Swans M200 Powered Speakers vs Standard Bookshelf Speakers

[boskeroo]

I have the Swans m200's and a variety of other speakers. I use the Swans in my office, so I'm almost always nearfield and playing at relatively low volumes. I believe they will compete well with any bookshelf speaker up to the 300/pair range.
My closest alternative is a pair of homebuilt 5" 2 ways with SEAS drivers and Corian cabinet. Roughly 300 in parts because of the quality of the crossover capacitors etc. I used one of the SEAS's as a slave to the SWANS control speaker and tried the Swan slave speaker with one of the SEAS's in a stereo pair. The result was very close. The SEAS was more dynamic, maybe went a little lower, but the SWANS was a little more coherent. Fairly typical tradeoffs at the price level.

The SWANS sell for under 200 shipped and you don't have to deal with finding an amp. I think the biggest issue with their sounding dynamic or at least louder for more distant listening is the match between the sensitivity of the amp input and the source. SWANS may have made a mistake by optimizing it for very high end sound cards and their higher output rather than more usual sound card, mp3 player, walkman output levels.

As a consumer product, if you want an amplified speaker, the SWANS are hard to beat. If you want the best possible speaker for under 300/pair, you might consider building your own with a gainclone amplifier. Something like Lynn Olsen's Ariel, etc.

 

[mikechai]

Anyone heard the Acoustic Energy Aego2 sub/sat active 2.1 system?
How does it compare to the M200 and other entry level bookshelfs?

 

[Trevelyan]

Man this is the exact question I need to have answered....

Exactly what speakers did you end up getting man? And where they better than the Swans?

 

[450]

http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=115011

 

[bundee1]

Check these out:


http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....oni&1116273086



I love my original 706's and these got even better reviews.

What kind of amp are you using?

 

[Trevelyan]

Hey bundee I need to get new speakers... currently I'm using an Onkyo 502 reciever, any speaker suggestions for less than $200?

They have to be better than the Swans M200 though, I am spoiled. (I run the Swans analog from my sound card since they are self-powered and the Onkyo has no pre-outs except for sub)

 

[bundee1]

The old Onkyo receiver I have is kind of bright. Maybe some PSB speakers will mate well.

 

[akio]

i run the panny xr25 to the axiom m3ti's. they sit maybe a meter and a half apart, and i sit two or three feet back. i can touch both speakers, if that counts as nearfield listening. they are decent for this. however, these things really, really blow me away when i crank up the volume. they stay clean and crisp until they're so loud it hurts. i don't find them overly bright at all. the bass is definately visceral.

these are rock and roll speakers. however, the only other decent speakers i've heard is an old pair of B&W that my parents have, and those are pretty badass too.

i still have people claiming that their 5.1 logitechs are the best, and then i just blow them away with my 2.1 goodness ....

 

[gloco]

Based on the listening experience i had last year at the HE2004 show, the Epos ELS-3 is an excellent speaker that blew my socks and would definitely look to giving it your time to audition it, here's a url with dealer info (i'm pretty sure there's a dealer located right across the street from Tower records on West 4th. It's loud, punchy and not overly bright. I was able to listen to it at moderate volumes from a few feet away and thoroughly enjoy the experience.

http://www.epos-acoustics.com/produc...13&lookup=els3

http://www.epos-acoustics.com/mainsi...mageField.y=12

Music Hall is the US distributor.

insomniac, if you have a few bucks laying around why not attend the HE2005 for a day and check out all the speaker rigs? http://www.he2005.com/