[milkweg]

Yesterday I bought a pair of Totem Sttaf speakers and noticed these blue dots on the top edge of each tweeter. Nothing in the literature about them that came with the speakers so just did a bit of research and found out they are called tuning dots and are supposed to help with resonance or some voodoo like that. You think there is something to this theory or is it just more tweeker's BS? Look at the prices on the these things at this site. $35.00 for what appears to be some paper dots.

Marigo 3mm White Dots - Vibration and Resonance Control for Dome Drivers, and electronics

Tuning Dots

 

[Uncle Erik]

Snakeoil.

If the drivers are so deficient, didn't the engineers notice that when they designed them? Do speaker engineers deliberately sabotage their designs? If little paper dots change the sound, why doesn't the manufacturer include them with the sale?

Typical snakeoil testimonial, too. I swear, that testimonial must be cut-and-pasted from every tweak manufacturer on this planet. They're almost always the same, word for word.

Finally, put it through the two snakeoil tests:

1. What is the ratio of materials cost to retail price?
2. What is the ratio of testimonials to scientific data?

If the retail price is several hundred or thousands of times higher than the cost of manufacture, it's probably snakeoil. The higher the ratio, the more and more probable it becomes that the item is snakeoil. Similarly, if there's nothing but testimonials, it's snakeoil. If there's plenty of data from a bunch of tests as well as comments from happy customers, that's normal and OK.

Usually, you can't disable a lie head on. Lies are calculated to be tough to argue on the merits they assert. That's why there's endless debate on skin effect, dielectrics, etc. Problem is that lies are transparent if you come at them sideways. Which is why you should always do a cost analysis on this stuff. If it costs a couple bucks to make and sells for a couple thousand, it is highly likely the manufacturer is a con man.

 

[milkweg]

The Totem speakers do include the dots already mounted by the manufacturer. Totem speakers are very good and not deficient so that is why I can't fathom why they put them on all their speakers. I guess the designer doesn't think they are snakeoil.

 

[edstrelow]

Trying to dampen tweeter reflections with materials around a tweeter is not new or particularly controversial. I have Spica speakers that use a felt-type material around the tweeter to cut down on high frequency energy reflected from the adjacent areas. I also took some felt and placed them around the tweeters in my Polk speakers and this seemed to make the sound a bit clearer.

What is odd here is the small amount of the damping material. It would not seem nearly enough to work.

As whether they work, take them off and see if you hear a difference.

 

[milkweg]

Yea, I could try that but if I take them off they might not stick back on properly so would rather just leave them alone. I have a pair of Paradigm Titans and I find the high end a bit too bright. I should try your felt tweek and see if it helps. Can you post me a pic so I can see exactly how you did it?

 

[mulveling]

Quote:

Originally Posted by edstrelow /img/forum/go_quote.gif What is odd here is the small amount of the damping material. It would not seem nearly enough to work.

Agreed, they seem far too small to have any useful impact.

It reminds me of a couple other things...namely those stupid wooden fingers on sticks & those tiny precious-metal resonator cups...
1) Start with a idea for a product that at least pretends to leverage vaguely/reasonably sound principles of acoustics.
2) Make the product SEVERAL ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE TOO SMALL to have any meaningful effect on a hifi stereo setup.
3) Use exotic designs and materials to add mystique. Be sure to never back up effectiveness of said product with properly taken objective measurements, because YOU CAN'T.
4) Charge PREPOSTEROUS markups!

 

[milkweg]

I just found out that those paper dots on the Totem speakers are not tuning dots at all. Phew! Totem puts the colored dots there so that they can easily identify when the driver was manufactured so that they know which one to replace it with if it needs to go back for repairs, that explains why they use various colored dots in their speakers.