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Why do you think so? All I did was report what happened during my review of the Mani-2, just as I did with the second Forest follow-up. Two failures out of two review samples may not be statistically significant, but it is worth mentioning, I thought.
Would you prefer that Stereophile _not_ report such failures? Our policy is that we do so: see http:/www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/307awsi/ .
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
It just seems like your afterthought was deflecting attention a bit. Sorry, but my experiences have been excessively good with Totem and I have always found them to be very helpful and responsive to their customers. In addition, I have not owned another pair of speakers that were as easy to setup and enjoy, even when placed in far less than ideal settings...close to walls or huge cabinets between them etc.. My biggest problem with this whole follow up thing has always centered around the way EL handled the evaluation and his apparent lack of understanding regarding Totem and the previous evaluations performed by yourself and LG. This is not a new product...all he would have had to do is a little homework on the company and the speaker. Armed with that knowledge, he would have most likely been more aware of the crucial discrepency he was experiencing. I mean come on, almost any modern speaker can throw images free of the drivers (alarm bells time-somethings not right!). EL was very thorough on the Manley review, but dropped the ball in this instance, IMHO.
I still believe that EL did all that he could and I do not see or read a sense of ill toward Totem in any way. One would have to assume that they picked out the Totem's out of all the contenders just to take a swing at them, but I do not think that is anywhere near the case.
I do think that often times these reviews vs owners take on the persona of someone saying my wife or children are ugly and take great offense. Love is often blind. I might have my feelings hurt, but I still love them all the same.
I love my old AR-58's and everytime I try and replace them with something "better?" I always come back to their full, detailed (to me) sound when I know full well that the new ones are better in some measure. It may be that the Dnya Excites MAY be the ones to change all that. That may take place sooner than later.
If JA measured them he would probably wonder how I could live with them at all. He would really ask, "just how bad is my hearing"?
No one likes to be criticized, but I think the Phile staff has taken great pains to be fair and report what was heard.
I had long considered a pair of stand mounted Totems and I have a dealer here in Atlanta I greatly respect, but it is the MFG comments that are turning me away. That should never happen. IMHO.
I got to say I feel your being rather one sided with your views here.
Your ignoring JA found a problem that could actually explain what was occurring or about to happen and may had been picked up in the follow-up, or you seem to jump to the conclusion that EL broke the speakers.
However this then means no-one should drive speakers to reference levels and its a user fault if they play them at those levels.
Then you go on to say he was not thorough when I swear he mentioned he tried many things to get the speakers to sound good.
If anyone is really at fault, its the company for not investigating/QA the speakers before and critically AFTER EL's review.
It is rather shocking it was down to JA to do this IMO, and working as an engineer in a manufacturing myself I find it bad business practice to shoot off as they did in response to the review without doing their own follow-up let alone actually taking full responsibility to ensure the product arrived in perfect condition for a review that thousands will read.
You may be right in part or you could very well be wrong, but the evidence does not tie anything back to EL.
This means its a bit unfair to take a one-sided critical conclusion as you have done by reading too much either in some of the sentences constructed by EL or using assumptions.
Anyway, I hope this does not put EL off as many of us appreciate his style.
Thanks
Orb
John A. I could not help noticing that you pinned the woofers with a JC-1 power amp. This was surprising to me, but not THAT surprising.
First, the JC-1 is a very powerful amp on transients, more than most. It is rated at over 100A transient current. This is due to the number and power of the output transistors, powerfully driven by a pair of power mosfets. In theory, we can do 135A, without exceeding the rating of the output devices.
This was done for two reasons, first I believe in high transient output current, and second, we needed that many devices to handle the SAFE AREA of +/- 90V operation.
Now, we do try to protect loudspeakers from damage. This is why we have an output relay with a fairly sophisticated set of sensors that will activate it.
We also servo it, to keep the AVERAGE DC offset down to a few milliVolts.
However, with a broken DAC and a very high DC voltage on the input, I am surprised that you did not damage the input of the amp, as well. This is a cost of NOT using a coupling cap at the input of the power amp.
Just think what happened. A 2KW transformer charges at least 50,000 uF of caps on just one side, and 9 power transistors virtually switch on to dump the supply across the woofers, at least until the relay can be activated to open the connection.
Now, why THESE speakers pinned, who knows? Maybe the driver has a weakness, but how often would this weakness be exposed? If there are more incidents like this, then it should be noted by the reviewer, in order that people tend to avoid creating the problem, if they own the speakers.
I just don't see the problem with anything JA did or said.
Yes, Totem is a professionally run, responsible, and responsive company. But none of that conflicts with my reporting the two woofer failures we experienced with the brand. None of that is relevant to the Forest's actual sound quality.
As has been repeatedly pointed out, EL did do his homework. And if you reread his review, much of what Erick said did not conflict with LG's and my own findings. It was in the area of stereo imaging where we came up with different opinions.
Hew as well aware of the discrepancy and both discussed it with me and mentioned it in his review.
Right, and I feel the blame could be placed on the Forest's severe cabinet resonance problem, which, as EL mentioned in his review, I had worked hard to tame. In addition, the audibility of something like a high-Q, high-amplitude cabinet resonance will depend very much in the music played. DId you not notice this problem when you owned Forests?
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Thanks, John. I remember visiting your place in 1988 and you showed me where you spent literally days of your life gain- and noise-matching J-FETS for use in the Vendetta phono preamp. It is very tempting for a big company to skip that attention to detail and accept less good performance in return for a bigger profit margin or a lower retail price.
Good point. I remember when we reviewed the Lexicon MC1 some years ago - see the jitter graphs at http://www.stereophile.com/solidpreamps/301lexi/index4.html - I found that it had horrendously high jitter. Their engineer's expense was that it had been proved that jitter didn't matter subjectively and that I must have been doing something wrong in the measurement. I sent him a 24-bit WAV file I had captured of the processor's output while it handled the J-Test data, which reduced him to silence.
if you don't believe something matters, you will not do anything to fix it.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
You certainly earn your pay John, as is evidenced by your thoroughly reasonable responses. I still get a funny feeling though about the whole thing. For me, the fact that both of you guy's blew drivers, and EL admitted as much as having "challenged"(I'm being kind) the Forests during his review process with...Hmmmm, shall we say material I wouldn't clean my behind with, just inevitably brings my focus back to Stereophile. Blasting bass, kanye West, shaking and vacuming sand out of the speakers...too much for me. Good luck with your magazine and future pursuits. You are a good editor and a fine person, that is obvious to anyone who has read your work over the years. I can not say I dislike EL, as I do not know him personally, but as a reviewer? Well, I think some people make better singers than reviewers...IMHO. Good night and good luck!
Please apologize for your insult
I suppose that is name calling.
I apologize with the humblest heart.
I, unlike some, do not wish to use this forum as a (ahem) forum for calling people names...
I totally agree with that.
Thiel comes to my mind, bloated processed sound
Dunleavy not too far
and Wilson had never the best at any time
Those three speaker manufacturers would never have made it without Stereophile glossy reviews (I remenber a glossy Thiel review from Robert Harley: that Thiel speaker (3 series) was about the worst speaker I had ever listened to)
On the other hand the sound coming off the Hales Concept V at the time was sublime -Hales was disgusted and they fought it, Hales asked them not to print their review unless it was a Class A
The NHT 3.3s were in many ways better than the Watt/P at the time, at a fraction of the price. It received good reviews but was rated a notch below the Watt/P (Class B)
and of course they will never talk about value. Where could we read over the years that some speakers are grossly overvalued and not worth their price tag?
then they will never say that a new speaker is not as good as the one it replaces; they temporize, wait for the next edition to say that that one fix all the problems of the last one which we never heard about in the first place
I don't think they said anywhere that Audio Research VT100 series III was not as good as ARC VT100 series II but it was.
Please read about the "Dangerous" June 2009 issue at
www.high-endaudio.com
"and of course they will never talk about value".
Really? Never? Hmmm. Let's see Oppo, Marantz PM5003...
Where can we read that Krell EVO is not worth its price and crap??
It is not the same thing as saying that an Oppo is good value (it is gratuitous, it doesn't hurt, I can say it to myself)
They may be crap to you but for others they are excellent, so thats your opinion and not an absolute fact applicable to everyone.
Now regarding cost, this again shows your bias as you have made a decision and comment without looking back at the Evo review here on Stereophile even though you accuse them of not mentioning cost/value.
Moral of story; learn to debias yourself.
This from the Solid-State Power AmpsKrell Evolution 202 preamplifier & 600 monoblock power amplifier review:
Robert Harley's opinion of the Thiel CS3.6 can be found at http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/225/ .
We ignore such requests. Once we have accepted a component for review, the review is published regardless of our findings.
You can find Wes Phillips' review of the Hales Concept Five at http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/197hales/ . You can see that while the speaker was impressively engineered, it had a dreadful cabinet resonance at 150Hz, right in the region where music has significant energy. I well remember the heroic efforts Wes made to try to get the Concept Five to sound at its best, but in the end he had to conclude "I suspect that a truly excellent loudspeaker lurks within the ingredients of the Hales Concept Five."
Stereophile's coverage of the NHT 3.3, including a comparison by Corey Greenberg with the Thiel CS3.6, can be found at http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1293nht/ .
With respect, we do do so, more often than many believe.
If you believe "Crazy Arthur," as I am told he is known in Toronto, does not have a personal axe to grind with respect to Stereophile, please think again.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Untrue.
In the very Follow up this thread inspired I discuss at length in the final paragraph the relative value in the Totem Forest. My conclusion was that at $3,500, the Forest has very stiff competition from other manufactures. If that isn't an assessment of my perceived value of the speakers, I don't know what is. Had the Forest cost $1,500 my criticisms of it would have certainly been tempered.
In my review of the Rogue M180's, I determine that they are a great value; it even says so in "Recommended Components." Those amps punch way above their weightclass.
KR's recent review of the Oppo versus the Lexicon player seriously calls into question the Lexicon's value (and for good reason!)
Hell, in "Recommended Components" there are lots of components designated with the $$$ sign. According to the key provided on page 48 of the April 2010 edition, the $$$ sign means "we have found a product to perform much better than might be expected from its price."
I could go on.
So how does Stereophile never talk about value?
The Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Greater Chicago
1536 West Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60642
www.namigc.org (312) 563-0445 Fax (312) 563-0467
Please call them soon, Grosse. I want you to quit temporizing your exit from these forums, but I don't want you to harm yourself in the process. Help is out there.
How far can you go on baby??
Two months ago you were not even listen as a Stereophile contributing editor.
Now Stereophile has two newbies, one of them an assistant editor who forsees a revival of cassettes
I am for bringing in new blood
but only Corey Greenberg caliber, please
This is really offensive.
:-*
Exciting times!
I'm happy to be associated with Erick Lichte. But I've worked for Stereophile for almost 10 years. While I've got so much more to learn, I'm not new here.
I would have never guessed it was that long, but time does fly when you are having fun!
Yeah, Stephen's old and I'm young. Actually I think we are around the same age; 23. JA hired you when you were 13, right?
I also am happy to be working with Stephen. It's funny though, we've never actually met.
I'm bad with emoticons. Is this the "kissy face" or the "I'm smoking a stogie from the straight-on perspective?"
So confused.
The moral of this story?
EL is the man who should review the Cerwin Vega CLS 215.
Let's see if he can blow that speaker up.
____________________
The way EL treats speakers, I can see him at the next "Meet the Writers" seminar....
Audience member: "EL, can you tell us a little about how the transition from consumer/recordist to reviewer affected your listening habits?"
EL: "WHAT?!? What did he say? HEY, JA! WHAT DID THAT GUY SAY?"
Totem guy stands up in audience and points toward EL while looking at the audience: "See? I TOLD you!"
Yes, right after I completed my PhD.
(Just kidding.)
Let's be careful conjecturing what I can and can't blow. One wrong Google search and people are going to get the wrong idea about me.
Stephen Mejias is the Doogie Howser of the audio world.
Cue the theme song!
Hence, my use of only your initials.
Googling "EL" produces 1,950,000,000 results....and you are not identified in the result of the top million. (No offense.) So, we're safe there!
Actually, Enid Lumley is more likely to be associated with "EL" in audio until you have a larger body of work.
Maybe it's time for a "nom de calamite?"
That's a pictograph of Grosse having sex (actual size).
Am I the only one who feels that Republican strategist Mary Matalin is the spitting image of Enid Lumley? Have they ever been seen in the same room?
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
There's a big difference between playing on an instrument rich in overtones that become part of the sound, versus a speaker that adds ITS OWN overtones (i.e., cabinet resonances) to the music. I don't want to hear the speaker cabinet, just the best possible reproduction of the source.
Gross.
Have you listened to the Totem Forest or any other Totem speaker? If you haven't, then either do so or keep quiet!
Enid Lumley died of lung cancer a few years ago. She was a brilliant woman and the best listener I have ever worked with. Today, my vote goes to Teresa, who writes for 'Positive Feedback'.
That was a kiss on the cheek
I do the french kiss this way
:~*
An other one for you Jason
:~~~*
Gross.
That's sad news.
Without any lack of respect for Enid, she was crazy. But as Harry Pearson told me in the mid-1980s, you have to know when to listen to the crazies. Harry was right, and I always listened to what Enid had to say, even when it raised my eyebrows.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
I've tried to find "Enid's Corner" articles online, but have never found them.
She told of one experience with tin foil that was classic - blurring some of the lines of our reality.
I had honest affection for her.
JA had a great post/story about her ability to demonstrate the audible effects a pizza delivery tripod could have on the sound of a system.
Was is store advertising in Stereophile in the old days? Unpaid bills? The now defunct Sound Lab in Naperville IL seemed to have issues with Stereophile as well.
The funny thing is that in the mean time most audio stores seemed to love The Absolute Sound which they often display and sell in their showrooms.
Question is: why such animosity directed exclusively toward Stereophile?? There is more to it than money matters. I think that some of your very tilted reviews while at the same time trying to look impartial and saint-like, Saint John, rattled a lot of people in the industry.
I personally enjoy every thing he writes in
www.high-endaudio.com
I think she looked more like Crispin Glover...
Enid Lumley was NOT crazy. She was just highly neurotic. She was essentially unemployable, even though over the years she worked for Jim B, at GAS, me, and Art Ferris at Audible Illusions. Art and I had great affection for Enid, and I personally learned much from her. She had the equivalent of a masters degree in psychology, and going for her PhD, when she apparently had a break-down, probably over a relationship.
You would because your own bias is off the charts, sigh and like most with extreme bias your like talking to a brick wall.
Please go away and research debiasing, or not if you want to continue as a broken record.
Oh and to show your bias your also twisting arguments to serve your own purposes, you bitch and moan about everything relating to audio that is not mostly mass produced products; all high end is a rip off, high end dealers are useless, etc, etc.
Your complaint is not just with Stereophile as your trying to suggest, and you still cannot see how biased that link is you use even when other forum members who post in a balanced style point it out (such as Elk).
Thanks
Orb
You idiot I buy vintage
I don't buy five years old Pioneer
Evo is the end of the line for Krell
Mark Levinson did not get any better after their 334
Those guys as we knew them are gone
They embodied the high end and the golden age of audio
As for Stereophile, they always had bias, house sound, house speakers, house amplifiers, house turntable du jour, favorite manufacturers
like Thiel, Dunleavy, Wilson, MF, who could do no wrong
They just cover up nicely
and yes I enjoy reading Arthur
www.high-endaudio.com
A broken record as I said......
BTW calling someone an idiot and then stating you purchase old gear is itself stupid when that has nothing to do with the conversation or help in pointing out WHY you need to take a step back and look at yourself.
Oh I should say thanks though; for providing a good case of bias and emotion overcoming intelligent decision processing/weighing.
Your a wealth of bias behaviour so thank you
Cheers
Orb
Sigh. No, it was not a case of Stereophile having an issue with Arthur Salvatore's store over unpaid bils or whatever. It is a case of Arthur having an underlying agenda concerning Stereophile, for some reason, that colors his comment about the magazine.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
The advantage of the internet is that so many different resources are available for forming your own opinions... So if you think that the Stereophile staff are either idiots and/or intellectually dishonest, then you are free to read blogs from persons such as Arthur and spend your time posting on their forums and debating with like minded individuals...
If however, you just want to end up in pointless, neverending arguements and name calling, then you can continue to read magazines (whose opinion you don't value - such as Stereophile) and argue with the staff and forum members on their website...
Unfortunately Ajani he will not go away because he is fighting the good fight to reinforce his views.
This can be seen when the discussion points out noticable facts that are wrong that he blithely ignores (such as his accusation of the Krell Evo review and his incorrect view they did not comment on cost/value).
I guess the only option is to ignore him....
But a bit tricky when he is as irritable and subtle as an itchy outbreak of VD
Cheers
Orb
I choose not to obey your orders<g>.
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