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
You might be surprised just how inexpensive most drivers are in speakers that are well over $3000. I wouldn't worry about it. It is all relative as long as you enjoy the end results. That's why some audiophiles go DIY..they get first hand knowledge of what drivers and other parts are used in their speakers..no surprises.
Is this a new game..."outing" speaker manufacturers regarding the common drivers they use? Gmood1 has it right. If you don't want to pay for overall design and fabrication of the speaker system, and for a prestegious nameplate, get into DIY speaker building.
Standard industry formula of 1:5, the Forrest would need to be manufactured for 600.00. The markup covers all the things we Audiogoners like to avoid: dealer markup, middleman/distributer, manufacturer profit, marketing, R&D, overhead, consumer discount, etc.

That leaves us with $300 per speaker. The cost to make the cabinet is the most expensive part. Say $200 each in quantity, probably more (actually a screamin' deal; real wood veneer and finished nicely with the additional borosilicate on the inside.)

After all that we have $100 for the actual drivers (tweet and woof), crossover/connectors and shipping boxes.

I've been diy-ing for several years, but really have not saved too much as I keep buying more and more drivers for future projects(!). However, if you are really disciplined and don't get addicted, you can save a lot.