Totem Beaks


A few questions regarding Totem beaks.What's the diameter of the beak.I need to know if they will fit on the top wood surface of my Vandersteen 3A's without hitting the grill cloth.Also any Vandy owners using them? How many,in what placement configuration,and sonic results.
Thanks in advance,
Denman
denman
Mine are 1" in diameter. Appear about 2" tall. Performance is very spk. dependent. I've noticed that smaller "bookshelf" spks. benefit most, IMO. I place them near the front corners.
I owned the Totom Shamans for a few great years. The beaks did indeed offer noticable sonic improvements to the Shaman and slight changes on other speakers i tried them on . Experiment with placement. I too used them on the front edges but that was mainly due to the supertweeter of the Shaman. The beaks offered a more focused image for me.
i use 2 per speaker on the totem mani-2's and the totem model 1's. on left speaker, 1 on the front left side, the other on the back right side. on right speaker, 1 on the front right side, the other on the back left side. i have heard of other people placing these on other speakers with good results.
Funny you should ask as I just went through this. I use Beaks for my Mani-2's and tried them with my 3A Sigs. Absolutely no effect I could discern in any configuration. Remember that the wooden caps to the 3A's are not part of the speaker exclosure in the same way as the Totem's traditional box. What has made a difference however is making sure that the bolts holding the 3A's to the stands are finger tight; mine had loosened which adversely affected imaging.
I think that Beaks won't suit Vandys since they have a soft top.
They tend to tweak a solid cabinette vibrations. Vandy's are only clothed but not enclosed.
I use mine on Totem Speakers and they somewhat serve as room adjustement since you can clearly adjust a radiation of the high freequencies moving them at arround above the tweeter.
To use it just at arround the edge won't make a sence.
I owned beaks for my Totem Arros for 6 months and sold them. Tried different configurations, blind tests with/without beaks (and right only half time).

Conclusions: Looks cool, but not worth MSRP, buy it used on audiogon or ebay for a try
Try the Sonic Surfboards, they improve the mids and highs and staging on a wide variety of speakers. From my Dunlavys to Thiels to Paradigm, all sound better with the addition. ..Tom
Info on Totem Beaks:

http://www.hifi.com.sg/products/accessory/totem/beak.htm