LOUDSPEAKERS: Does the Totem Mani-2 still rate as one of the ...

I’d like to thank you for publishing
the component-by-component description
and especially the photo of the
Omega system on the UHF Web site.
I have long been curious to see a photo
of any of your three systems, but since
they are working tools I had assumed
that they were, shall we say, less than
presentable. Given all the equipment and
accessories you review, I had a mental
image of ankle-deep piles of mismatched
interconnects and cables strewn about
the room.
It’s also reassuring to see that you
have the same aggravating room problems
as your readers (what appears to be
a doorway just left of the left speaker, the
turntable sitting askew on its platform to
allow for access, etc).
The combination of the Omega
system photo and the similarly appreciated
UHF No. 75 State of the Art article
has given me a sort of speaker positioning
awakening. I had always understood
and agreed with your advocacy of
placing the speakers on either side of a
room corner (if possible), but I had not
conceived of being asymmetrical within
that placement (i.e. I had always assumed
that the corner should be exactly midway
between the two speakers). Unless
my eyes are deceiving me, the Omega
system speakers are not centred about
the corner, but are shifted rather significantly
to the left. True?
Given such an asymmetrical corner
placement, should each speaker nevertheless
be about the same distance out
from the wall (as appears in the Omega
system), or can that also be different?
Given a decent hi-end system and
acoustics, and a stereo image that
appears to originate midway between
the speakers from the “sweet spot”, how
far off axis should one be able to sit and
still hear that image as being centered
rather than increasingly originating
from the nearest speaker? All the way
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out until a speaker is directly in front of
you? Beyond even that?
Given the size of standard equipment
racks and the W-8, it looks as though the
inside edges of the Omega Reference
3a’s are about 2 m apart, but only about
30 cm out from the wall (that seems
really close). Given that the Omega
system is in a “large room” just how far
from the speakers is your listening position?
I would imagine relatively close.
My Totem Mani-2’s are centered
about the narrow wall of a long, narrow
room (8.4 m x 3.5 m) having at best
mediocre acoustics. They are placed
way into the room, about 1.25 m from
the back of the speakers to the wall. I
have always assumed they needed that
much room for their prodigious depth.
In your recollection from the review
you performed (quite a few years ago
now), is that distance too great? (For
reference, my speakers are about 1.8 m
apart centre-centre, and I sit 2.8 m away
from them — and with experimentation
I think that the 2.8 m is about 0.6 m too
far away.)
I had rejected an Omega-like speaker
placement when I first bought my house
due to the constraints of the room, but
if the Totems can be significantly closer
to the wall (particularly in a cornercentered
placement), then it’s worth a
try experimenting with such a placement
to see if I can improve the width
of my currently very narrow sweet spot.
By necessity I’ll almost be in the nearfield
(another great UHF article), but
that might help negate the poor room
acoustics.
Jeff Tennant
BURLINGTON, ON
Jeff, for anyone who missed it, we should
mention that the photos of our Omega system
appeared on line in our ephemeral Virtual
Room, which opened the week before the
Montreal show and remained open through
mid-April. It has since closed, but we expect
to bring back new incarnations of it.
We should add that the Omega system
was particularly easy to photograph, but the
Alpha system is a lot closer to the way you
imagine our systems to be.
You are right that the speakers have
been placed asymmetrically in the room, but
then the walls on either side are not quite
identical. You noted that there is a doorway
to the left, but there is also a doorway on the
right... actually a large archway to an even
larger room. These are not necessarily bad
things. An open doorway does not reflect
sound, and thus it can be thought of as a
broadband absorber. The speakers are indeed
quite close to the rear walls, about 50 cm
out, a distance that was determined by ear.
Speakers we review are first listened to at the
same distance, then adjusted by ear as well.
The speakers are actually quite far apart,
about 4.5 metres, and we listen, typically,
from about 4 metres back.
The Signature version of the Mani-2 is
reviewed in this issue, and we found that a
distance of about 65 cm from the rear wall
was about right, though that will vary from
room to room. By the way, how far off you
can sit off-axis and still hear a stereo image
depends on speaker placement, acoustics, and
especially the speakers themselves. With our
Reference 3a speakers you can get away with
being well off-axis. The same would be true
of well-placed Totem Mani-2’s.
Of all the many enjoyable things on
your Web site, the tour of the Virtual
Room was the best. I would love to see
the same treatment to the other two
rooms you maintain.
Thanks for all the good advice.
Jay Valancy
IRVINE, CA
First, let me say we appreciate the
opportunity to have UHF Magazine
review our speakers again after so much
time. This new range of Energy speakers
is in our opinion one of the best we
have ever made and still continues to
provide Canadian audiophiles with the
best sound available for the money. We
were therefore surprised to read that
your team was unimpressed with the new
Reference Connoisseur RC-70 speakers.
This is one of our most popular speakers
and has, to date, received terrific reviews
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine