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Very Nice Cheap Kit Speakers: HiVi/Swans DIY 2.2A & 3.1

Jpbart2

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Thinking about building these. Any suggestions on where to purchase the components for the protectionist mod?
 

Poultrygeist

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Thinking about building these. Any suggestions on where to purchase the components for the protectionist mod?

The HiVi 2.2a kit speakers come with LB-D6.8-IIB woofers and LB-Q1R tweeters. The woofers look like a clone of some of the Dynaudio woofers.
 

D!sco

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Has anyone successfully paired the 3.1 kit with a plate amp? Doesn't seem too hard, but I wonder if it's worth the price to install one permanently and if there are any recommended pairings. An FA123 for example seems like major overkill, but the 170W mono ICEPower 50ASXBTL could be a good price/performance compromise. Does anyone happen to have opinions on balanced vs normal on these?
 

D!sco

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Thinking about building these. Any suggestions on where to purchase the components for the protectionist mod?
All the parts are available from Parts Express. The Dayton Audio capacitors/resistors/inductors should be high quality. I would recommend those, but the kit sounds just fine on its own. The increased on-axis highs result in a flatter off-axis response for TV watching, so it really depends on the environment. Couch or listening room?
 

Jpbart2

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All the parts are available from Parts Express. The Dayton Audio capacitors/resistors/inductors should be high quality. I would recommend those, but the kit sounds just fine on its own. The increased on-axis highs result in a flatter off-axis response for TV watching, so it really depends on the environment. Couch or listening room?
Thank you!
 

Poultrygeist

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The tweeters are of objectively poor quality and HiVi, like many poor quality manufacturers, pays for 5 star reviews.

So you believe that HiVi pays customers to post five star ratings on items they bought from Parts Express. You had little credibility before and now you have none. :facepalm:

FWIW the 3 way HiVi that ASR tested does not share any drivers with the 2.2A which again is the subject of this discussion. Generalizing that all HiVi speakers have suspect quality is like saying Chevrolet makes crappy products based on the Vega.
 
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AdamG

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The tweeters are of objectively poor quality and HiVi, like many poor quality manufacturers, pays for 5 star reviews.
You said it so now provide us with some evidence to back up your claim that these tweeters are of objectively (meaning you have science to prove) poor quality.

Secondly, what evidence do you have to substantiate your claim that HiVi pays for 5 star reviews.

Please and thank you.
 

beagleman

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What in the hell is with this aggressive and condescending response to someone posting their findings? I'm interested in these and find his info quite revealing, that is pretty poor QC.


I think it may be the "Way" he posted, and so on. The tone was fairly negative, and just sounded "off" for lack of a better way of explaining it.

Usually someone completely new to the forum does not start off by with posts similar to this.
His measurements are fine information, but a lot of the rest of the post was somewhat questionable.

I have only seen mostly glowing reviews of these speakers, and it is known they are voiced to have a fairly forward treble. (In stock form)

Scott S. (@Mudjock) modified them, not as a way to fix poor quality control of tweeters, but to give them a flatter response overall, and did a great job.
 

Poultrygeist

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I think it may be the "Way" he posted, and so on. The tone was fairly negative, and just sounded "off" for lack of a better way of explaining it.

Usually someone completely new to the forum does not start off by with posts similar to this.
His measurements are fine information, but a lot of the rest of the post was somewhat questionable.

I have only seen mostly glowing reviews of these speakers, and it is known they are voiced to have a fairly forward treble. (In stock form)

Scott S. (@Mudjock) modified them, not as a way to fix poor quality control of tweeters, but to give them a flatter response overall, and did a great job.

When someone joins a forum with the sole purpose to slam your DIY speakers when they tested tweeters not even used in the build that's called "thread crapping". It's not allowed on most forums.
 

headshake

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https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

...

According to one amazon review, the company will no longer fix the mid because the part is no longer made? Is this true?

Does anyone have measurements of their 3way?

@Poultrygeist If you installed rew or some signal generator, you could generate a tone at diff. frequencies and test the tweeters a bit closer.
 

Poultrygeist

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https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

...

According to one amazon review, the company will no longer fix the mid because the part is no longer made? Is this true?

Does anyone have measurements of their 3way?

@Poultrygeist If you installed rew or some signal generator, you could generate a tone at diff. frequencies and test the tweeters a bit closer.

My 2 way HiVi/Swans do not use the same tweeters or the same woofers as the 3 way speakers. Listening to the Swans for many months told me all I needed to know. Measurements are useful in confirming what we hear.
 

Poultrygeist

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I subjectively believe my 2.2a is more critical of amps than many speakers. It works well with the high power (old NAD 2600a) amp I tried. They sound great with my 3e Audio DIY TPA3255 amp (and I think would sound near the same with commercial TPA3255 amps). My new Sabaj A20a amp sounds great (similar to SMSL DA9) with dual Infineon chips. So, I think most 3255 or Infineon class D amps would be a good match. The Sabaj has a digital volume control...so no mismatched channels.

The other inexpensive class D amps I tried were not as successful.

The Infineon chip DA-9 is indeed a good match for these speakers while the lower power TPA amps struggle a bit. I doubt there's another pair of speakers that comes anywhere close to the Swan 2.2A kit speakers at triple the price. I've always been a fan of soft dome tweeters and these are stunning in the amount of airiness they produce. Very happy with the shimmer and decay from high hat cymbals which is always a good test for any tweeters worth their salt.

In this picture I'm streaming AMHD from a Node 2i into a SU-9 DAC. The TV monitor displays graphics from AMHD when using a 4K Fire Stick with HDMI extractor carrying the coax audio signal to the SU-9's separate input.

P1010003.jpeg
 
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Laserjock

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The Infineon chip DA-9 is indeed a good match for these speakers while the lower power TPA amps struggle a bit. I doubt there's another pair of speakers that comes anywhere close to the Swan 2.2A kit speakers at triple the price. I've always been a fan of soft dome tweeters and these are stunning in the amount of airiness they produce. Very happy with the shimmer and decay from high hat cymbals which is always a good test for any tweeters worth their salt.

In this picture I'm streaming AMHD from a Node 2i into a SU-9 DAC. The TV monitor displays graphics from AMHD when using a 4K Fire Stick with HDMI extractor carrying the coax audio signal to the SU-9's separate input.

View attachment 147268
What HDMI Extractor do you use?
 

D!sco

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I recently ran REW on my set of 3.1's with my friend's studio mic. It's not a perfect, calibrated mic, but it was good for getting in the ballpark. This is running stock crossover.
HiVi 3.1 Recliner EQ Graph.png

For an in-room response with furniture shaking and window rattle, I would call these measurements surprisingly good. The tweeter is insanely hot, and to an extent so is the midrange, but I'm honestly pretty happy with the stock crossover. The "highs" knob on my receiver is adequate for taming that bright spot. The best part was the harmonic distortion test. Even cranked to volumes that had me wearing earplugs, those little green and blue peaks in the corner are all that's visible in the clearly audible range. I get no dispersion feedback this way, but it's got an impressive set of on-axis characteristics which can be modified to suit a lot of needs. I actually thought I broke the suspension in my woofers and burnt the coils, but after noticing no smell all REW managed to do was clip every electronic attached to them. They're still rock solid bookshelves, after trying to deafen me for three hours straight. I'm impressed as hell.

Anyways, it spat out this EQ (minus the huge Q5 spikes), which was based on a 3dB bass rise starting at 120, and no treble fade.
PK Fc 20.0 Hz BW 0.4786 Gain 15.0 dB Q 3.000
PK Fc 54.2 Hz BW 0.8897 Gain 5.7 dB Q 1.596
PK Fc 569 Hz BW 1.3884 Gain -3.2 dB Q 1.000
PK Fc 1614 Hz BW 0.8185 Gain -3.8 dB Q 1.739
PK Fc 4416 Hz BW 0.6267 Gain 3.0 dB Q 2.284
PK Fc 8992 Hz BW 1.3884 Gain -10.1 dB Q 1.000
 
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