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Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater. |
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Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater. |
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In September 1986, sophomore year of high school started, and my family got its first stereo system: Sony STR-AV780 receiver and some 29"-tall Sony APM loudspeakers. Both had the crummy spring-loaded terminals, where you inserted bare wire.
One Friday after school, we took MUNI Metro's M-Oceanview across San Francisco, got off at Van Ness station. We took a bus, and went to The Good Guys, which used to be on the NE corner of Van Ness and Bush. There, I bought Original Monster Cable speaker cable, which had angled pins at both ends.
In March 1990, on spring break from UC Santa Cruz, I went home to S.F. With the acquisition of the Adcom GFA-535, I left mid-fi, and entered "high-end audio." But aargh! The Original Monster Cable's angled pins did not fit into the GFA-535's twist-and-lock connectors.
So I went out to West Portal's Harmony A/V, where they - get this - (a) cut AudioQuest F-14 from a spool, (b) used the wire cutter to remove some of the white jacket, to reveal the copper leads, and (c) twisted the copper wires together. This F-14 fit perfectly, into the Adcom GFA-535 (and Sony APMs).
Later that spring 1990 quarter, we replaced the Sony APMs with the Paradigm 5SE, which also had the spring-loaded terminals. So no cable changes were needed.
In June 1991, I bought the little Pinnacle PN-5+ minimonitors. Since the Sony receiver was in my bedroom, the PN-5+ initially went there. Since the PN-5+ also had the spring-loaded terminals, it used my old Original Monster Cable speaker wire.
I would go to San Francisco's Ultimate Sound, which cut raw AudioQuest Type 4 from a spool, stripped the ends, twisted the copper wires, and tinned the ends. The Type 4 allowed me to move the F-14 into my bedroom.
In September 1991, instead of going back to dorms, I moved into a college apartment. My housemate Doug supplied a Denon integrated amp and bookshelf JBL loudspeakers. Since these two accepted pins or bare wire, they were perfect for my old Original Monster Cable.
During the Spring 1992 quarter, my friend Tuyet, an art major big on aesthetics, would come over. She replaced the Original Monster Cable with AQ F-14. Without any emotion in her voice, she remarked about audio equipment, "Not that the fronts win any beauty contests, but the rears, unlike people, are butt ugly."
In early summer 1992, I received a Target TT5 rack, to add to our old and existing "entertainment center." My friend ACS had finished her freshman year at UC Berkeley. She could not get on-campus housing, so she and some friends found an apartment, north of campus. But she was from San Francisco. That summer, instead of taking summer classes, she opted to work more hours at the Union Square Victoria's Secret. One afternoon, she walked a few short blocks to Ultimate Sound, where I had taken the AQ Type 4 back, to get the amp end fitted with spades, so that it'd fit onto the Muse Model 100's Cardas copper binding posts.
ACS came over to my place, and helped me move the equipment. We placed the Muse amp on a shelf above the TV. ACS had a devil of a time, positioning the Type 4's leads, while I tightened the binding posts' nuts. Because of the Muse's sharp heat sink fins and chassis edges, ACS' forearms got all scratched up. She joked that there should have been a warning sign, like those in Hawaii pointing out sharp coral.
After wrestling with the spades, ACS, who had the bad habit of making everything sexual, quipped that they were "Worse than bad first-time sex." She then asked why I didn't get banana plugs instead. FML.
This is a brochure from the March 1993 Stereophile Show in San Francisco. Note that May Audio carried Totem. At that Show, although the Totem Model 1 was among the smallest loudspeakers, it did a more credible job on rock/pop than most others. At the time, Totem were revising that speaker, to go from single wiring to bi-wiring. That entailed adding a second set of WBT binding posts.
In 1994-95, ACS was now a senior at UC Berkeley, But she still found time on weekends, to go to S.F., and work a few hours at Victoria's Secret. ACS would accompany me to Ultimate Sound, who brought in other Totems. The ones with WBT binding posts came with plastic inserts, which Ultimate Sound had a tough time removing. You couldn't really remove them with your hands. You needed to use pliers. ACS furled her brows, and laughed at the plastic inserts, "Those are their equivalent of butt plugs!"
Tuyet would have approved of Totem finishing the back panel of the Forest Signature. The original Forest utilized two pairs of gold-plated WBT binding posts. The FS keeps the gold-plated binding posts, but goes one step further, by using a WBT mounting plate.
Instead of lousy brass jumpers, Totem supply simple but effective L-shaped silver "paper clips." These are actually better than many after-market bi-wire jumpers. We will cover the option of single-wire + jumper in a future post.
Sigh, ACS is happy to know that you still should use pliers, to remove the "butt plugs."
Once you remove the plastic inserts, you can spin open the binding posts. Note that these accept banana plugs, spades, or bare wire. You thread the latter through the hole in the shaft. Sounds kinky, but isn't.
For most of 2024, this Ice white Totem FS has gone around, to various friends' homes. For ease of use and transport, a discrete bi-wire Kimber 4TC, with bananas all the way around, has been used.
We learned that, because of the FS' caliber, at a minimum, you should use the Kimber bi-wire 4TC. But the FS can achieve so much more, if its speaker cable preserves more of the signal.
With the 4TC, the FS correctly reveals the losses in body and weight. Moreover, the 4TC makes the overall sound a bit too splashy.
From using the FS in a multitude of homes, with a variety of electronics, and lashed up with myriad speaker cables, we learned quite a bit. Because of the FS' resolution, you need to experiment with bi-wiring. In general, if you are going to mix cables, the better one should go to the woofer post. But if the tonal balance is skewed towards the bass, sometimes you'll get a more even balance, if the better speaker cable goes to the tweeter post.
If you are comfortable with Kimber, many of you will like a combination of 4TC top and 12TC bottom. The 12TC does not lose as much body, weight, and substance. Its imaging is more stable. And its sound isn't as wavering, jittery, and splashy.
If you replace the Kimber 4TC/4TC with Carbon 8/Carbon 8, the FS just sits there, and lets you know what is going on. With the Carbon 8/Carbon 8, the FS is still lean and raspy, but with a much more detailed sound.
Used with an internal-biwire Cardas Cross, the FS takes on a different personality. Its imaging and sound become boppy. If you enjoy hitting those inflatable Bozo the clown boppies, you'll like what the FS does with Cardas Cross.
You'd think you bought a completely different speaker, when the FS is used with XLO's Ultra 12 internal biwire. The sound is solid, with blockish images. Said images have no space or distance between them. And the feel becomes slick, because all of the textures have been airbrushed out.
Things start to get really good, when the FS is fed by XLO's S3-5.4 internal biwire speaker cable. Images are not overblown, but are detailed, stable, and in focus. Speed, detailing, and control are in good measure. Not as see-through transparent and open as others, the S3-5.4 has the stability of, for example, 70-degree weather, good boba drinks, and second floor units.
On the Totem FS, the XLO S3-5.4 is killer, on certain musical and video game examples. But what if your household throws a lot of different genres at the stereo? Then, by a small margin, you may prefer the Kimber Bi-Focal XL. The latter is slightly more open, than the XLO. The images are slightly less solid, but the contrast between those images and background silence is more obvious. The Bi-Focal XL preserves a touch more air and space around images. Thus, if you are keen on being placed in the concert hall or recoding studio, you'll probably prefer this over the XLO. And the Kimber understands that, if you don't get the snap and timing of drums right, nothing else matters.
When our college student activity groups did beach cleanups, Tuyet would never help out. Instead, she would step back, get out her sketchbook, and do drawings. Afterward, Tuyet would suggest, "Let's get something good to eat, wash up, and check out the dances." She'd add, "Who cares if you have no dancing ability? Let's just go and boogie!"
The Totem Forest Signature is kind of Iike that. But as a speaker, it comes at the end of the audio chain. And thus, it waits for the upstream products to have equally enthusiastic attitudes.
-Lummy The Loch Monster
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Topic - Totem Forest Signature, Part 15 - Luminator 14:56:28 12/07/24 (3)
- nail gun at home depot - Leo loves music 08:15:36 12/08/24 (1)
- RE: nail gun at home depot - So? - Presto 15:41:07 12/11/24 (0)
- Any other brands in Totem price ranges worth considering ? - peppy m. 06:49:20 12/08/24 (0)
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