If we float passive speakers without means to restore their original floor-coupled tonal balance via DSP EQ plug-in; and if our floor is quite resonant; we're bound to give up raw bass mass. The more effective our isolation from the floor, the more warmth, heaviness and darkness we give up to lighten our prior tonal balance. It shows that our isolation is truly effective. It's precisely why I use mechanical isolators with adjustable active bass systems. They easily compensate. The upshot is quicker more precise bass with far less overhang so superior intelligibility and textural continuity with the mid and upper bands. Less boom, more zoom. No more Soggy Bottom Blues. No more morse code in my wife's room from bass beats migrating down the corridor across our home's entire width. It's why I asked for one more "hung-off-the-floor-not-ceiling" gig. This stuff really works. After my Wellfloat review, their new US importer compared notes: "I totally agree. When you remove the floor resonance which becomes its own off-the-beat transducer, there's a perception of less bass. You compensated with subwoofer controls, I did by rerunning my DSP processing with room EQ wizard to create a new convolution filter for Roon. The audible difference was enough to make me feel like I needed to redo the DSP. It's funny how many audiophiles will spend countless dollars on speaker cables which are not nearly as much of a gross distorter." Quite. Looking at the SwingBase, being of very simple construction takes nothing away from its ingenuity, only surprise for not having occurred to anyone else yet. Wellfloat move their hanging mechanism inside their parts, Boenicke leave them outside. Otherwise it's exactly the same concept. To quote Joachim Gerhard again, "I can easily measure the SwingBase effect so would do without it only under threat of physical violence".

Then why is it still so obscure? Sven Boenicke's patent application dates back to August 24th, 2010.

It's ancient news. Yet how many critical listeners have even considered a SwingBase for a non-Boenicke speaker or subwoofer since? That's my point. It remains an obscure invention with no marketing behind it. Hopefully today's review can make a small dent in consumer awareness. As Sven Boenicke's patent application states, "we don't know of any competitors which regardless of load weight show such high effectiveness and remain easily height adjustable. Pendulum effectiveness increases with lowered horizontal friction. This is possible only with suspension via wire, rope or flexible knuckle joints. It prevents the transmission of kinetic energies in the horizontal plane from 5Hz on up." Should you wonder whether a SwingBase for loudspeakers is directional—in all photos I've seen the towers always sat to the sides never front/back—Sven confirms that it's not. Use whichever orientation gives better stability and optics. For narrow speakers like Boenicke's own, order your struts a bit longer so they become more effective outriggers. On my Dynaudio sub, 30cm struts suffice crosswise. The sound|kaos needs 57cm to go lengthwise and avoid a central wire-harness chamber that runs down the middle. A set of 57cm braces would thus suit both subs running front to back. So that's what I asked for. As to price given costly manufacture in CH, Sven opted for just 775/set Swiss to open potentially far more doors than working with the usual multipliers would allow. That's significantly less than a trio much less quad of Carbide or Wellfloat Delta footers; and virtually the same as a trio of 90kg/max B2 footers from French brand Neodio which had arrived by parallel dispatch.

Your SwingBase shipment in either black or silver will contain these ten parts: four towers, two struts and four inserts which simply slip into the hollow bars. Nothing could be simpler.

Because for upstairs the struts were unnecessarily long to avoid the double trouble of more custom-cut parts, I had to turn the sub diagonal to fit the SwingBase between wall and carpet. Whilst looking odd, it was functionally perfectly salubrious.

Once our component hangs, we adjust the tower rotation and final distance to insure that nothing binds up for friction-less floatation. For ideal cosmetics, I'd spec far shorter struts to run crosswise and orient this sub at its original 90° angle with the listening axis. But this was no beauty just a sonic contest. Meanwhile in the downstairs realm of plenty, the big sound|kaos sub fit perfectly as measured.

With Raidho X2t.