Koss Totem Mani-2 User Manual download pdf (Page 7)

I’d like to thank you for publishing

the component-by-component descrip-

tion 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 prob-

lems 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 appreci-

ated UHF No. 75 State of the Art article

has given me a sort of speaker position-

ing 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 signiﬁ-

cantly to the left. True?

Given such an asymmetrical corner

placement, should each speaker never-

theless 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

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 posi-

tion? 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 corner-

centered placement), then it’s worth a

try experimenting with such a place-

ment to see if I can improve the width

of my currently very narrow sweet spot.

By necessity I’ll almost be in the near-

ﬁeld (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 speak-

ers 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

Feedback

Box 65085, Place Longueuil

Longueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4

uhfmail@uhfmag.com

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 5

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