Totem Forest uses a Swan driver???????


Is this true? Forest would be using some HiVi (Swan) drivers (stock or modified, I do not know), the D6.8 Bass-Midrange:
http://www.swanspeaker.com/product/htm/view.asp?id=57
A friend of mine had to get his changed 3 times in less than a year and the last time his dealer told him these were Made in China by a former Canadian-based company and - of the record - not necessarily of the higher grade (got to love a dealer who can shoot himself in the foot that way!!!!!!).
Does this mean that one could...for much less....or this is something frequent, these drivers are top notch anyway and there is nothing wrong with using Hivi drivers in $3,000 speakers?
beheme
Warnerwh , I believe this is what most are refering to. The kits give you a chance to see what's going on with a speaker and how it works. The designers of these kits don't treat the intrinsic designs like an ancient chinese secret or form of magic, as do some of the big brand names out there. This allows the end user to get a better grasp on what's involved.

I totally agree it is complicated. That's why there are speaker kit designers. ;-) If your lazy like me, you can even have them to assemble the kit for you. This saves a lot of money as you don't pay for a middle man or distribution fees. Sorry Warnerwh I forgot ..you are the middleman. :-o

Now if you can work past cost verses performance = the more you pay = pride of ownership illusion..you could possibly be a happy camper.LOL

As Ultrakaz points out the ratio could be 5:1 or more. You'll notice with kits the ratio comes down considerably.
My speaker ratio is less than 2:1 as the driver and internal components are roughly 1/2 the cost of the complete speaker including labor. Throw in the cabinets and labor and the the speaker cost 2/3 to build what it sells for. Speaker kits with this ratio would sell retail..I'm guessing some where between $5000 and $6000. That's using the 5:1 ratio which includes manufacturing speaker cost of $1150 for parts and labor.
To clarify, I was not alluding to DIY as being the ultimate solution as I would not know where to start personally....I was just thinking that with a $30 tweeter, a $60 bass driver and a nice rigid cabinet with good looking veneer, someone could assemble a " decent copy" and market it direct for less than $700...or may be call it a Swan Tree and sell it for $899!
The Forest uses an ATI built driver, Totem only uses high quality drivers. The scanspeak revelater driver used in there hawk design retails for $300 by itself.
Good thread but please keep in mind that there is a lot more to a good speaker than what drivers are used.

Chris