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

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highlighting their tremendous imaging,
dynamics and musicality.
Tom Norton, of Stereophile and
Ultimate AV fame, had a totally different
opinion of the RC-70 than your team.
In his review Mr. Norton is quoted as
saying, “the RC-70 had superb overall
tonal balance” and that the “top end of
the RC-70 is as open, airy and as detailed
as you could wish for.” Mr. Norton’s
comments regarding soundstage reproduction
and midrange accuracy are also
different from what you found. He said,
“the RC-70’s sounded neither ‘in your
face’ forward nor recessed, and produced
a detailed, well-focused soundstage…
Voices were…beautifully served by
the RC-70, with soaring female voices
and male vocals that were rich and full
bodied.”
We are not sure if your opinions
were biased due to your experience and
appreciation of the old Reference Connoisseur
model, or if you were looking
for something else from these speakers.
Your comparison of the original Reference
Connoisseur to today's RC-70 is
like comparing a 20-year-old muscle car
with today's muscle car. They are very
different in every sense, and making
a direct comparison is like comparing
apples and oranges. While both may
be good or excellent cars, they do things
very differently, and this must be taken
into consideration.
Today’s Reference Connoisseur
product had more challenging standards
to meet. Twenty years ago it was only
about the sound. Efficiency, dynamics,
low distortion and power handling were
less of a concern. Today, our speakers are
used in a number of different configurations,
from state of the art two channel
systems to high-powered multichannel
systems. The Reference Connoisseur
Series must have the efficiency to be
driven with modest-powered amplifiers,
plus must have the dynamic range and
power handling to handle the demands
of movie soundtracks. A three-year
development program was necessary to
redesign every component in order to
meet these standards. The new tweeter,
midrange and woofers for the Reference
Connoisseur Series are ground-breaking
in their ability to perform to the highest
musical standards, while providing
ultra low distortion with high power
handling.
All of us here feel the new RC-70
surpasses the performance parameters
that were established by the original
Reference Connoisseur. The RC-70 still
has the captivating, immersive sound of
the original, but has improvements in
almost every area.
In your review you mention that the
frequency response curve “is amazingly
flat, one of the best we have ever measured.”
Then you suggest that comes at
a cost: phase accuracy. Flat frequency
response of the speaker system is made
up of both magnitude and phase relationships
of the individual drivers.
Since you mention the RC-70 has flat
frequency response, it would suggest
that the phase relationship between the
individual drivers is also correct.
Also, another point is the placement
of the microphone in trying to
recreate the square wave that you were
measuring. In a two-way speaker, the
microphone distance can be at a shorter
distance and still deliver a somewhat
meaningful measurement. With a multisource
speaker system like the RC-70,
a small microphone distance from the
speaker would result in a meaningless
test, with measurements that do not
reflect what the speaker is truly recreating.
The only way to perform accurate
acoustical measurements, especially with
multi-driver speakers, is a microphone
distance of at least 2 metres. As you
probably know, such a microphone
Interactive features
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distance requires the use of an anechoic
chamber, which negates the influence of
room boundaries when the microphone
is placed at greater distances from the
speaker.
We are still not certain why you
were not able to get good results from
the RC-70, even though the response
curve suggests the speaker should be
excellent. Maybe the room you placed
the speaker in was too small for such a
full range speaker system? We do know
that the RC-70 is definitely suited to
larger rooms than the previous Reference
Connoisseur model, as it has more
extended response and output.
As you can tell, we are very disappointed
by the tone of your review
and by some of the comments, which
we feel, are unfounded. We think the
Energy brand and its loyal customer base
deserved better.
Scott Goodman
Energy Speakers Brand Manager
SCARBOROUGH, ON
Kudos and, better, bravo for a singular
and superlative publication. I quite
eagerly digested my very first issue ever
of UHF about a week ago. I am still in a
very pleasant state of shock!
Having quite regularly sampled both
The Absolute Sound and Stereophile for
about four decades, my mind set was
entirely unprepared for UHF’s unique
raison d’être. Your guiding ethos, ethics
and modus operandi are so simple in
their fundamental elegance. To allude
to Carly Simon’s lyrics celebrating the
now mythic procreative capacity of 007
is simply incorrect. Not only “Nobody
Does it Better” — double negative
intended — but no other publication does
it!
Bob Reinach
POULSBO, WA
Just noticed a spelling mistake on the
cover of UHF No. 75… “redicovery.”
Since most of your subscribers are probably
a little more educated than most,
I expect you’ll probably be getting a
deluge of e-mails.
Still love the magazine though.
Jeff Malloch
ELORA, ON
Somehow one never thinks of running
spellcheck on a cover. Too obvious, right?
I read the comment about the “open
source” turntable in UHF No. 74. Your
writer said that this was not the way hi-fi
equipment is designed.
Yet one of the top billed turntables
around, the Teres , was designed just this
way. Interested people got together on
a newsgroup and deliberated, and this
led to a small run of parts and then a
commercial endeavor, and some pretty
over-the-top variations, not to mention
the Redpoint brand. You can check out
the process here: http://www.teresaudio.
com/project/index.html.
Dominic
MONTRÉAL, QC