Go beyond yourself and make a name for yourself in the world - Swans flagship 2.2 speakers
[Introduction] Swans flagship 2.2, which stood out among more than 400 internationally renowned audio brands and won the "CES Best Audio Finalist Award" and "Ex cellence In Design & Engineering Award", debuted in China for the first time. It is reported that the best speaker will be unveiled at the 8th South China International Audio-Visual Equipment Expo held in Guangzhou Garden Hotel on October 10-12.
"Best of CES2003 High-End Audio Finalists by TechTV"
"Best of CES Best Audio Finalist"
Swans flagship 2.2 speaker
After learning that Swans flagship 2.2 won the honor in this year's CES International Consumer Electronics Show, he immediately called Mr. Yao Hongbo, the helm of Swans to express his congratulations. On the other end of the phone, Mr. Yao's hearty and confident laughter was still transferred, and he asked the author to have time to listen to his masterpieces there. Indeed, as an enterprise that went from China to the world and became a world-renowned brand, HiVi has achieved such extraordinary achievements. The laughter may be a manifestation of Mr. Yao's confidence in the development of HiVi.
The audio industry has gradually become a fairly mature industry from the boom of audio in the early 1990s to the rise of the specialty store model in the late 1990s, and then to the rationality of today. However, the audio industry has always been a focus industry, and other industries have always followed the path of "huge market space -- investors flocking up -- competing to compete for the market -- industry rectification -- purifying the market -- returning to rationality". But the audio industry has not. From its own development, growth to maturity, it has not launched a price war. It can be seen that audio equipment is not a household appliance in the ordinary sense. It does not participate in the way of competing for the market through price of household appliances such as color TVs and refrigerators. In the final analysis, audio equipment is a very individual product, which covers the designer's ideas, acoustic technology, brand influence and other factors.
We know that there is no end to good sound, so there is no end to the development of audio technology. When many audio brands continue to launch the so-called package audio in order to maximize profits, Swans is unmoved, and still only focuses on the research and development of speaker products. The author appreciates Mr. Yao's words, "people's energy is limited, if HiVi can do a good job of speakers and meet the needs of audiophiles, it is not easy." In fact, HiVi's development has always followed this principle, since the early days The high-end HI-FI speakers, to the DUCET, SWANS series, from the DIVA series to the Haoting series... When the Swans flagship No. 2 was launched a few years ago, it made the audio industry vibrate and applauded by enthusiasts, but no one Unexpectedly, Swans Group will carry out some improved designs on the basis of the flagship No. 2 which has achieved unprecedented success. It is Swans' tireless pursuit of acoustics that has created the flagship 2.2 that has won two awards.
When the flagship 2.2 is really in front of me, I have to look up to see it. Standing in front of the flagship 2.2, I feel that I am short. This is because a good product is itself a perfect work of art. In the long history of audio development, thousands of products have been launched, but there are very few that can not be forgotten for a long time. The pair of flagship 2.2s in front of them, from the date of its birth, is destined to become the focus of attention in the audio industry, and audio equipment that audiophiles dream of. Therefore, the author thinks that this is also an unattainable equipment. . Second, the title of this article has stated that this article is only a preliminary exploration of the acoustic technology and sound performance of the flagship 2.2, and it is not a comment at all, because the author's one-sided remarks and hours of simple listening simply cannot understand the sound. The mystery and true meaning of a work of art, but what I saw and heard, only 12 ears.
In the audio world, what is the flagship? The author believes that it is a reflection of the comprehensive strength of an audio company. It is beautiful and should be unreserved in terms of sound, materials and design. The launch of the flagship is not the impulsive behavior of the enterprise, but the reflection of the technical level and the strength of the enterprise reaching a certain level. It is the only way for the development of the audio enterprise. At the same time, the author also believes that the flagship speaker can fully reproduce and restore the listening experience of the concert hall, and can simulate all the sounds and sound field effects during recording 100%. Although many audio companies have launched many high-quality small speakers in the past, such as bookshelf boxes and ordinary floor-standing boxes, due to physical limitations, they have to reproduce the high, wide and deep sound field, huge dynamics and loud enough sound of the scene. Pressure seems to be difficult. Therefore, in order to break through the limit of ordinary speakers, the flagship 2.2 adopts a large box to ensure sufficient sound pressure.
The flagship 2.2 is more than 2 meters tall and nearly 1 meter wide. Since the author is less than 170cm tall, when approaching the speaker, the upper unit almost needs to be looked up. Viewed from the side, the entire cabinet is in an upside-down "L" shape, because its depth is relatively small compared to height and width. At the same time, the cabinet where the midrange is installed is very thin, and the cabinet responsible for the woofer is much thicker. On the basis of No. 2, some work has been done to improve the sound quality.
The speaker adopts a three-way four-unit inverted design, and the treble adopts 32 R1 ribbon tweeters, 16 R8II ribbon midrange and 4 D8.8 woofers designed by Swans. And all the high-pitched units are installed on a whole piece of matte aluminum alloy panel with a thickness of about 5mm. What is amazing is that this aluminum plate runs through the entire speaker panel from top to bottom, which looks particularly imposing.
The biggest difference between the flagship 2.2 and the flagship 2 is that the bass part no longer uses active subwoofers, but is directly driven by the power amplifier. Therefore, the design of the cabinet broke the previous practice and adopted an independent sound box to simplify the design of the cabinet. The flagship 2.2 after this processing, in principle, avoids that each frequency band may produce different timbres. The same as the flagship No. 2, its mid-high frequency unit still adopts a quasi-bipolar design, and the tweeter unit is distributed on the front panel and the back panel respectively. And the reflections from the side walls increase the reflections of the human ear as much as possible to simulate the effect of the concert hall scene as much as possible.
To serve such a giant speaker, is there a high requirement for the listening environment and matching equipment? According to reports, this pair of flagship 2.2 priced at $68,000 has higher requirements for listening area and power amplifier. First of all, the listening area is preferably more than 70 square meters. In terms of power amplifiers, it is best to use high-quality, high-power and high-output current power amplifiers.
On the same day, a domestic HI-FI power amplifier and an Onkyo 588 power amplifier were used to open the sound. The audition space is about 120 square meters, about 2 meters away from the rear wall.
In the face of such a huge speaker, a group of us, almost invariably selected a large-scale symphony piece, thus bypassing the previous process of listening to violin, vocals, and symphony. After all, we have high hopes in the face of such a behemoth.
In fact, the first impression of Kaisheng was a bit surprising. We have listened to this song countless times on other sound systems, but at this moment, the sound pressure generated by the flagship 2.2 is unmatched by other speakers. The entire sound field is huge and open, and even if you leave the emperor's seat, you can't feel the sound field being deformed or the sound field being compressed. At the same time, the aftertaste and reverberation of the instruments are vivid and natural. When I closed my eyes, a large symphony orchestra of more than 100 people immediately appeared in front of me. Whether it was the strong wind and rain of the drums, the gentle wind and drizzle of the violin, or the melody of the double bass, it made people intoxicated.
Analytical force and transient response force have exceeded our expectations. When playing the symphony, from the faint pronunciation to the sound of the galloping horses, everything is restored to be true and natural, without any exaggeration or distortion. The low frequency is crisp, not too muddy, and the transient response is excellent. Whenever the instruments of each part sound, the sense of orientation is very obvious, and you can even hear the sounding position of each instrument. The three-dimensional stereo field of the flagship 2.2 is truly eye-popping, and the vertical width of the sound field cannot be heard in ordinary audio systems.
Looking at the performance of each frequency band of the flagship 2.2, in general, it is balanced and natural, without deliberately biasing a certain sound, such as emphasizing its high frequency, mid frequency or low frequency. The extension of the treble is very sufficient and delicate, and the musical sense is rich. The subtle sound of the pianist pulling the bow and plucking the strings is clearly audible; the mid-frequency is gentle and round without floating; in terms of bass, although it has a huge body, it has a quick response and a strong force.
Of course, if it can be matched with a high-quality power amplifier, its low frequency band will have better performance, and its diving ability and control ability will be better. However, even with this performance, it has already won a lot of ordinary speakers.
It is worthy of the joy of the majority of enthusiasts that this speaker with the highest gold content in the world will be unveiled at the audio exhibition at the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou on October 10, which is indeed a major event in the audiophile industry. No matter how good the writing is, it is not as good as a live audition. Listening is believing. Interested enthusiasts, it is better to hear it as soon as possible, when the Swans flagship 2.2 will be launched in the large exhibition hall on the third floor.
