Totem Acoustics Rainmaker Speaker Review

[warpdrive]

none of this should be a surprise to anybody who's looked into the brand. Various models have had review coverage and measured in stereophile and soundstagenetwork.

This is the current Skylight model from Stereophile review: https://www.stereophile.com/content/totem-acoustic-skylight-loudspeaker-measurements.

 

[Billy Budapest]

The drivers that look like Dynaudio are actually manufactured by a company called Hi-Vi / Swans.

The designer of Hi-Vi/Swans products is Frank Hale, an audio engineer of some acclaim.

 

[SuicideSquid]

I can't help but think if I still had a stereo pair this would be an interesting mod project. I think by adding some fill and a small pad on the tweeter a lot of the measured issues could be tamed.

 

[enricoclaudio]

Saw the Estimated In-Room Response graph and I thought I was looking to a Polk Audio RTi A9 speaker review LOL Man, those were the brightest speakers I have ever listened to. And these Totem do not fall too far from those. Just looking at the measurements got tinnitus....

 

[Hannibal_]

I owned Totem Hawks for 22 years and enjoyed every minute.
lovely speaker, despite that some bells in music were slightly exaggerated (still miss that sometimes, lol, playing with Forests now), it was indeed a great entertainer. The Forests I find more detailed and slightly more balanced.

I listened to totem one signatures recently.
Man, I didn’t recognise Totem at all.
Not sure what the issue was, the experience was too short.
I also listened to Totem Rokk’s recently, also relatively short, and that was a superb sound.

I don’t think you should compare all Totems just like that.

But this rainmaker….

 

[SuicideSquid]

I owned Totem Hawks for 22 years and enjoyed every minute.
lovely speaker, despite that some bells in music were slightly exaggerated (still miss that sometimes, lol, playing with Forests now), it was indeed a great entertainer. The Forests I find more detailed and slightly more balanced.

I listened to totem one signatures recently.
Man, I didn’t recognise Totem at all.
Not sure what the issue was, the experience was too short.
I also listened to Totem Rokk’s recently, also relatively short, and that was a superb sound.

I don’t think you should compare all Totems just like that.

But this rainmaker….

That's surprising to hear as the Signature One uses the same woofer and tweeter as the Forest.

 

[Hannibal_]

That's surprising to hear as the Signature One uses the same woofer and tweeter as the Forest.

I know!
(not sure if it is exactly the same components but they have a great reputation).
I was surprised too.

it may have been the amplifier or room?
well I did bother too long, since I was there for other business

 

[devopsprodude]

Preference Rating
SCORE: 3.0
SCORE w/ sub: 4.9

Sensitivity: 84.4dB (300Hz-3kHz ; spec: 86.5dB)
Frequency response: +/- 6.3dB 42Hz-20kHz ; +/- 4.5dB 80Hz-20kHz

View attachment 256602View attachment 256603View attachment 256604View attachment 256605View attachment 256606View attachment 256607​

That is one of the worst scores I've seen on here, wow.

 

[enricoclaudio]

That is one of the worst scores I've seen on here, wow.

You missed this one for sure

KEF T101 Review (Thin Speaker)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the KEF T101 slim/wall mountable home theater speaker. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $650 for a pair. This is a very solidly built thin speaker: It is clear a lot of engineering has gone into it. KEF developed a very shallow...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[cavedriver]

Darn I shouldn't have mentioned Totem as a brand missing from the site in the other thread (heard 'em before and didn't like 'em). Now only another 51 brands to go from the ones I mentioned - kidding!! Thanks for the review Amir. Wish you were east coast so I could send you more speakers.

 

[YSC]

seeing the panther before reading the review I was prepared for something I would call fair/not bad or even fine, then saw the chewed up response and resonanace, and going back checking theprice, poor it goes

 

[Laserjock]

This speaker is 15 years old.

The drivers that look like Dynaudio are actually manufactured by a company called Hi-Vi / Swans.

One of mine (DIY Swan/HiVi)

 

[SuicideSquid]

View attachment 256640
One of mine (DIY Swan/HiVi)

Nice! I recently completed a similar build using HiVi 5.8 drivers and SEAS aluminum dome tweeters.

 

[voodooless]

Well, another brand to strike off the list. I’m not really very surprised.

But it’s 15 years old you say. A lot has changed in 15 years… well maybe, but surely 15 years ago they could measure woofer breakup, port resonances and high distortion numbers. Genelec and others were capable of making decently measuring speakers back then (and way before) as wel. As @warpdrive showed, they couldn’t make an objectively decent speaker even in 2020.

 

[heraldo_jones]

Great drivers, bad implementation ... as usual with Totem

 

[PoorishDecision]

I use a set of these on my desktop. I really like them personally, they're great all rounders and don't need a sub. It was these or some focal 906s and these sound far better in my subjective opinion and use case.

 

[Tangband]

This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of Totem Acoustics Rainmaker Speaker. It is on kind loan from a member. It was released back in early 2000s for around $1,000 (pair):
View attachment 256587
The look and feel of the speaker lands in "good" category with nice use of wood/veneers which you don't see often today in small/budget speakers. As you may be able to guess, this is a rather small speaker which brings challenges usually in the form of dynamics. Not much to see on the back:

View attachment 256588

If you are not familiar with Totem Acoustics, the brand is the darling of Custom Integration channel. Company founder and designer, Vince Bruzzese, is at seemingly every show, putting on great demonstrations. Website and show booths are covered with pictures of models which I am sure helps with the male dominated industry they target. Recent claim to fame has been crossoverless woofers but I think this one does have one.

Even though this speaker is long discontinued, I wanted to get some coverage of the brand and hence this review.

Testing was performed without a grill and with tweeter as the reference axis.

Totem Rainmaker Measurements
As usual, we start with our usual frequency response ("spin") measurements:
View attachment 256589

Ouch! I must say I was not ready to see such uneven response replete with resonances in the upper midrange and lower treble. Near-field response shows the source being cabinet and woofer break up:

View attachment 256590

This is probably the worst example of such abnormal responses I have seen.

We can see other signs in both impedance/phase response and CSD/Waterfall:
View attachment 256591


View attachment 256592

Early window ironically is a bit better due to narrowing of the high frequency response (see directivity later):

View attachment 256593

The sum is not pretty as far as predicted in-room response:

View attachment 256594

Lack of a waveguide means wide directivity starting around crossover but then narrowing at the upper treble:

View attachment 256595

The wider directivity in lower frequencies should give a more diffused soundstage and narrow up above as noted, help with the brightness.
View attachment 256596


View attachment 256597

Distortion is low at 86 dB SPL:

View attachment 256598

View attachment 256599

At 96 dBSPL I could hear strange noises but the woofer did not thankfully bottom out.

Finally, here is the step response:
View attachment 256600

Totem Rainmaker Speaker Listening Tests
The out of box experience was not as bad as the insult on the eye that the frequency response was. Continue to listen though and the boomy low end starts to annoy while the boosted upper treble takes out hiss from tracks you didn't think had any! In an odd way though, it balances things a bit giving you a feeling of brilliance that the lower treble had taken out.

I build my EQ filters by eye and while the method usually works, it is no match to the extremely uneven response of the Rainmaker. I tried anyway:

View attachment 256601

In most tracks, this was an improvement but in a few, I thought the stock tuning was maybe better. At shows, Vince plays techno/modern music so I tried that with and without EQ. For sure, the failures of the speaker were less evident in that kind of content (think Deadmau5).

Conclusions
Objectively there are many failures in the design of Totem Rainmaker. Resonances are a problem as is very uneven frequency response. Subjective experience is not that bad, aided by decent dynamic range and ability of the speaker to keep going instead of falling apart as some small speakers do. Mind you, it is still "bad" but just not as much of an assault on your ears as the measurements are on your eyes.

I can't recommend the Totem Acoustics Rainmaker.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Interesting.
The bass tube on the rear has a very small diameter, its probably prone to resonances way up in the midrange .
This loudspeaker is not something one would use in the mixing process in a studio ( circle of confusion ).

 

[pierre]

A simple EQ to flatten the PIR.

I am not trying to correct the oscillations due to resonances. Score goes from 3. to 5.5 which is significant.
Note: the new histograms at the end: I am not sure they work properly yet but they will. The idea is to look at the distribution
of the differences between the measurement you want to optimise for and the ideal target. The first histogram does that
full range and the second one focus on the midrange. Error max also looks wrong (I will have a look).

EQ for Totem Acoustics Rainmaker computed from ASR data
Preference Score 3.11 with EQ 5.53
Generated from http://github.com/pierreaubert/spinorama/generate_peqs.py v0.18
Dated: 2023-01-12-22:09:57


Preamp: -3.2 dB


Filter  1: ON PK Fc    34 Hz Gain +2.99 dB Q 0.69
Filter  2: ON PK Fc  7046 Hz Gain -5.79 dB Q 0.93
Filter  3: ON PK Fc   185 Hz Gain -4.80 dB Q 1.44
Filter  4: ON PK Fc  1348 Hz Gain +1.24 dB Q 1.56
Filter  5: ON PK Fc 11118 Hz Gain -0.94 dB Q 2.91
Filter  6: ON PK Fc  2560 Hz Gain +0.94 dB Q 2.97
Filter  7: ON PK Fc  4064 Hz Gain -1.02 dB Q 2.58
Filter  8: ON PK Fc   289 Hz Gain -0.70 dB Q 2.75
Filter  9: ON PK Fc 10387 Hz Gain +0.59 dB Q 0.19

 

[voodooless]

The bass tube on the rear has a very small diameter, its probably prone to resonances way up in the midrange .

It’s not only probable, it’s proven :

The port is not only small, it’s also not flared. It looks like the cheapest option: drill whole, put in some drainage pipe.

 

[GWolfman]

think Deadmau5

Deadmau5 is bau5

Lol, thanks. Always nice to see a new brand/designer.