Has anyone heard the Totem Acoustic's Wind?


Hi,

I'm a very satisfied owner of Totem Acoustic's Hawk loudspeakers. I was just curious if anyone has heard their Wind loudspeakers and could comment on the sound. They look very promising.

http://www.totemacoustic.com/english/products/floorStanding_wind.htm

Thanks,
spacekadet

Showing 3 responses by sonance

I have heard the Hawks and the Wind briefly at a dealer, and while I liked the Hakws, I felt like their lack of bass made them sound more like one of the higher end bookshelf two-ways (no means a bad thing, I love 2 way monitors.)
The Winds, given room to breathe, add an extra dimension over the Hawks.
My main reason for respoding though was to say that no matter what anyone (or everyone) says regarding a speaker, you should try and avoid spending such a large sum of money without listening first. Maybe if you take a trip sometime soon somewhere you'll have the chance to visit a Totem dealer? Or maybe you can find someone in the area who owns a pair. Speakers add the most color to a sound system and is the one area where personal preference makes the biggest difference, imo.
I personally would rather go the route of a full range speaker than a speaker + subwoofer route, if music is the primary concern. Some people love their two ways so much they'll stick with them and add a sub, but imo a high quality full ranger has a coherency than subs + speakers lack. It takes experimentation to get the best integration of sub-woofer and speaker - it is possible, but is it preferable to a full range speaker, if you have the room and can spend the money? Not really.
Reality can kick in a practicality may dictate a sub, for cost, placement or even home theater integration reasons, but when it comes down to pure music, I will pick the coherence of a full range speaker anyday.
I do agree that it is possible to have a good pairing of a sub and speakers which dont go as deep as "full rangers." As I noted in my original post, it is possible. When I said it takes experimentation, I did not mean just finding a seamless hand-off from speaker to sub, I also meant something about the quality, timbre and speed of the sub. As we all know speakers and character and color to the sound of a system. If 20hz - 20khz fully described the capabilities of speakers, we'd all buy store brand speakers that met the above criteria and be happy at the end of the day.
By 'experimentation' I meant having to try subs in your house and your system until you find one that *truly* matches your speakers in your room and your system, with your available placement options. Some speaker makes have good matching subs, such as Thiel for their line and Martin Logan for theirs. Others, well, not so much. Sure everyone and their grandfather sells subs, but some just don't have that magic integration with music, especially in real world systems not setup professionally.
I am not against subs, and I'm not saying they can't add something to your setup, I'm just saying it's not always simple - in fact getting bass right is one of the hardest parts of speaker / system setup. I have heard REL subs, in response to an earlier post, and they are good subs, but I would not agree that they are a good match for every setup. Rel is a company that does focus on matching subs to stereo systems, rather than just an HT focus that other subs can sometimes have.
The other factor here is that with something like the Winds vs. the Hawks, the Winds have far more to them than extended bass. Their increased resolution and end-to-end tonal balance, their superior presentation of instruments and separation are beyond what the Hawks can do. No amount of money sunk into subs will make a pair of Hawks into a pair of Winds. That was the original question.