PINOA BAVE TOEM DRIVER

Images neither sit in your lap nor wallflower- like in the distance. The Rainmaker is smooth and predominantly neutral through the midrange, with an invitingly forward push of energy in the vocal ranges. Its aluminumdome tweeter may not rival the grainless purity of a ribbon or the finest soft domes, but its whip-crack reflexes certainly bring these others to mind. But transient speed is the Rainmaker’s forte. The soundstage is spacious and imaging more detailoriented than a contestant on The Apprentice.

Music retains a lively snap and momentum that challenges listeners not to tap a toe. Totem loudspeakers generally have a propulsive “in front of the beat” personality. It’s sound is characterized by colorful micro-dynamics and an almost acrobatic, rhythmic nature. Sonically the Rainmaker puts on a display reminiscent of a Cirque Du Soleil performance. The crossover is adjustable between 40–120Hz. The Thunder’s back panel features a pair of line-level inputs for both filtered and unfiltered connectivity.

Each passive is loaded differently for fine-tuning, and acoustically emulates the lower compression of a dual-port configuration. To reinforce bass response a pair of 10″ passive radiators are arrayed on the side panels.

PINOA BAVE TOEM DRIVER

It’s fitted with a 10″ metal-cone driver and a carbon- graphite dust cap. Retaining the narrower baffle and greater depth of the Rainmaker satellites, the Thunder is a sealed-box enclosure with 7/8″ cabinet walls. The Rainmaker’s crossover is hard-wired, and it comes with dual speaker posts for biwiring.ĭimensionally the Thunder subwoofer is not your typical bass box. Rather, for internal damping it uses internal veneers (which equalize stresses over time) and a Borosilicate compound. Neither the Rainmaker nor the Thunder subwoofer has internal foam or fill, the use of which, Totem thinks, subtracts from the signature “speed” of its products. Lock-miter-joint bracing throughout contributes to a rigid yet light structure. It’s constructed of variable density 7/8″ MDF for the baffle and back panel-5/8″ for the side panels. In model after model, Totem seems to have mastered an alchemist’s trick, turning the cabinet’s molecular structure into thin air. Acoustic instruments unto themselves, every enclosure interprets music to greater or lesser degrees. In fact, it’s the enclosure where most of the big money goes. Conventional wisdom says that most of the manufacturing money is spent on a speaker’s drivers. But that doesn’t mean Totem Acoustic isn’t obsessive about design. Tipping the scales at a mere twelve pounds and barely 14″ tall, the Rainmaker won’t be mistaken for the brutish Krell LAT-1 or the voluptuous Wilson Sophia. Buildquality was excellent by any standard-edges were as seamless as if the enclosure were made from a single, hollowed-out block of wood.

The review system-identical Rainmakers for all five channels-arrived in a natural semigloss mahogany finish.

It uses a 5.5″ woofer and 1″ aluminumdome tweeter chambered in its own compartment. The Rainmaker is a two-way bassreflex design with a rear-firing port. And its larger Rainmaker System is another worthy multichannel family member. Although Totem first adopted a wait-and-see approach toward multichannel, its DreamCatcher system, recently rave-reviewed in TPV, proved that it was an exceptionally fast learner. Totem Acoustic is a Canadianbased company whose twochannel roots run deep.

Pinoa bave toem