Swan Hivi X3 Review (Active Monitors)

[Billy Budapest]

I’d like to see something like this reviewed: one of their higher-end active speakers:

HiVi-Swans M5A

https://a.co/d/0Lab3s4

 

[uwotm8]

HiVi-Swans M5A

Wow. A REAL PEERLESS woofer

 

[Eggs Ackley]

Looks like Stuart...

 

[Universal Cereal Bus]

If you want a well rounded enclosure with integrated wave guide cast in two halves in aluminium. You will have a really hard time not ending up with something looking like Genelec just as nailing together sheets of MDF at 90 degrees will look like a box.

This is a very perceptive statement, and a core tenet of IP policy that the layperson often fails to consider (in my opinion as a patent lawyer). A lot of accusations of "copying" do not rise to a threshold that would create a legal action, or at least financially justify pursuing legal action.

Outside of the courts of law there is another court, the court of public opinion. IMO, that is the correct forum to litigate these types of copies. I think we forget that such blatant copying is not without risk. Whatever short term benefit the manufacturer gains from passing off a few units to unsuspecting buyers, it should incur some long term reputational damage among more sophisticated consumers, which I think is exactly what has happened here.

 

[wwenze]

Thanks to the small size and known "Finnish" design it shows quite a nice directivity, so with a bit of free PC EQ a decent good looking small low budget desktop solution with only direct competitor the also 3" IK Multimedia iLoud Micro Monitor, we shouldn't forget that a Genelec 8010 costs more than double.

The Chinese internet people are consistent in saying that the iLoud has more bass. Though to fair iLoud is an anomaly and not the norm.

 

[ROOSKIE]

Don't forget the HiVi 3.1a DIY kit did very well here and is an excellent value.
It did need a crossover mod, I think the HiVi house sound is on the brighter side or at least was.

Wow. A REAL PEERLESS woofer

It does look like a Peerless driver.
Be surprised if it is but maybe.
HiVi is huge OEM of drivers.

Hivi are a great manufacturer. And I like them. Some of their drivers and tweeters have been the best or best value of their time.
Many DIYers have used their products and they have measured and sounded well. Some examples are some of the best measuring of their time. Some, not as good.
These X series started around 2010 to 2011. Thats over a decade. What the hell do you guys expect?
Some of the genelecs are some of the best in the world. It's quite clear these X series are a cute little monitor, but they're a desktop fad, in comparison to Genelec professional monitors. However, not all genelecs have measured perfectly, but some have measured extremely well.
Lets not judge a company, nor all Chinese speakers manufacturers, by one inexpensive little example please. I am interested in science. And science needs to be impartial and unbiased. You need context and you need understanding. Stick your veiled-generalisations to the side, and start your critical thinking.
They've designed speakers that won CES awards in the US in the mid-2000s, and they created an anechoic chamber somewhere in the mid-2000s. We wish them to do better, and they may already have done.
We will likely see more of their products being measured if people sent them in for independent testing. Let's hope their newer products do a better job. They're released with measurements and plots, so it would be interesting to see whether they match up.
I'm glad to see this speaker measured.
I don't think this speaker looks like the genelec at all. It's egg shaped and was marketed that way. The stand, well that could be suspicious as they were released probably in similar times. Genelec has had a decade to do something if they wanted but I seriously don't think it's worth it for the stand.
I don't think hivi and genelec are really in the same marketplace. I like Genelec as well. Wish I could afford.

I agree. HiVi has a huge catalog and has been around awhile.
And indeed DIY folks do use their drivers. Partsexpress still carries the brand, though it seems with less enthusiasm vs a decade ago.

 

[puppet]

Looks like Stuart...

View attachment 215951

I'd like to see a pair of bibs on these actually.

 

[Koeitje]

Speakers with bass drivers under 5" are just pointless.

 

[Toni Mas]

These guys have been in the business for years, but still dont understand nor seem to have learned anything about loudspeakers...
Hopeless wanabe me too makers is what they are...

 

[Dial]

There aren't an infinite number of decent speakers in production today. We should know which ones are used in these boxes. Genelec for example uses several brands from Peerless to PHL or even Vifa.

 

[uwotm8]

It does look like a Peerless driver

It actually does look like BUT I can't find 8" SDS, only 6.5". However 3rd pic is 8" HDS

 

[EJ3]

Speakers with bass drivers under 5" are just pointless.

I haven't heard any with bass drivers under 8" with out a subwoofer (preferably 2) that are worth a hoot. That is not to say that they don't exist. But I haven't heard them, if they do exist. Yes, I am skeptical.

 

[Bruce Morgen]

I haven't heard any with bass drivers under 8" with out a subwoofer (preferably 2) that are worth a hoot. That is not to say that they don't exist. But I haven't heard them, if they do exist. Yes, I am skeptical.

Even my (IMO very good) 3-way active main L+R speakers with 8-inch woofers benefited tremendously when I added a rather modest 12-inch sealed-box subwoofer low-passed at 60Hz.

 

[fragzone]

I hope one day amir will measure the swan m200mkiii+ and hopefully tear them a new one so I can justify buying some new monitors

 

[EJ3]

Even my (IMO very good) 3-way active main L+R speakers with 8-inch woofers benefited tremendously when I added a rather modest 12-inch sealed-box subwoofer low-passed at 60Hz.

Even though my Dahlquist M-905's FR is 26 Hz - 20 KHz +-2 Db by themselves (running over

watts eac :
From Hi-Fi Review magazine

Lab Tests

Preliminary listening tests of the Dahlquist M-905 speakers-in-stalled on the ST-9 stands, as recommended-revealed a very wide-range and balanced sound whose smoothness and lack of coloration were far beyond what we would have expected from speakers in their price range. In fact, the sound from the M-905's would be more than acceptable at several times the price. In view of this, we were not too surprised to find that with respect to flatness and freedom from peaks and holes the measured room response was among the best we have encountered.

The close-miked woofer (and port) response was also considerably flatter than we have measured from most speakers, with a very small bass-resonance peak. At the system resonance of 60 Hz, the output was only about 2 dB above its average level in the upper part of the woofer's range, and even that minor output variation was spread over almost two octaves. When the bass curve was spliced to the room-response measurement, the resulting composite frequency response was flat within about ±2 dB from 26 to 20,000 Hz. The horizontal directivity of the tweeter was only discernible in the room measurement above 10,000 Hz.

We measured the sensitivity of the M-905 as 87 dB SPL, which was lower than the rated 91 dB but still about average for speakers of its size. The difference may have been a result of different test conditions since we used a full-range pink-noise signal while Dahlquist's rating was made at 1,000 Hz. The system's minimum impedance was about 4.8 ohms in the 8,000- to 10,000-Hz region, and it measured 7 ohms at 150 to 200 Hz. Its maximum impedance was 28 ohms at 60 Hz, and there was a broad peak of 18 ohms in the vicinity of 1,500 Hz.

We measured the woofer's distortion with a 4-volt drive level, corresponding to a 90-dB SPL at 1 meter. The distortion was less than 1 percent from 100 Hz down to almost 60 Hz, the effective crossover to the port. Below that crossover the distortion rose to 5 percent at 45 Hz and 9 percent at 35 Hz. In high-power tests with single-cycle tone bursts, the woofer began to sound "hard" at about 350 watts into its 8.5-ohm impedance at 100 Hz. At higher frequencies the amplifier clipped-at outputs of 490 watts at 1.000 Hz and 1,380 watts at 10,000 Hz-before distortion became visible on the acoustic waveform.

Quasi-anechoic FFT measurements showed an overall group-delay variation of about 0.1 millisecond between 4,000 and 20,000 Hz and 0.5 ms between 1,000 and 20.000 Hz, convincing evidence of the attention paid to the phase characteristics of the M-905.

I use a custom made (by me) pair of 12" down firing (down firing ports, too) with dual 4 Ohm voice coils [running over 800 watts a channel as 2 Ohm units]{low passed at 80 Hz}) with them because I can't lie, I like big bass.

 

[CosmicDancer]

Chenelec

 

[Mart68]

There's also much thread misinformation about the difficulty of suing a Chinese company. You'd only sue them in China if Genelec has design patent registrations in China (doubt it). And as I demonstrated above, Genelec has US design patents, so it can sue in the US. It doesn't just have to sue Swan; it can sue the importer, the distributor, the seller (Amazon), etc. It can even sue in the ITC instead of Federal court.

Jaguar Land Rover did successfully sue over the 'Land Wind' Evoque copy https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/land-rover/101369/land-rover-design-boss-wary-over-copycats

Suspect the money involved in the auto trade is several orders of magnitude higher than it is in the loudspeaker business though, so it's worth their while to pursue redress.

 

[alexman]

Hello Amir,

Maybe it's the first membrane breakup of the woofer, characteristic of floppy membrane of its size and at this frequency.
Also visible on CSD (résonances)

Regards

 

[uwotm8]

Chenelec

ChinelEgg

 

[Universal Cereal Bus]

Jaguar Land Rover did successfully sue over the 'Land Wind' Evoque copy https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/land-rover/101369/land-rover-design-boss-wary-over-copycats

Suspect the money involved in the auto trade is several orders of magnitude higher than it is in the loudspeaker business though, so it's worth their while to pursue redress.

Good point, though I don't see the "successfully" in the article.