Replacing Forests???

Beheme,

When you say "They are something special when associated with the right gear"...I am assuming you are referring to Totem Hawks. Are you saying Hawks - Cary SLI 80 combo is a good system synergy for 2 channel Music ? I had a chat with totem folks and they said Hawks being an already WARM speaker, they will have more system sunergy with a slightly NEUTRAL amp like Plinius 9200 (SS - 200 watts/ch). But Totems folks recommended Cary-SLI 80 and VTL IT-85 ( warm amps ) for more neutral sounding speakers like Forests. Can you please let me know what your experiences are with Hawks/Forests with cary SLI 80 and any other Amps for 2 channel music and HT.

Thanks
Grakesh

Grakesh,
The Forests did not have any red 'important notice' sheet with them. The Forest woofers may have failed (or became damaged) during an HT passage, but I am not certain of the exact cause of the woofer blowing? In 2 instances, during HT play the Simaudio i5 'warning' LED came on. I contacted Simaudio about this and their response that this is an indication of 'DC' at the output and to turn the level down until this did not occur. This could have damaged the Forest woofer, but at the same time the Forest woofer blew two different times, each time it was a different channel in my system - once left, once right AND once before the i5 was even in the system. The other speaker never had any issues, which led me to beleive that the 'warning' light was not the cause of the damage, there was something inherently wrong with the one speaker - otherwise, both would have had issues?

I do think, in a space the size of mine the Forest needs more power than the i5 has to offer.

Walkman, I haven't pulled out a db meter, but for the 24/7 John Pizarelli I've had the i5 set to '20'. While actively listening to music I have it set at '25', and while watching HT I haven't gone past '28'. I was imaging these levels are all well below 80db. I will pull out my meter and let you know though. When driving the forests, I usually listened to music at '25' and movies at '31'. Some movie soundtracks required going to '33' or above, although usually not an issue, it was at these levels the i5 'warning' indicator blinked.

Jh2os. Thanks mucho. I also have an I-5, so your volume control metrics make total sense to me. With my vandersteen 1c's, I usually listen to music with the I-5's volume 18-23, when I want to go loud, it's at 25. The vandy's are rated 90db at 6.8ohms nominal.

What I have to add next could shed some light on your blown Forest woofer situation, although it's a little late for you. Once upon at time the red warning light on my I-5 was triggered. After also conversing with Sim Audio, and swapping out cd players, it was definitively determined that this was due to DC offset from a CD player I had at the time. I was able to make that light come on whenever the cd player was turned on and I turned the volume up on the I-5 past 30 or so, even if a cd was not in the player (i.e. no music was playing).

Since then, with a Sim Nova replacing the cd player that had the DC offset, I have never-ever seen that warning light. I don't expect to see it with the Hawks I am getting (better not!) either. From the little I know (and I know just a little), DC offset is usually caused from something else in your system, not the speakers, and it could have maybe blown your Forest's woofers; it was not likely the I-5 (admittedly, I am not knowledgeable about this electrical stuff, but am basing my comments on my personal experience and email exchanges with Sim Audio, who were most helpful). It could have been another component in your stream, like it was for me with my cd player that caused your DC offset (and FYI, using a voltmeter, the technician later confirmed my cd player was indeed emitting DC).

i sold Totem for 2 years and I can say without hesitation that Beheme comments towards the 'Hawk' driver being fragile is garbage. Type in Scan-Speak Revelator in any DIY community forum. I remember in early 2004 we had the Hawks doing HT duty in a 15x25 room powered by Bryston Monoblcoks and the Hawks performed without a hitch. Yes there are mechanical limitations, but this hogwash about them being "too fragile" for HT is simply not true.

Oh, and Jh2os, thanks for testing the levels with your db meter.