Quote Originally Posted by RGA
Nice review -- they seem to offer a lot of value in this heated cabinet design horserace. I don;t think you can knock it for being made in China. If a competitor can offer the same or very similar sound or even better sound for half the money because they build in China then you will see more and more products being FORCED there even if it is not their choice to do so.

Did you notice that the company also offers some kits? They seem to be a bit "all over the place" when it comes to consistancy of design -- they have a dulcet speaker which looks like a Reference 3a Dulcet clone and you note the B&W N804ish clone. They look like an interesting company.
Hi-Vi Research is the parent company of Swan, and have been building drivers for other manufacturers and the DIY crowd for years. They're designed in North America and manufactured in China with American QC (except for a few units made in Germany for some reason).

In the DIY world HI-VI is a value leader and makes entry to mid-priced drivers...I'm almost finished a small Home Theater In a Box type DIY system for a relative that uses a 3" Hi-Vi full range driver with a filter network (not my design, borrowed from a acquaitance). They sound damn good for $20 bucks a speaker. I wouldn't worry about them being made in China, China's really catching up with the rest of the world in a lot of industries. Dynaudio recently was forced to leave the DIY market because of poor worldwide sales, their drivers were terribly overpriced for what performance they offered, had some QC issues, and just fell out of favour after a good run for many years. A few smaller companies have bought some of their older production facilities and still produce some of the popular Dynaudio DIY drivers under different names now though. On a side note, a lot of people are fully expecting Scan-Speak to fall victim to the same fate, either finding a niche as an exclusive driver manufacturer for a high-end speaker company(ies) or focus on just selling their own speakers. I think for a lot of companies, there'd be more money in selling speakers than just the parts.

From what I've read, the Asian market for Hi-Fi/home theater is several multiples that of North America, so it probably made good business sense for them to market Swans speakers to support their core driver business, I don't know much about the Swans brand in particular though, or how long it's been available in North America.

You're right about the copy-cat tendencies of their speaker cabients though...I think this is an Asian thing. Take a look at some Asian Hi-Fi sites, and you'll see all kinds of very unique speaker cabinets, and very blatant copies of established companies designs...I think it's kind of refreshing. There's absolutely no reason for us to still have boring box shaped speakers. The outsides of cabinets can be dressed up nicely for little extra cost and without impacting sound.