@thomastrouble I have owned two pairs of Totem Model One’s, and a pair of Totem Model One Signatures, both. Along with a good friend who owned both non and signature version too. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of listening to all. Between the four pairs, heard them in five different rooms, powered by three different solid state amps and three different types of tube amplifiers. It’s not the speakers. My high current dual mono MOSFET solid state amp made the Model Ones sing, full-bodied too.
imo, I think it’s partly your room, and components some too. I’ve also owned the Benchmark DAC3B. There was something about that particular dac that never quite settled in with me. Owned three non-tube and one tube dac since, all sound better to me. All not as quiet, yet simply sounded more engaging to me. Always felt that dac was beat into submission and killed some of the musical sound in it, somehow.
Before you move, is there anyone with a different amp/dac/borrow, to try again? All of my Totem Model One speakers (non signature and signature versions) responded well to quality speaker cables and quality interconnects. Lower quality cables will not let Totem Model Ones shine. Spent a lot of time with those speakers with different amp combos in different rooms fwiw. Best of Luck.