HiVi-Swans Oasis 140 Passive Speakers, 2-Way HiFi Bookshelf Speakers for TV Desktop Stereo or Home Theater Surround Sound - Needs Amplifier or Receiver to Operate

Great little speakers had them for a few months now as my 2.1 system, you will need a sub for the lower octaves and plugging the ports is recomended as they are noisy and don't add much, imaging and soundstage are good for the price, not much resonance in the cabinet, as another reviewer said the off-axis sound near field is not the best, ideally you will want these pointed closer to your ears if you are near-field. Though listening far field is great. The grill does restrict the sound slightly. They work well both upright and placed on their sides. They handle 50 wpc easily and get very roudy with this amount of power, they can likely take more if you put a high-pass on them. They sound good at low volume too, very clear. Good weight for their size, and sturdy construction. They play any genre well due to being linear from about 100hz-18khz. The packaging they come with is also good. They can reproduce sounds like rain, fire and birds accurately. Binding terminals are big and well made can accept 12 guage wire.

Being directly related to the Swan OS10 variant which is the powered version, I didn't think these would reach far beyond those, but they scale so intensely with better amplification. I do have to agree with the four-star review here that the grills do impede the sound projection due to the thick nature of the outside wood frame. Taking the grill off or turning the speaker sideways and leaving the grill on alleviates that.I'm still giving these five stars on sound alone. I haven't looked at the internal crossover but I imagine it is meticulously designed to take advantage of hivi drivers and these speakers are far better built with far better rear terminals and materials than they have any right to be at this price point.As far as the sound goes they almost compete with six inch speaker models, they sound much bigger than they are although will not reach down below maybe 70 Hertz so a subwoofer is required for full immersion. Vocals are rich and creamy beating out other long time winners of this entry level category, treble is sharp and accurate but never piercing and the BIGNESS and imaging are some of the best I've heard in any passive speaker regardless of price and size.I see no reason to not recommend them unless you have to use the grills and keep them in a vertical arrangement. Relatively easy to drive with a 50 WPC amplifier. The actual cabinet material is matte and although lacks the fake wood texture you expect, I find it actually looks better than most speakers attempting it. I hope these remain in stock so people can enjoy them for the next few years until swan decides to sell a slightly larger model!

Pros- The sound is much better than expected for the price, but only without the grille.- It looks nice.- The woofer units seem good.Cons- The grille isn’t good. The sound is much better without it, so it’s better to leave it off.- Tweeter units are not as good as woofer units.- The sound changes a lot depending on the volume.- The quality of the sound can vary depending on where you’re sitting.- The corners are sharp and could be a bit dangerous.

The swan oasis 140 is small and looks great. I'm shocked how well they sound for their size, but they have a couple major issues. The port is horrible. It's noisy when turned up and doesn't actually help the speaker. The first thing to do is plug the port, then run them with a 100hz highpass filter. They only go to 80 hz as is(with a lot of port noise), so you're not losing anything by doing this. If you want bass, you need a sub. The major dealbreaker for me is the off axis response is bad. This might not be an issue for some, but on a desk at ear level, the sound changes significantly when leaning forward or back even a few inches. If you don't move and set them up properly, they sound far above their price. I really wanted to use the swan 140 as my surrounds in my home theater. I even liked them so much I thought about replacing my kef 150s at my desk, but I simply couldn't ignore their off axis. It was a hard decision to return them, but they aren't for me. After a lot of listening, I think the neumi bs5 is a better all around budget bookshelf speaker for a little less $.