We got an email from Daniel Bolduc (Quebec, Canada) letting us know that he has followed up his DIY Swans Tempus Bookshelf Speakers with another DIY build of a HiVi Research speaker. Daniel tells us that the speakers were built for his uncle who was very impressed with the Tempus speakers, but wanted something a little smaller and finished in a piano black high gloss finish.
Sticking with drivers from HiVi, Daniel proposed to build a DIY version of the Swans M1 Speakers. For the enclosure Daniel used a pair of ready made speaker enclosure from Parts Express. I used a pair of the curved Dayton Audio 0.38 ft^3 enclosures with black piano gloss finish for my Fostex FX120 bookshelf speakers and the enclosures are well built and look great.
The high gloss finish on the speaker cabinets will scratch easily so be sure to cover the area well so you don't scratch it with the router when cutting the port and driver holes. The crossover schematic is shown below and Daniel wound his own inductors for the crossover.
The drivers used in Swans M1 speakers are the HiVi F5 (5" bass / midrange) and the HiVi RT1C planer tweeter.
The speaker project cost about $550CDN for the pair and Daniel estimates he invested about 55 hours. I think Daniels build looks much better than the original Swans M1 speakers.
Daniel writes: "So far, I'm very satisfied with the M1's and my uncle is rediscovering his discography with the pair I built for him and is also impressed by the sound reproduction quality."
For full details, more photographs and a materials list for this DIY speaker project, see Daniel's Swans M1 speaker build.