- WRITTEN BY PULASTYA
Swans Jam & Lab 8 are the flagship speakers in the Jam & Lab Series. Having reviewed the Jam & Lab 6 Tower Speakers along with the centre, surround speakers and sub woofer earlier, we decided to focus only the Jam & Lab 8 Tower Speakers, as the rest of the speakers which are part of the HT package remain the same for the Jam & Lab 8 HT Speaker package.
| HiVi Jam&Lab 8 Front Main Speaker | |
| System Type | 3-way 4th-order Vented Box System |
| Drivers Configuration | Two 8″ woofers
Two 5″ midrange drivers 1″ soft dome tweeter |
| Frequency Range | 38Hz – 20kHz |
| Harmonic Distortion | 60Hz – 20kHz ≤1%(2.83v/1m) |
| Sensitivity（2.83V/1m） | 88dB |
| Nominal Impedance | 6Ω |
| Power Handling | 10W – 200W |
| Dimension (W×D×H) | 9.4″ x 14.1″ x 42.5″ |
| Net Weight(each) | 63.9lbs |
Associated Test Equipment:
Amps:
Cambridge Audio 840A
Cyrus 6vs2
Cary Audio Pre/Power
Onkyo CRN-765
Source:
2 Channel –
Marantz SA7003
Onkyo CRN-765
Asus Xonar U7 DAC
Cables:
Nordost White Lightning Speaker Cables
Nordost Blue Heaven IC’s VDH The Name IC’s
Nordost Q-Base QB4 MkII
Nordost Red Dawn Power Cords
Home Theatre –
Pioneer BDP180
AVR’s
Pioneer VSX1131
Yamaha RXV581
Marantz SR5011
Unboxing:
The Jam & Lab 8 speakers come securely packed in good / thick quality card board boxes with adequate thermocol inserts, resulting in one receiving the contents in a damage free manner. The packing can be re-used easily for re-locations as well which is good news in these days of cutting costs/corners. A small zip lock pouch contains a small manual that comes with all the speakers. Since the sets we received were brand new, we tried to break-in all the speakers as much as possible (50 hours) in order to get a better idea of how they will sound once they had appreciably opened up. We started off with the Jam & Lab 8 Floor Standers in a stereo configuration and tried them out with various amps/sources as stated above.
Appearance:
The Jam & Lab 8 Speakers come in black ash, with a very good level of fit and finish. The tower speakers are rear ported with the port at the lower end just above the speaker wire binding posts. The binding posts are gold plated and are of good quality. Four hard plastic footers are located at the bottom of the tower speakers only. The baffle of the entire 8 series is in matt black finish with dark silver grey surrounds onto which the drivers are mounted. Good quality speaker grilles with equally good mounting fasteners are mounted into the grill frame to ensure a proper and secure fit to the baffle of the speakers. The HiVi Swan logo is located on the bottom end of the baffle of the towers. The Jam & lab 8 Tower speakers are substantially bigger than the Jam & Lab 6 Tower Speakers and are heavier and look imposing as well.
Performance:
Be in stereo or in HT, the Jam & Lab 8 speakers are very much worth their price points and do admirably well in going about the tasks given to them. Yes, they shine with quality associated equipment in the chain and really do so without any fuss. Where the 8 differ from the six is in the way the low frequency is pronounced. The 8’s are far more bass heavy than the 6 and should be a welcome addition to people who are looking for more bass. The rest of the frequency range is decent but gets a tad over shadowed by the presence of the bass frequencies. The Jam & Lab 8 fronts would ideally be suited for rooms around 250 to 400 sq ft. Placement is not very fussy but ideally being placed at a distance above 6 inches from the rear walls and at least 12 inches from the side walls will get the balance of the low frequencies optimized. A minimum distance between 4 feet and upto 8 feet between the 2 speakers also is advised from our experience of the Jam & Lab 8. We played a variety of music genre’s and found that the Jam & Lab 8 excel with electronic music, r&b, jazz and bass heavy music. Addition of a sub woofer generally is not required for the Jam & Lab 8 tower speakers, as by and large there is no need to enhance the bass provided by them as far as music duties are concerned but for enhancing the movies watching experience, surely one can add a sub woofer.
Verdict:
At an introductory price of Rs. 77,000/- the Jam & Lab 8 Tower Speakers are a good option for not only first time buyers but also ones that have started off and are well into their HT journey but are looking for an upgrade on a shoe string budget. The Jam & Lab 8 Tower Speakers provide more than satisfactory performance for the end user., are well put together having a good level of fit and finish with very appreciable levels of quality components put together. Highly recommended by us!