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"I went to a party last Saturday night
I didn't get laid, I got in a fight"-Lita Ford, Kiss Me Deadly
Totem Acoustic got their start in 1987-88, just in time to watch, and take part in, heavy metal's late-80s explosion. Around Valentine's Day 1988, Lita Ford's "Kiss Me Deadly" came out, and ROCKED! Manager Sharon Osbourne selected Pat Benatar's rhythm section (check out Benatar's "Invincible"), to record (not tour). "Kiss Me Deadly" was actually driven by the drums and keyboards.
Anyway, my friend Marcus was short, but fleet of foot. In softball, that made him good at playing the outfield, tracking down balls hit out there. At the plate, he had no power, but excellent bat control. Pencil him in at #2, to move the runner over, start rallies, and set the table for power hitters. Oh, we did not have any power hitters. Oops.
My friend Trina had a stick figure, and was, um, economical in her movements. In basketball and football, she set good screens. And because she did not move, she could not be called for penalties/fouls. In softball, Trina liked to stand in the outfield, cross her arms, and wait for balls to come to her.
Maybe it was spring break 1988, when a whole bunch of us met at San Francisco's West Sunset Playground. After playing basketball, we moved our stuff to one of the upper fields. As we were lining up our stuff along the sideline(s), there was a commotion in right-center. One of our girls said, "Oooo, oooo, fight!"
Mitts fluttered, some cuss words were said, and bodies wrestled to the grass. Ah, but when we looked closer, it was just Marcus and Trina, who never did get along with each other. So the rest of us sighed, trudged to the outfield, and had to break it up. We separated the two, gave each a chance to explain him/herself. Best I could tell, it started with Trina going out to centerfield, from whence she could see/track down flyballs best. But Marcus wanted to play CF, and directed Trina to move to RF. She refused, they called each other names. She called him a "bitch," and said, "Your pussy stinks."
That set him off, and Marcus said, "I'd kick your nads, but your eggs are no good anyway." That set off Trina, and I'm not sure who threw a mitt first. At least they didn't throw haymakers, but they tackled each other. Trina tried to get Marcus in a headlock, and punch his head. As we were pulling them apart, Trina yelled, "You fight like a little bitch," which, of course, ticked off Marcus even further. He started to strike back at Trina, but ended up hitting some of us.
The Marcus-Trina kerfuffle reminds us audiophiles about amps and the Totem Sky.
If you have the mirror-like amps from Simaudio's Evolution series, you will get the most out of the Sky. But these electronics cost several times that of the Sky itself, so they are not a likely pairing.
Kickin' it old school! In the 80s, we had a dual-well cassette deck, graphic equalizer, NAD receiver, and HK CD player. At the time, Totem only made one product, the Model 1. Because of the Model 1's rolled-off top octave, you could use it with mass market gear, and still get decent and involving sound. Because the current-production Sky has a flat treble response, you have to be careful, if you use it with mass market amplification.
My favorite (I did not say, "best") amp for the Totem Model 1 Signature was the AudioPrism Debut (later upgraded to Mk. II status). The amp originally came with warm-sounding Svetlana EL-34s. The Debut's manual said to bias at 45mA. But for a much-needed cooler and leaner sound, we biased at 40mA. The M1S sounded better with the Electro-Harmonix EL-34, which had a more extended and transparent treble.
In the early-2000s, I obtained Mullard xf4 EL-34s, from 1979 and 1980. My then-girlfriend, TLS, was amazed at how the Mullard EL-34s (no other changes were made) let through so much more of the music's textures. The Sky has enough resolution, and will love it, if you use genuine Mullard EL-34s. Geez, in 2001, the Mullards were 20 years-old. Now, as we write this post, 2001 was 20 years ago! Getting old...
Maybe it was Andy at Vintage Tube Services, who got all giddy about the GE 6CA7. This guy cooed that it was "like a 6550." The 6550, of course, was a king of power tubes. While the more powerful-sounding GE 6CA7 was not a good match for the Totem M1S, it is, in a linear-sounding amp, wonderful on the Sky. The small-sounding Sky likes the bigger images afforded by the GE 6CA7. If you listen to "Kiss Me Deadly," you'll come out swinging!
Okay, we are back to amps costing more than the Sky itself. One of my audiophile acquaintances had the Sky before I did. He absolutely loved the BAT VK-300x SE integrated amp on the Sky. He wrote, "Everybody loves the amp's layered, distanced, and transparent soundstage depth. It gives the music both breathing room and a place setting. Also, the BAT paints woody and organic textures, offsetting some of the Sky's harshness."Though this guy has several loudspeakers more expensive than the Sky (including Totem's own Hawk, which will be covered in a future post), he "Can't wait to get the Sky back!"
So, did Marcus and Trina kiss and make up? Nope. That was the last time Marcus ever came out to play sports (or do anything else, for that matter) with us.
-Lummy The Loch Monster
Edits: 03/19/21Follow Ups:
Love your posts because they are written like little slices of life.
Stephen
great B.A.T. pic! Lummy.
Lita
Several audiophiles have asked about Marcus and Trina. Again, in the first half of high school, I only had a few stray guy friends. None was in a clique. We never had enough, to play team sports (for example, for 9-on-9 softball, you need 18 total) requiring a lot of players. We got desperate, and in the Fall '87 semester, I got lucky, and befriended a bunch of (not-in-cliques) nerd girls.
Sorely wanting to kick ass in sports, Marcus was frustrated. We now had the numbers, but over half consisted of small, not very skilled girls. We routinely got trounced. Marcus never got along with Trina (who was not a new friend), called her "a pill," and "a cross between a dead carp and Frankenstein."
But hey, after you endure the lopsided defeats and the concomitant trash talk, you are toughened up, and become immune to audiophiles, who pale in comparison.
"Who's Lita Ford?!!!" emailed an Inmate. See, in audio reviewing, you not only cite musical references, you say something about them, and how they affected (or did not affect) you. If not for the music, we don't become audiophiles.
After pulling Marcus and Trina apart, the rest of us were listening to Lita Ford's "Back To The Cave," which we liked. We sighed, "Maybe we just should have let them duke it out." In all honesty, Marcus versus Trina would have been a fair or equal fight. My friends mimicked Vegas, and said that, if we were to set odds, they'd be 52:48 in favor of Trina.
The thing is, after you witnessed the Marcus & Trina scuffle, and picked up the pieces, you became a better writer and reviewer. You understand the triangle of life, music, and audio.
boy, the clutter in your first pic! That room is dirtier than a Madonna video.
Looks like my wife's home office.
The problem is not that there is evil in the world, the problem is that there is good. Because otherwise, who would care?
There is a difference between the two things and I really can't see a single spec of dirt in that mess.
Nothing a dust bunny likes more than clutter. Unless it hiding under a bed.
The problem is not that there is evil in the world, the problem is that there is good. Because otherwise, who would care?
Now I'm pretty sure there must be a dust bunny in there somewhere.
or he'll be cluttering up THAT page.
We know what's going on here. Just enough on-topic material in his posts to keep the moderators at bay but really nothing more than an excuse to 'share' his stories which, to be honest, most have no interest in as they have little to nothing to do with the actual 'topic' of the various asylum boards.
It doesn't bother me much as I never click on his posts. But maybe drives others away and they might be people who's contributions I would appreciate.
Man, I gotta save that quote! Ever since we had kids, clutter has become de rigeur. And with work-from-home, it's only gotten worse. Don't forget; an audiodharma Cable Cooker resides with me. Which means that cables get sent to me all the time. Therefore, that room is also cluttered.
Response to this Totem Sky series has been tremendous, perhaps second only to some cable reviews (for example, the Kimber 4TC posts have garnered even more email responses). I just got an email from an eleventh audiophile, who will not be pursuing the Totem Sky. Like the ten "no's" before him, he cited the "information, photos, depth, and context not even the 'professional' reviewers provide." These guys are grateful and appreciative of the information, steering them away from a product which they now know won't work for their system, timeline, budget, and taste.
Of course, I field a lot of requests, to do more comparison posts. My various writing partners and I are getting there. Moreover, readers are getting better and better, at figuring out when my writing partner is a non-audiophile woman. Readers are perfectly fine, when I team up with another fellow audiophile (Part 9 was done with the guy who still has the BAT VK-300x SE), but some love, and want more of, the perspectives, brought about by my female friends.
I sent you an email.
All great composers stopped at 9.
Edits: 03/19/21
nt
I think you're right.
nt
I wish he would find a friend, or a therapist on another forum of course, that he could tell his old stories too.
And he's been here a lot longer.
You seemed to be a nice chap early on, but now you seem to enjoy denigrating people and their stuff a lot, and you don't always even know what you're talking about.
Just saying.
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
it's a plague.
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
I may not be a phycologist but there's a cry for attention going on here???
I wish Lumi would find himself a nice writers group to post on.
Wow you guys are real assholes - what's wrong, a few posts buried in a couple hundred on page one of speaker asylum - across 5 weeks no less - that aren't panting all-out-of-breath perennial equipment chasers screaming their latest purchase is "the best ever" only to sell it a few weeks later and do it all over again with whatever they replace it with? Now we can't have that, can we???
...his posts violate no forum guidelines, are even tempered and overall pretty benign. If nothing else there's the enthusiasm factor that seems to be disappearing from the hobby. Not every subject interests me and those threads I pass by.
He was a youngster back when I started hanging here in the late 1990s or early 2000s. It's kind of cool that he's still posting in my opinion. Lumy the Seahorse!
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
nt
The problem is not that there is evil in the world, the problem is that there is good. Because otherwise, who would care?
I think it's because he doesn't 'post' he writes 'diaries' in the style of a romance novelist with audio comment tucked in as an afterthought along with off topic pictures ... while actually being pretty good at each element it's an unbalanced presentation that comes across as 'precious' and saccharine instead of interesting ... guess everyone's a critic eh?
I didn't feel like a hostile asshole writing that btw though we rarely get to define ourselves
regards,
NT
I too don't understand the negativity. If you don't like it, don't click on it. I like them and have a pair of Sky's myself (and love them). Besides, his posts often include some pics of ladies that get me humming a bit.
or maybe he tried there and gave up.
He seems to lament the good old days a lot and might need a bit of something other than admonishment. He does a have nice system as I recall and the girls are lovely.
Maybe silence instead of criticism would be the best substitute for good neural activity. Now I'm sounding like some kind of critic...oh that's right, I can.
NT
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