[audionutter]

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone here has used or is currently using these two way floorstanding "transmission line" based loudspeakers? Any opinion on them is most welcome. Cheers.

[JLM]

Auditioned them once in a horrible room (11 foot cube with one side being a full glass store front and an adjoining wall having lots of plate glass.  Not only did I feel like being on display for passersby, the acoustics were terrible with boomy bass.  The set up was primarily for HT, with an "entertainment center" between the speakers and I was trying to listen to just 2-channel audio.  (Why do folks call furniture entertaining anyway?)

Definitely not a fair test and couldn't draw any impressions.

In the back room were the Heron's in a nice enough system (can't remember, but the stuff wasn't my bag).  It had been a long day and left alone I fell asleep.  So my conclusion was of not being too impressed with Meadowlarks.

I wanted to like them.  I like Pat M's approach and have been a transmission line fan/owner since the 70s.

[suits_me]

I only heard them at a show, but Pat himself set them up with Rogue stuff and Naim software, so it should have represented what they can do. They were pleasant, and did a number of mini monitor type things well. I like their looks. A number of S'phile writers mentioned them in their breezy show coverage, and maybe that's on their website.

The Swifts don't have what I associate with transmission line bass, though, imo. I'm not sure the BASSIC was a good innovation finally.

[JLM]

The BASIC design sure didn't look like transmission lines I'm familar with.

[jswallac]

I own both a pair of Swifts and their slightly bigger brother the Kestrel2s.  The Swifts are really pretty small speakers.  They are similar in many ways to the rest of the meadowlark line, but do less of everything.  I find the Kestrels are a big jump up in performance even though they are just one up in the lineup.  I absolutely love the Kestrels.  The Swifts just do not quite bring the emotional level that the Kestrels do.  They do not have the convincing bass, nor are they as warm through the midrange.  I use them in an HT setup now where they do great (as long as you have a good sub).  Now that Meadowlark is out of business you can probably get these for $500 or less.  At that price they may be a good bargain, but I would try to find a pair of Kestrels for a little more.  I think you will be much happier with them.

BTW, even though these speakers are only rated as 89 db, they both do well with a little 10 watt PP tube amp.  They are easy loads with their 1st order cross and level 8 ohm load.

[Rob Babcock]

How do you like the bass of the Kestrel 2's?  I've been looking at them on A-Gon, as it seems like there's a lot of them for sale now that Meadowlark has gone belly up.  I had a pair of Onix Ref 1's for awhile, and while I didn't really care for them, I did think the Vifa Ring Tweeter was the high point.  If the Kestrel 2, which uses the same one, can provide the clarity in the highs without the overly bright, forward quality of the Onix's I'd be pretty intrigued.

I'm looking for something that will work in a small room yet fill a medium sized on as well, and give me full sound without a sub.  Furthermore, I don't really want standmounters, either.

[Rob Babcock]

BTW, I'd be driving them with my little 38 watt Onix Melody SP3.  So decent sensitivity and the ability to rock out with little power is a must.  I don't expect Slayer at concert levels, but I want convincing upright bass, etc.

[jswallac]

The Kestrel2s have plenty of bass, really much more than one would expect from a two-way speaker.  It is not boomy bass, rather a nice tight bass.  No need for a sub as I believe the speakers go down to an honest 35 Hz.  The speakers will sound wonderful with the Onix/Melody tube amp.  I really feel the Meadowlarks and tubes are a perfect match.

I have had an opportunity to hear the the Ref 1s and was not that impressed at their former price of around $1,500.  However combined with the amp at the AV123 speacial price they were a no-brainer.  I think a lot of people are, however, keeping the amps and dumping the speakers.

In addition to the incredible performance of the Meadowlarks, they have outstanding cabinet build quality.  The owner Pat M. took great pride in this.  In fact he moved operation from California to New York so that he could do his wood working without some of California's onerous regulations.  He told me he was once fined because of sawdust!  Hard to do much woodworking without creating sawdust.

[Rob Babcock]

I'm busted!   I wanted the amp so I split the combo with a fellow ACer.  The Ref 1's didn't suck, but they weren't a speaker I could live with long term.  Still, they did some things very right.  So I'm very interested in the Kestrel 2's.  Perhaps I'll give them a try.

[audionutter]

Thanks for all the replies so far! Reason I asked is because I had the opportunity to get the Swifts (but not the more expensive models) and well, the end result is I got them  

They're used in a secondary/extra stereo system I had, so I was pleasantly surprised by how inoffensive they sounded. Quite nice and acceptable sound, but no bass as had been commented before. Not a problem when you use them in a setup with a subwoofer.

I like the looks of them, although the drivers are not of very high quality. They are shielded drivers though, made by Vifa and I think from their mass market/cheapo range. Which led me thinking of replacing the drivers, since the swifts are 1st order Xover only.

Was thinking of using the Vifa higher end range of drivers as direct replacements, cos the sensitivities are simialr to the one currently in the Swifts. Anyone tried this before?

[LordCloud]

I own a pair of swifts, and I believe that most people that own these speakers that complain about any aspect of their performance, have either not set them up properly or they don't have a room that will properly support their abilities. The speakers absolutely disappear with a very deep and wide soundstage. They could definately be more extended at the frequency extremes, and they could be more transparent of course. Even for their original retail price they were a steal. These are not speakers for someone who likes only hi-fi effects, even though they image, soundstage, and do all the other audiophile tricks as well and soundsage and image better than most of the competition. These are speakers for people who love music. Besides my Django, these will be the last things I change in my system.

[audionutter]

Interesting that you also use a passive pre-amp. I use the swifts with a DIY'ed passive pre-amp, made from a DACT stepped attenuator and  pure silver wire throughout. Selector switch is from Seiden and RCA sockets are ihgh quality gold plated ones. Case is acrylic, not metal (to minimise any effects/eddy current/whatever)

The Swifts are good, but I wonder if I can wring more performance out of them by replacing the original Vifa drivers with similar but higher quality ones from Vifa.

[LordCloud]

The Swifts are good, but I wonder if I can wring more performance out of them by replacing the original Vifa drivers with similar but higher quality ones from Vifa.

I love my Swifts, but I do recognize what they lack. A friend of mine (you guys know him as HeavyStarch) is modding my Swifts for me pretty soon. I'm not changing out the drivers because I won't be able to modify the crossovers, but I would love to get a more resolving tweeter put in. But I am having some silver wire put in, new binding posts, and some vibration dampening for the crossover, as well as some contact enhancer. I will try and get a picture of my set up when he comes over( I don't have a digital camera), so you can get an idea of how I have my speakers set up. I am not lying when I say these speakes are an absolute bitch to set up optimally. I've had them for almost three years now, and I am just getting them to sound near their best. They are very responsive to positioning and room treatments. Because of these speakers, I have come to believe that most people don't experiment with positioning and room treatments enough to realize the full potential of whatever spoeaker they may own.  

How are you liking your passive? Before I got the Django, I was going to get a Goldpoint balanced passive. I have to say, I can't imagine replacing the Django, may be some upgrades, but that's about it.

[audionutter]

Hi,

That's an interesting mod that you're gonna try. Do let me know what the outcome is. I am sure the sound will improve, just to what degree.

I wasn't gonna mod the Xover, cos it's just a simple first order design anyway, with a capacitor, coil/inductor and a resistor to account for the higher sensitivity of the tweeter. What I did do was to look round Vifa's site and saw that the original swift drivers are really their cheapest range, hence why I thought of getting their more expensive drivers as "drop in" replacements, since their sensitivities and load/ohm rating's the same. Their Thiel-Small parameters are a little bit different but only for the mid/bass driver, which I am sure will not matter since the swifts use a transmission line like loading system.

Did you get the Django from DIY Hi FI Supply? I got my Seiden and DACT stepped attenuator from him. I was thinking of a Django but then I realised it used the same Seiden selector switch and it was cheaper and more customisable if I DIY'ed. I have to say, in the system that I am using the passive pre-amp in, it was one of my best decisions! The improvement in sound quality is tremendous, no lack of dynamics either. I originally got the idea when I tried my CD player direct into the power amp, bypassing the active pre-amp I was using at the time. I was able to do this cos the CD player had a  variable analogue output control, but since the lowest setting on that was still way too loud, I had to look for an alternative which didn't take too much away from the signal. Hence the passive pre-amp, which basically is just one long interconnect with a resistor in the signal path to alter the gain and give volume control. Since I used pure silver wires throughout, I reckoned that the signal loss would have been less than what it would be in an active pre-amp.

I had also compared the DACT/Seiden passive pre-amp to other active pre-amps, including the Bryston BP-20/BP-25 that my friend has. Needless to say, since it was feeding a 4BST power amp, my passive pre sounded so much mre transparent, detailed and gave a more 3-D soundstage than his BP-20/BP-25! So much so that he was tempted to DIY his own passive pre-amp!

[ken]

I just bought a pair of swifts from the fire sale a couple of months ago.  Mine are light maple but not the yellowish maple you see on alot of speakers and look terrific.  These replaced a pair of GR-Research AV-1's  which I also like very much but The swifts just sound more open and detailed.   I have them paired with a Cayin TA-30 along with the TAD-150 tube preamp as well as an adire rava sub to compliment the bass and they sound pretty damn good and seem to mate very well with tubes.  I'm very limited as far as placement is concerned so I'm not sure how much better they can sound.  I'm also very curious how your mod's turn out so keep us posted

[LordCloud]

I did get my Django from Diy Hi-Fi supply. It is definately one of the best audio purchases I have made, if not the best. It is far more detailed, open, and transparent than the tube preamp I had before. One thing I was worried about was the depth, dimensionality, and soundstaging. I didn't want to lose any of these things as I had always read that tube preamps do them better than anything else. Well, I gained in every one of those areas when I went passive, without loss of dynamics, without any loss of anything! I love the damn thing. One thing I would like to do with my Swifts is actually get rid of the binding posts all together. I'll probably do that once I settle on my permanent speaker cable for these sperakers, which will probably be either Silent Audio or Mapleshade's top of the line. I may have to look into the better drivers as well. But I do plan on getting the Ospreys once I get everything else I want.

I have my Swifts in a nearfield listening position and rather close together. I have tried them in the more traditional, widely spaced and far away positions, but it just didn't work for me. The closer I moved the speakers to me, the more I heard and the more the music seem to gel. The closer I moved the speakers together, the more dense and more dimensional the images became. Like I said, once I can get a picture of my current set up, I'll post it for you guys to see as they are really not too many people who listen in the nearfield. But it works for me in a spectacular way. I'll keep you guys posted on the mods.

Ken, how do the Swifts mate with the subs? I am itching to get a good sub in my system. I am really looking into dual dipole subs.

[ken]

Hi,

     The Rava integrates very well with the swifts, I have the xover set at approx 55-60 hz and the line level at approx 10:00 -11:00 and it really provides a nice full sound without boom.   I have the sub in the front approx one foot to the left from the right speaker.  It is very difficult for me to experiment with placement as my listenting room which is 18x20 is also a family room/dining room.    The wall I have all my gear on also has a 12 ft opening  into the kitchen  so eveything (including a 6 foot entertainment center between the speakers) is bunched up along a six foot section of the wall way off center   I don't mean to go off topic but I noticed when I shut my cayin off and leave the preamp on I can hear vocals coming from the rava and not sure how normal this is.  I'm using one cable from the line in on the sub to one of the outputs on the preamp.   it's very low and muddled and by no means prominent but definitely noticeable and increases when the level is increased.  I can only completely eliminate it if  the level is lowered to it's lowest setting.  Any thoughts.

Ken