Audio Roots & Musing About the Swan D2.1SE.

Initial stocks of the interesting Swan D2.1SE have been depleted and we’re awaiting a series of shipments that will keep us stocked through the holidays. Frankly, I’ll admit that we underestimated the demand and we’re scrambling to acquire more samples.

So, maybe this is a good time to explain a little more about this model. The D2.1SE is a sounding board for a short tale about smaller speakers and musical faithfulness.

In the TAI forum I once mentioned a late friend, Jan Waalkes of West Michigan, where I’m from. Jan and I went back to about 1980 and I have to credit this audiophile’s audiophile with influencing me by wringing more music from any hundred dollar bill then probably anyone I’ve known, before or since. While Jan didn’t skimp where he felt he shouldn’t, he perpetually got so much musical truth from any particular combo of front end, electronics, and speakers that he was a force of one in local circles.

The last project Jan and I worked on together was voicing a 6.5” two-way system based on Danish drivers of the day, circa 1985, a design tradition that continues today involving prestigious brands all over the high-end landscape. I wish we had the parts then that we have available today.

I’ll omit the finer points, but in short Jan and I dialed the speaker in over the course of over a year – actually, he did the initial heavy lifting as it was his rig, but I still recall the day our crossover adjustments, working in roughly 1/3 dB increments, took this system from hifi speaker to, well, music. The system, for all the obvious flaws all systems have, simply went “over the threshold” and we both stopped hearing gear and started hearing recordings. Bands. Halls. Music.

It was an impossible sound, really. It was a bigger sound that the humble sum of those parts could be expected to deliver, but there it was. It was addictive and in the twenty-plus years since, I’ve only heard elements of that sound exceeded twice.

I think there are rare moments when audio transcends it’s physical origins and lifts you out of the chair. This speaker had that ability, even as conservative as it was at the time.

The trick was twofold: Whatever it is that these driver types do that’s so special combined with razor’s-edge tuning the dividing networks. Get it close and it’s a rich, nuanced, organic sound. Get it perfect and it’s kinda not a speaker anymore. It conflicts the listener. It defines the greatly over-used “jaw-dropping” euphemism. It stops being a loudspeaker, if that makes sense, and becomes a window on the outdoors — on the musical event. It does acoustical things you can’t really accept that an electromechanical system can. Disbelief is suspended.

This sounds odd – odd enough that I hesitate to post this, wondering if I’ll make sense to anyone who hasn’t heard it — but once you have heard it, you know what it is. I wondered ever since if I’d find it again.

Fast forward to the late Nineties and the HiVi/Swan D6.8 midbass driver. Excellent build quality, all the right parts, and a new, optimized, hybrid motor. Interesting – like old times interesting. Then, the HiVi/Swan run at 28mm domes. Also interesting – and an idea hatches.

Time passes and projects come and go and then, after what seems too long, the inevitable finally occurs: Rumors emerge of HiVi engineers merging the D6.8 7” midbass and the new Q1 28mm dome tweeter into a classic ported two-way stand monitor. Of course, we stand back, wondering how they’ll execute it.

Then a photo shoot occurs.

So we order twenty pairs and turn on the bench, expecting to run the measurements.

But they’re really good right out of the box.

Oh sure, not so “perfect” I wouldn’t want to play with the design when I have the time and when the market can add a few dozen percent to the D2.1SE’s current sub-$1,000 price, but so close that they hit that musical, organic, dimensional sound that tells me they got it very right.

After nearly a quarter century, my good friends from halfway around the world gave me a very big smile with the design brief itself, and then in actually putting the D2.1SE together as well as they have.

I’m not going to say a lot more about this speaker. Sure, we sell them and sure, we want you to buy them. But I really just want to relate one of those rare occasions when something special comes full circle and like an old friend — in this case very much like an old friend and an audio brother, rest his soulful ears – it’s like no time has passed at all. I’m pleased not only at just how happy twenty new owners are, but too just how timeless one of the better ideas can be.

This won’t be the end of this story, either. While it’s not our style to pre-announce models, we’re going to take the risk this once and state that we’re currently investigating just how far we can take this concept in terms of models added to the D2.1SE family. We’re not going to talk about the specifics until we have samples in-hand, but when that day comes, I think we’ll be announcing a little brother satellite and a pair of center channel models. From there, perhaps some floorstanders and matching subs – the HiVI/Swan 12” version of the D6.8 midbass is simply superb.

That’s enough for now – advance notes will appear here so consider this page your Swan bulletin board. I expect a very interesting Fall 2007 and Winter 2008 and if TAI can bring musical joy to another few dozen or even a hundred music-lovers, well, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? I suspect that’d make Jan smile too.

And Jan? If you can hear this, I didn’t forget. I dedicate this post and our efforts to your legacy.