Slow week here for me. A co-worker of mine just bought complete HT from Audio Insider - Swans 6.1 HT something or other...
He's been bugging me for a week about how awesome these things are, and to go over and check them out.

He's a 2-channel guy and this is his first HT system, so I'm a bit skeptical about his claims, but he's telling me the Swan 6.1 mains do much better than his Dynaudio Audience 82's for $900 or so less...that's pretty high praise IMO, and I've agreed to spend a few hours putting them through the paces.

I've used a few Hi-Vi Research drivers (Swan's parent Company) in some small designs and heard a few others, and I've generally found them to be very good values... I'll be sure to post my own observations later this week.

This is a name I don't hear too much these days though, just curious if anyone's ever bought or demoed anything by Swan and what I can expect?

I'm becoming more and more intrigued by all the new speaker companies that are entering the mix, and here appears to be another one. We're seeing better speakers sell for cheaper these days, and far more competition than ever. I really think this is where the industry is headed, for better or for worse.

It might evolve into a Sear's Catalog type industry where dealers carry 1 sample of every model and color, and you order what you want...But with companies like Axiom, Ascend Acoustics, Rocket, getting a lot of praise, and the DIY route to speakers booming, I can't see it being to comfortable for the big companies like B&W, JBL/Infinity/Harman Paradigm, API, etc... slowly losing your market share while seeing your profit margins decrease is a recipe for disaster, regardless of how good or bad your speakers are.