Computer speakers to begin with are a mess. You are almost certainly overpaying no matter what product you buy and the chances of finding something remotely accurate is a rather large joke. Despite these problems, most users end up buying more speakers then they need at the expense of their wallets and sound quality. A flood of companies that have produced home theater equipment have made the transition into the market including the likes of Bose, Klipsch, Altec Lansing, Harman Kardon, Polk and JBL. It’s time to welcome one more: Swan. Chances are you have never heard of Swan; but, it’s time to take note, especially if you work for one of the aforementioned companies.
Swan? Who is that?
Swan is new to everything, but they have decided to take on the high-end audio market. When we say, “high-end” we do not mean Bose and Sony, we are talking about the likes of B&W (Bowers & Wilkins) floors and McIntosh amps; what most refer to as “hi-fi.” The hi-fi market was one half of the market ventures for the newly-created Swan brand, the other was high-end computer speakers. The M10s were not only Swan’s first entry into the computer speaker market, but they were also their cheapest. Starting at just over $100, Swan makes computer speakers in all shapes and sizes (literally) up until the sub-$1000 market.
Let’s Talk About the M10s.
The M10’s are simple: two bookshelves and one subwoofer – clearly the first time in the history of the audio market that combination has been tried. They come with gold cones (gold, not KRK yellow) and white face plates in a black box. The subwoofer features a chrome knob for the volume on the front illuminated by a large blue led and the back features control for the bass, but none for the treble. The one thing that pictures cannot explain is how tiny the system is, pictures present it as a large system that would clutter your desk. But the satellites only feature 3-inch “mid-woofers” and the subwoofer houses a tiny 5-inch woofer. It is a little deceiving though, because the subwoofer despite not being large height and width speaking is disproportionally deep. The M10 features RCA audio plugs to connect the satellites to the sub, and then two RCA plugs form to make a 3.5″ inch adaptor for the standard output in the digital era.
It’s All About the White Gloves:
In addition to the cables, Swan ships white gloves to you for when you are handling your speakers. A small warning as we don’t have the largest hands and they were barely fitting on us. It really is not about the gloves, it is really about the sound.
Sure, the ground does not rattle when the subwoofer hits, but the bass is heard. Rather earthquake shattering bass, even on songs like Lil Wayne’s “A MIlli” the bass accurately responds and creates an incredibly deep sound (we believe because of the depth.) There is a large debate as to which is more preferable; in general we believe the ground-shattering is not really ideal for music, but better suited towards movies and video games. But calling the Swan’s “underpowered” would be a lie. The tiny package delivers amazing sound at all volume levels and most importantly displayed some of the least distortion we have ever heard out of a speaker, especially ones that are marketed for your computers.
Where the Swan’s really excel is the other two portions of the sound spectrum. Highs are amazingly crisp and combine with mids that are near perfect to produce music that is truly spectacular. Piano keys take on new definitions and guitar shredding becomes revolutionary when the sound leaves the tiny white boxes to the left and right of your computer. Vocals become new octaves and passion can be felt as you truly hear a rich and complete sound, something absent from every other computer speaker on the market.
Music Reinvented.
When U2’s “In a Little While” begins to play through the Swan M10’s cones, music becomes reinvented. Bono’s voice still hits the same highs as it does during the refrains and the richness becomes felt even more. But the guitars, all of them, take on a new life. Rather then being lost in a flood of sounds that were recorded out of Vox amps, the guitars get their own personalities: some come from the left and others from the right. They each hit you with differing degrees of reverb and tempo all with varying volumes. But then the drums hit and you hear Larry Mullen Jr.’s repertoire with a whole new life. When you listen to music on monitors you expect accuracy and when you listen on a hi-fi system you expect to hear a pleasurable sound. But no matter if it is a headphone or a concert hall, the simplest way to gauge the quality of the sound that you are hearing is the simple threshold of whether you hear something new. Not if your home theater in the box botches up the bass guitar differently then your Apple earphones that came with your iPhone. Rather does a violin that was hidden in the orchestra of a Kanye West melody become ever more present, or does a voice lost in the back of one of Radiohead’s choruses get a new stage or can you finally hear that final jet turbine from the beginning of “Back in the U.S.S.R.” With the Swans, the answer is a simple nod of the head.
Some Bad Eggs:
We like the Swans, in fact we might love the Swans, we are actually thinking of adopting a Swan. There are a couple of small things that are not concerns for us, but rather things we think you should know, just so you don’t get the wrong idea. As we have stated earlier these speakers are pretty small, especially if you are used to having a pair of V88s on your desk and an S12 on the floor. Remember that for even beginning monitor systems 5″ is the smaller of the two common sizes, and the subwoofer features only one 5″ woofer. The subwoofer is also not made to go on the ground, rather to sit at about head level. We placed it in a variety of places and can tell you that: it doesn’t really matter as long as it is within about four feet of your ears: above or below; it does not belong on the floor and it’s not going to damage your desk. It’s not the normal 7″ subwoofer that comes with computer speakers; rather then showing off in terms of broken furniture, the Swan shows us off in terms of grace.
More notes about the subwoofer. Like most high-end audio products it needs to be “burnt in.” This simply just means that after twenty hours of use, the subwoofer is going to sound better then it did when you pulled it out of the box with your white gloves on. Most products don’t require 20 hours, but the Swans had a noticeable difference from 14-15 hours to 20ish hour range. We also mentioned before that this was a much better system for music. That is true, but we watched a couple of movies and were impressed by it. If the main use of your computer speakers is to watch movies, we suggest a 5.1 system (we mentioned one just below). If music is at any point a significant portion of what you do – these are the right route.
The Competition:
Logitech makes a couple of computer speakers, the Z-5500s are the personal favorite of us. For the price it is hard to beat the THX-certified 5.1 system, especially the monster subwoofer. However, calling the subwoofer overpowering is an understatement and where the mids are hiding is something that we have still not figured out or heard. Bose makes a couple of computer speakers: none of them are accurate, all of them are overpriced and the sound out of them is nothing-short of lackluster. Klipsch makes their 2.1 Pro Media speakers that have been on the market at an inflation-proof $150 for a while now, but still pack a blistering bass and pretty good mids; but the upper octaves are disappointing. There are a variety of other computer speakers we have heard, if you want our criticisms of them or wish to suggest a new one for us to review; contact us.
The Bombshell:
$109. Really, that’s all that needs to be said, because that is really how much they cost. At $109 you would have to be under the influence of every narcotic and then some to pass these up. Why The Audio Insider doesn’t charge the full $149 or even $300 for these is beyond us. The computer speaker market is absolutely flooded with options, each with differing pros and cons, but nothing stands as far out from the pack as the Swans do. They really are floating in a completely separate part of the pond.
Gracefully Perfect.
Sound is all relative in the end. When reviewing products that deal with the performance of sound, we have to come to a general consensus and with the Swans there was a consensus that we needed no consensus. These things are not perfect, in the world of high-end audio nothing could be – ever. But these things are going to be as close as you are going to ever hear so we are going to give it the label anyway. When we turn the chrome knob on the Swans up we are reminded why we love music so much and reminded how good music can sound. We given the Swans a perfect 5.0/5 rating because they are that good. For the second time on TheMacFeed we will christen a product with the “gold standard” award because it really is true. The Swan M10s can be purchased from TheAudioInsider for $109. We suggest jumping on them now, as the Swans were previously listed as out of stock for over six months and TheAudioInsider seems to be the only place to purchase them since NewEgg ran out a while back. And yes, we are dead serious about the white gloves.
We have added a Part II, here.
TheMacFeed Gives the Swan M10 5.0/5 Stars.
Related Posts
Categories: Audio, The Feed, TheMacFeed Reviews:
