. The speakers consist of a 5.25 polycone midwoofer and 25mm soft dome tweeter.
Here you can see the back of the speakers that consist of a port for each and hefty binder posts for connection of the speakers with each other. One speaker comes with a detachable power cord for the amplifier with on/off switch and inputs for connection to your computer.
Each speaker in housed in a flat black box with walnut finished side panels. I have them setting on my cherry finished case that I built to hold my laserdisc collection so you can get an idea of their color. The fit and finish is first rate.
Amplification
As these are active speakers they contain a built in amplifier to drive them. The amp is rated at 15Wx2 RMS (5 ohms, 1Khz, THD85dB.
Specifications
System Type: 2-way 4th-order vented box-system
Frequency Rage: 62Hz-20kHz (-6dB)
Harmonic Distortion: 100kHz-20kHz70dB
Listening Tests
To me the test of a speaker is how good it sounds to my ears. (Which in my opinion should be the real test of any speaker anyway). So I put in a multiple of CDs and DVDs to check out how they handled a wide variety of dialogue and music.
My sound card is the Auzen X-Mystique 7.1 Gold. I am listening to 2 channel audio.
CDs
1) Flim and the BBs - Big Notes -Funhouse
2) Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill - All I Really Want
3) Emerson Lake and Palmer - Works Volume I - Fanfare for the Common Man
4) Black Sabbath - Paranoid - War Pigs
5) Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 In D Minor: Choral - Herbert von Karajan conducting.
6) The Beatles - Abbey Road - Come Together
DVDs
1) Terminator 2 - Judgment Day (Two-Disc Special Edition)
2) Toy Story 2 (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
3) Saving Private Ryan
4) Das Boot
5) Heat
6) Firefly -TV Series
7) Perry Mason - TV Series
Conclusion
All I can say is wow! I put these through a lot with checking out the low end to the high end for music and for clearity of dialogue on the TV shows. Bottome line: They sounded great. They were very clean sounding with no muddy low ends or shrill high ends. In short they are high end speakers for your desk top.
At $189 a pair through TAI (