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Totem Acoustics Rainmaker Speaker Review

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 151 68.0%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 66 29.7%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 5 2.3%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    222

pablolie

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Which one from paradigm and monitor audio? I mean, you base a judgment on being "pretty sure" you heard them 20+ years ago, and you are "pretty sure" measurments would confirm? please.... I do own a monitor audio silver subwoofer in my setup and it does it's job. It's a good sub, not a great sub but I cross over very low, just looking for that 6o Hz down oumph, The two models I refer, I am sure, not "pretty sure" I have heard them, and I am sure the wind did not exist in the early 2000, the forest may have. And I am definitely sure they are way more hi fidelity than what Paradigm have always been doing, very generic low cost with the cheapest drivers they could find to get a semi flat response with a software generated low cost component crossover.

One thing that helps is to have kept some gear for many years. :) I still keep my 30 year old Luxman amp and my first high quality (German) tower speakers. I will rotate them in for fun, and I am amazed by how enjoyable they stil are. And I *have* compared that gear side to side with a Benchmark DAC and power amp combo, NAD Ncore power amp, and quite a few top speakers over the last 10 years.

And yes, I have done blind testings (thoroughly hateable as they are from a music enjoyment POV) with friends, on occasion also augmented with measuring gear to match stuff... but on long listening sessions, I think that the enjoyment factor (fuzzy as it maye be) is the more revealing aspect - rather than establish if I hear an extra 0.2% of castanet clarity somewhere or so, ugh. :)
 
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kongwee

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High and low hype, subjectivity more appealing to many.
 

MattHooper

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As with anything, it depends on what you value. If you want closest-to-flat-as-possible, these are not good value. But they're exceptionally well-constructed and finished (IMO best looking speaker in its price class by a wide margin at the time I was selling them) and lots of folks like the pumped up midbass and treble with the scooped midrange.

They're not particularly well-engineered speakers and they have obvious flaws, but they're definitely not a ripoff either.

Totem also used to have those fairly popular small, super thin/skinny speakers that put out a big spacious massive sound (for their size). They used to be playing all the time at our local AV store I think to grab attention. What were they? The Arrows?
 

SuicideSquid

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Totem also used to have those fairly popular small, super thin/skinny speakers that put out a big spacious massive sound (for their size). They used to be playing all the time at our local AV store I think to grab attention. What were they? The Arrows?
Arro, yeah, they came up earlier in the thread. They actually still make them - https://totemacoustic.com/product/arro/
 

Koeitje

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Which one from paradigm and monitor audio? I mean, you base a judgment on being "pretty sure" you heard them 20+ years ago, and you are "pretty sure" measurments would confirm? please.... I do own a monitor audio silver subwoofer in my setup and it does it's job. It's a good sub, not a great sub but I cross over very low, just looking for that 6o Hz down oumph, The two models I refer, I am sure, not "pretty sure" I have heard them, and I am sure the wind did not exist in the early 2000, the forest may have. And I am definitely sure they are way more hi fidelity than what Paradigm have always been doing, very generic low cost with the cheapest drivers they could find to get a semi flat response with a software generated low cost component crossover.
Cheap ones from in my budget at the time. So the pricing would be around €200-400 a piece? B&W 300 series monitor speakers were on my low-end and 600 monitor speakers at the high-end of my budget at the time.

As with anything, it depends on what you value. If you want closest-to-flat-as-possible, these are not good value. But they're exceptionally well-constructed and finished (IMO best looking speaker in its price class by a wide margin at the time I was selling them) and lots of folks like the pumped up midbass and treble with the scooped midrange.

They're not particularly well-engineered speakers and they have obvious flaws, but they're definitely not a ripoff either.

I don't agree, you had the Quad 11L and 12L. Easily match them in build quality and finish. Monitor Audio Silver series was also already pretty good.
 

JStewart

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For $1.5k+ at today’s prices (sadly), it’s headless panther for me.

Soundwise, wouldn’t this <$100 Dayton will be as good or better?

 

SuicideSquid

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For $1.5k+ at today’s prices (sadly), it’s headless panther for me.

Soundwise, wouldn’t this <$100 Dayton will be as good or better?

At low volume, pretty similar. Amir didn't test the Dayton at higher volume due to several issues he noted in the review, and the Rainmaker handles power pretty well, so at higher volumes I'd expect the Rainmaker to beat the pants of the Dayton.
 

anchan

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Plug the port with some foam, to get rid of the resonances, cross with subs to cover the low end, send it through DIRAC to clean it up and integrated the subs properly. That should about do it, right?
 

pablolie

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Plug the port with some foam, to get rid of the resonances, cross with subs to cover the low end, send it through DIRAC to clean it up and integrated the subs properly. That should about do it, right?

:) Surely it'd work... but the big question is... should we accept somewhat questionable design choices just because we can find workarounds?
 
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anchan

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Surely it'd work... but the big question is... should we accept somewhat questionable design choices just because we can find workarounds?

Definitely we shouldn't accept questionable design choices and poor FR for such a high dollar. I was partially being facetious with the recommendations. But if you picked them up second hand cheap, it's amazing what some sub integration and DSP can do when done properly.

There's a pair on Ebay right now for $499 OBO. Seems still high though.
 
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tomtoo

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Plug the port with some foam, to get rid of the resonances, cross with subs to cover the low end, send it through DIRAC to clean it up and integrated the subs properly. That should about do it, right?

Or get for the same money as this good engineered speaker.
 

sofrep811

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I bought a pair of these after many reviews back in the day. I liked them but was never blown away by them. How they tested is how I felt about them as well. Thanks!

Now we need a TAD speaker review.
 

fpitas

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I bought a pair of these after many reviews back in the day. I liked them but was never blown away by them. How they tested is how I felt about them as well. Thanks!

Now we need a TAD speaker review.
We recently had one, It did not go well.
 
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