Totem Acousitcs (1 Viewer)

[Taylor Assen]

So I went to the totem demo today.... WOW. We auditioned everything from the arro, to the Winds. We had the VP Sales rep there, one of the speakers engineers, and the local rep. Totem builds a total quality speaker lineup. Prices range from $800 to $9000 (CAD) a pair. All their drivers and tweeter are built specifically to model, and totem does all the crossover work (which are extremly complex in design).

The neat thing about Totem speakers is that they select you. All their speakers have different advantages/sound. All speakers use different components (even in their 5.1 setup the rears have a differnt driver/tweeter than the front, likewise the fronts differ from the center channel). Although this is very different from most speaker companies, Totem assured us that to get the most out of EVERY speaker you need a different component.

The sound spoke for itself. Powered by Parasounds new HALO line (pre/pro 2 channel), this speaker linup can sing. The bookshelfs went so low one guy asked which sub they were using. Very well difined midrange, with detailed highs. These are a warm sounding speaker.

The highest speaker pair we heard were the Winds. A retail price of $9000 (CAD). These are a full range speaker. Large in size they have 1 10" driver; 2 6" drivers; 1 silk dome tweeter. Maybe it was the Parasounds lack of power (which I doubt), or maybe it was the speakers not yet being broken in... I found these speakers to be not worthy of their price tag. If one bought a lower end tower such as the Hawks, and tagged them up with the Thunder sub, you can acheive an equal if not better sound IMO. This will still have a lower tag price than the Winds.

All in all what a great lineup! I can't wait to start trying to sell these bad boys. If you are looking for a speaker that can do both HT and 2 channel audio, please PLEASE put these guys on your list!

Thanks for reading! Taylor Assen

 

[Scott_N]

The Totem Forest was one of the speakers I auditioned before I bought my Tetra Spaces's. I thought the Forest's had a great midrange and smooth highs. Very good at imaging but a small sweet spot. Very good speaker for the money.

 

[Michael Yung]

I listened to Totem speakers at the Home Entertainment show in NYC last year and they were fantastic. I would say the price is very reasonable as well but I am not quite ready to trade in my Paradigm Reference yet. I am glad to see that Totem is finally getting more distribution b/c for the budget, Totem should be on anyone's short list for auditions.