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While reading the Totem review in the new Stereophile, I went 20 years back and read late Bob Reina's review of Totem Rainmaker, a budget speaker costing some twenty times less. Reina was raving at the good sound. I don't know what the tests said. But I now regret not buying it. Is it available in the used market? It must have been a big seller.
Bill
Follow Ups:
Totem Rainmaker SUCK !!!!
Let's just be brutally honest 99% of reviews are blatant lies told by people who profit from the audio industry. And why would you believe what a stranger says? An audio reviewer is no different than a lawyer, used car salesman or a politician they are all profiting off their lies!!
Look at the John Atkison measurements I have reposted they tell the story of a speaker that has cheap drivers with horrible frequency responses that belong in the trash.
One look at the impedance the first impedance spike is smaller than the second spike this tells us the speakers cabinet is too small of a volume along with no cabinet bracing and a port that is too small causing a bump from 60 HZ to 400 HZ with a 6db peak. Look at the frequency response of the individual drivers you can clearly see the mid/woofer cone is breaking up from 600 HZ to 2000 KHZ. And the tweeter is one of the worst frequencies responses I have ever seen in a mass-produced speaker. From 4000 KHZ to 17000 KHZ the tweeter is to loud with almost 10db peak this is a huge problem an increase of 10db sounds twice as loud to the human ear, so this tweeter is almost twice as loud as the average frequencies that is totally unacceptable, and this speaker should never have been produced.
So, is the designer Vince Bruzzese incompetent when it comes to speaker design absolutely not so why would he design such a horrible speaker? using drivers that do not measure as good as speakers in a 1970's boom box?
Sad to say this speaker is all about profit not design the cheap peerless made in India drivers he used suck Why would he use a mid/woofer that start to break up at 600 HZ and why use a tweeter that can't play flat from 4000 KHZ to 17000 KHZ?
The answer is he did not choose the drivers because of their response he chose them because they were a mistake by the manufacturer and sold at a huge savings the drivers retail are $20 mid/woofer and $15 tweeter. What happens is the manufacturer made a run of these drivers possibly making a couple thousand or more before catching a mistake or the purchaser cannot or does not pay and the manufacturer not wanting to be stuck with the drivers will sell them off at a huge discount. He probably bought 2000 mid/woofers and 2000 tweeters for $2000 to maybe $2500 when a manufacture is trying to sell drivers like these the price is always very cheap and very negotiable.
I am sure the cabinets are premade from China. Chinese wholesalers like Alibaba have a wide verity of premade empty speaker cabinets bought in bulk they are cheap.
These speakers are a good example of people in the high-end audio industry making profit from trusting customers that do not realize they are being robbed of their hard-earned money. There is only one logical reason any competent speaker designer would use such horrible drivers that reason is they were dirt cheap combine that with a cheap premade Chinese cabinet and you now have a scam/speaker to bring to market. This is where things get really shady due to the fact people gave these speakers good reviews is proof, they are profiting or doing a favor for a friend or friend of a friend.
There are many scam products in the high-end audio industry like it or not it is true people we want to trust are the people that will steal from us first and never think twice about doing so.
I'm sure he wants to add to this thread. He always likes to participate in the discussion on other's postings.
If it's Totem speakers or Kimbel cables, he's on it.
Edits: 01/18/25 01/19/25
We don't need another long post with off-topic information.
"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing, if you can fake that you've got it made." Groucho
Yes, please don't!!!!!
Edits: 01/24/25
nt
Hi, I made a pair of speakers in 1988 using Dynaudio drivers.They were very expensive.The tweeters, A-20's ,were about 70 bucks each. I wanted to modify a pair of Dynaco A-25's later on following an article in Speaker Builder magizine..Dynaudio changed it's policy and would not sell to individuals.I looked up Dynaudio today and the prices were astronomical maybe explaining the 8 grand plus for the Totems.I could not find Dynaudio's policy on their site. It looks like now they are selling raw drivers but I can't see anyone buying them with the current economy. Do any of you guys know how it works? I know a few years ago Madison's would not sell any but I saw some separate models for sale today on my IPod.I don't know if they were used or what. I bought my raw drivers at a place called A and S speakers which I think is long gone. Just curious...-.thanks...-Mark Korda
I saw a review of Totem Dreamcatcher by late Bob where he raves about the sound. He goes Gaga over it saying it was the best sounding speaker during his reviewing career. All for 575 bucks. But based on his measurements John Atkinson thought otherwise calling the test results disappointing. This must have been rather damaging to the Totem. I was reminded of this while reading JA's test results of the latest Totems costing 8K.
Bill
It's interesting, Bill...Reference 3A MM De Capo and Audio Note speakers, for example, have almost a cult following regarding people who love the way they sound but John Atkinson's measurements of them leave much to be desired. Speakers that have a flat FR may not work in a particular room and some with various resonances and phase and impedence anomalies and an aberrant looking FR graph may sound appealing depending on the setting.
Chocolate, I am glad you have forgiven me for raising all these questions about budget speakers. Cheers.
Bill
Nt.
Mark in NC
"The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains" -Paul Simon
You either like the sound of Magnepan speakers, or you don't. And you buy accordingly. Magnepan speakers are one of the more popular choices, but fans are basically forced to rely on subjective impressions of them...Reviewing Magnepan speakers, John Atkinson of Stereophile once admitted he did not know exactly how to measure them.
Magnepan must know something about correlating certain objective measurements with subjective listening impressions, or so I would guess. But AFAIK, anyone who "likes" the sound of Magnepan speakers cannot point to a slew of objective measurements in order to justify their admiration. People who have tried to measure them find that their measurements don't look very "good". They can only say that they "like" them (or not), or that they "seem to sound good" (or don't)...
When considering buying speakers like Magnepans, you simply decide to bite the bullet. Or not.
Edits: 01/22/25 01/22/25 01/26/25 01/26/25
See Mr. Bruzzese's manufacturer's reply to the new Element Fire review. The elevated on-axis treble response in that graph should flatten out to the sides.
It would be nice to see a follow-up to the new review, with in-room measurements FROM the listening position and the speakers set up as recommended by Totem.
The elevated treble will not flatten out measurements do not lie however speaker designers and manufacturers lie every day.
Should also note that the LF blump may be an artifact of JA's nearfield measurement technique, and not actually that pronounced in a real acoustic space.
Look at the speaker's impedance graph you will see the first impedance spike is smaller than the second spike this is because the cabinet is too small of volume along with a port that is too small.
It is not an artifact from John's measurements. And Johns measurement Techniques are industry standard. And rooms really only effect from 200 HZ down. some will say 300 HZ down but that is wrong.
All speakers have always been measured one of two ways. Back in the day they used to measure all speakers @1 watt/2.83 volts at 4' through the years sensitivity decreased so they moved the mic closer to the speaker, so todays standard is still @1 watt/2.83 volts, but they moved the microphone one foot closer to increase sensitivity so industry standard today is @1 watt/2.83 volts at one meter.
Please do not think John Atkinson measurements are off I assure you they are spot on, and John is very knowledgeable and is not going to make mistakes he learned to measure from speaker designers over the years and he is doing everything right. He is one of the consumers only hope for the truth because the manufactures certainty are not going to be 100% truthful it will hurt their profits.
And these like many other speakers have been independently measured and those measurements posted online, and they are the same absolutely horrible !!!
what I find most challenging is the artificial brightness.
Not at all my kind of tonal profile with 6 db peak at 100 hz and broad 6-8 db peak from 6k to 10k. Sizzle boom!Is that what you want? I'm curious as to what you're currently using as you don't provide a system profile.
Edits: 01/17/25
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