Swan DIY 3.1A Speaker Kit: Finished Project Compared to 2.2A 

I built a pair of these (3.1A) earlier this year and hooked up to a Harman/Kardon 430 Twin have been magical! The Bass is phenomenal! I used the Selhin mod 4 crossover. Best speakers I've ever heard!

I've seen these speakers on Amazon many times and have always wondered what they were like. Thanks for bringing us these videos.

I own the 2.2A speaker kit and too love their bass! ;) I too considered getting the 3.1A Kit, but after doing a research I realized I would need to pair them with a subwoofer to get better output on the low end. When I researched the bass drivers on parts express I realized that the 3.1A has a HiVi L6-4R 6.5" bass driver with only 1 inch diameter voice coil and 30-60 Watts Max power handling at 4 ohm resistance, compared to 2.2A having a HiVi D6.8B 6" bass driver with a 3 inch diameter voice coil and 60-120 Watts Max power at 8 Ohms!! the 3.1A Kit is designed to be great in upper bass, beautiful in midrange and great at high frequencies, but not lower bass. For that you need to pair these with a subwoofer as they're not a tower speaker with a few of those bass drivers (as those drivers aren't rated to give a deep lower end as well). Parts express sells the bass drivers from the 2.2A Kit, each for $105 and about $50/bass driver from the 3.1A Kit (see the price difference?) the remaining price difference goes towards a great midrange and tweeter driver in 3.1A. Anyway, if you can, please try to swap the bass drivers from your 2 way into 3 way speakers (they should fit, might have to make a temporary spacer and/or drill some extra holes for the screws) and you should be all set! I bet you won't even have to touch the cross over, their frequency response is identical, but not their power rating, voice coil diameter and load resistance. Hope you try it! I'm considering buying the 3.1's but either for my bedroom where I don't want a lot of bass or I know I'll have to buy a subwoofer for them in a living room placement. Also, I'm 37 y.o. Not your usual demographic, i know ;) Also I don't think you'll get any more bass improvement by listening/breaking them in (3.1A's) any longer, maybe better synergy overall but I'm not sure. My 2.2's didn't really change a whole lot, they were great from the moment I powered them on. ;)

Beautiful finish on that two-way bookshelf speaker. The rounded corners look nice and probably reduce diffraction slightly. Good job! 💜

Good review, thanks for your opinion. You know your stuff.

Yea so I’m 70 years old definitely in the group with declining hearing. Especially in the upper midrange. 2 weeks ago got my first pair of hearing aids through the VA and wow!!! I had no ideal what sounds had moved out of my range over time. So much so that certain sounds actually startle me. I’m out of town and can’t wait to get back home to listen to my system with speakers that to me are muddy.

love the looks of the speaker on the left for you on the right lol ... love the strong mid speaker there and how its flows into that nice tweeter ... love it

I love the color on the 2.2 reminds me of Tiffany & Co. Thanks for the review. Good stuff

Nice work! I just did a video on my Swans 3ways. I love mine!

Dome mid-range units are what made ATC famous for its mid quality and why the studio engineers love them. Nice having the tweeter tight to the mid too. Shame if the bass unit is letting them down, but maybe the surround will soften up in time.

I have the powered version of the Swan. The M3A. They sound fantastic.

I think Danny at GR Research has commented on the mid-range dip in Klipsch speakers being due to the tweeter and woofer being wired out of phase with each other causing them to cancel each other out where they cross over.

Years ago I soldered in some Mills resistors. Not neutral and had to be removed. Replaced with Mulitple Eagle carbon film resistors for power handling, but they are discontinued on Madisound. I would try some of the new Mundorph ones they have which appear not to be wirewounds.

I'd recommend trying capacitor bypassing for the mid and tweeter circuits. That is the practice of putting a very small cap in parallel with a large one. The overall value isn't affected very much if the small one is very small, say like less than 5% of the larger. This is inexpensive because you only have to purchase relatively small value caps to add to the existing larger ones. People say doing this causes the combined cap assembly to take on the sounds character of the smaller cap. Miflex caps are a good place to start experimenting but the practice should work with any kind of cap.

I'm hoping the 2.2a's get back in stock!

I would try switching the bass drivers between the two pairs and see if that helps the bass in the black pair. Both bass drivers seem very close in size. Might just sound incredible

REW and a good calibrated mic, I use umic or earthworks mic and you can do some nice speaker measurements

I went to the Sehlin website and the revised crossover makes it much more linear. Beware that it's only about 86 dB/W/M efficient and is a 4 ohm load.

The umik-1 or umm-6 from parts express and free software like REW should be enough to get usable speaker measurements.

I have done the crossover upgrades on the Swans, but am still thinking of replacing the woofers. I wonder if the Criton woofers would fit the Swans? The Criton woofers are amazing.

Another interesting topic. Ludspeakers. I've had several expensive pairs of new speakers and never been satisfied. Always that "boxy" sound. Long ago I used to have full range Altec speakers, never again such a natural sound (perhaps a matter of nostalgia) Now I have new klh5, that's close. I am very interested in the open baffle concept when the pure speakers make the space sounds not the boxes maybe one of the topics, or just another one of my utopias.Thanks again for your enthusiasm, and sorry for my 😵‍💫

Also...that is a bass reflex speaker. The port, box and woofer are meant to be tuned to one another. If you want to try other woofers you might also need to modify the port length. I would download winISD or even the AJ vented box calculator to make sure the woofer you are contemplating using will provide a satisfactory result with that box volume and port length.

The someone that has the hivi 3.1a 3 way one how do they sound with a powered sub i have a small 500 watt 12 inch subs with 2 passive radiators

I don't mind a speaker that doesn't have a lot of bass but has good soundstage and detail without being fatiguing because I can fx the bass by adding in a subwoofer.

Can you swap the woofers out between your speakers. If you can, it could be interesting.

How do they compare in the clarity of voices in movies?

Which one of those 3 is your first choice Steph? Rp-600m?

By the way, have a Google for the Sehlin mod for those 3.1a's, that should help you out.👍🙂

The 2.2a's supply seems to have dried up. i asked where and when, and they said buy the 3.1a's.

Magnet size does not a good speaker driver make. It may indicate power ability, but in does not indicate quality/accuracy. I would get better sound deadening in the box first(No-Res Gr-Research.) I threw away drivers based on small magnets and found out they were higher quality than the replacements I bought with larger magnets. I have both of these speakers and thought the 3-way had better drivers. The 2 way crossover may be jacked up in the bass. The three way is probably super flat through out the frequency range now, which many people don't like.

What is the right speaker build?

Try Parts Express's Dayton line of woofers. Best bang for the buck.

L enceinte 3 voies a le même médium que la wharfedale evo 4.2

Equalization should be done in digital domain only. Otherwise it will definitely bring "veil" and other terrible things like that.

I'm 41, anything above 16 Khz and it's just not there. Kind of ironic how as we grow older and more cultured, somehow we lose the ability to hear everything in a recording.🤦

Just get a Mic & REW it's free ( Calibrated USB or direct calibrate)