Totem Rainmaker distortion??

Thanks to all of you for your helpful suggestions! I bought them from Mike Wall...(supposedly a dealer) here on Audiogon.) They were brand new "factory sealed." I'm in hopes he will take care of me. I've never encountered this from speakers before. I was wondering if the Ayre burn in disc could have caused this. I've only used the brown noise track at reasonable moderate levels. Who knows, could it have loosened things up inside? Again, it hasn't hurt other speakers in ANY way...only helped speed the burn in. Thanks for any other view points you can offer on the Ayre disc or whatever your experiences are with burn in/speakers etc. -Brian.

You might have checked this already, but I had a similar problem with a pair of Usher bookshelf speakers. After some careful listening, I found one of the binding posts was loose and was resonating (I was using banana connectors). I removed the terminal cup, tightened all of the posts and the sound went away.

Stick it to Totem and tell 'em you won't take that crap!

Well Folks, thanks for your help. I decided to retire the rainmakers as I found out it was a piece of solder on the wiring inside the cabinet creating the noise. Feeling less than confident about their manufacturing, I have returned them to my dealer, and am going to switch to the Whafedale Evolution 10 speakers. They have been getting raves and have been around long enough not to let solder get in the way of their sound I'm sure. Totem should check their items carefully before they go out. Too bad as I liked the sound I was getting outside of the ringing/vibrating frequency.

This will sound like I'm a Totem employee or dealer. I'm not. Just a very satisfied customer.

I can understand why you'd be frustrated, but doubt the defect you experienced is unique to Totem. It's inevitable a defective product will be shipped - this is true of all companies. I think that the fact that the dealer replaced the unit (indeed with another brand) says something about Totem and their dealer network.

My experience with Totem's products and their customer support has been excellent. No defects in the products, just state of the art sound, excellent craftsmanship. They answer their phone when you call, and return emails within a day. That's better than my experience with many of the top brands discussed on the site.