Totem Forest Signature v. Joseph Audio Profile

Yes both the Totem brand and the Joseph brand do "holographic" sound.
The difference I would say is that the JA speakers tend to be more accurate, closer to flat, and thus more "neutral" sounding.  The Totems tend to have the "Totem dip" in the upper mids, which gives some of that nice distant soundstaging.  But it also gives Totem that particular identifiable tonal balance, where it sort of thins out and sharpens up the high end.  I find the Totem sound to be superficially attractive, but just too obviously colored for my own long term satisfaction. 

I haven't heard the Joseph Profiles, but have plenty of experience listening to the JA Pulsar and especially the Perspectives, and those speakers are trully special in terms of a grain-free, timbral beauty.  As I understand it from other listener reports and reviews, the lower priced "profile" models tend to preserve this aspect of the JA sound.

soix,
We are clearly both fans of the JA audio sound.  And yet I don't own them (yet).  I forget:  Do you own JA speakers?

@soix 

Ha, same boat as me.  I don’t know if you followed my long thread demoing many speakers where I narrowed it down to the DeVore 0/93 or JA Perspectives.  I’d saved for over a year to buy speakers, had finally decided on the Perspectives, was just going to purchase them when one of life’s little financial surprises showed up and sucked away my saved up money.  So...now...no new speakers for me and back to the drawing board.   Still have the JAs in my sights for the future though!

shubert,
Then you’ve received a golden sample where they deviated from their norm ;-)

I’ve heard many Totem speakers over the years (local dealer has sold the line as long as I can remember). And they all had that same sonic signature. A perceptible dip and a spike in the upper mids/high frequencies.

You can see how they have that dip around 4K and get a bit "spiky" at around 1K in both the measurements from Stereophile and Soundstage:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/totem-acoustic-signature-one-loudspeaker-measurements

https://www.soundstage.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1855:nrc-measurement...

I was able to listen to the Totem Signatures 1 ’s at my pal’s home and, yup, that’s how they sounded.
As I said, it is a sort of attractive sound. I’m just too conscious of the "Totem sound" to live with them for too long.

I do agree with Dave that cables and cords make a significant difference. 

I don't agree.

I auditioned the JA Perspectives numerous times at a high end store, with various different high end cabling (because I auditioned them several times, they put them in different set ups).

I also auditioned them at home with my "lowly" non-high end cabling and they sounded like they did in the store.

Don't expect cables to save or alter speakers.  And  larstusor "burning in" will happen in your mind as you adjust to the sound.   Which is ok ;-) 


Think speaker/listener positioning, room acoustics first.

larstusor

There’s a reason why you pretty much never see measured documentation of wire "burn in" (or see it demonstrated as audible).

For one thing, it’s a rather convenient idea for sellers to promote "Don’t like what you hear? It’s not our gear, it’s a lack of ’burn in.’ Give it hundreds of hours !"

It gives you a chance to get used to the sound and voila...often enough it miraculously "improves," where what is most likely happening is you are just adjusting to the sound of new speakers. You may not adjust enough in the end and want to send them back, but this "foot in the door" technique is a time-honored one in sales: if you can get a product in to a customer’s home part of the battle is won, hence lots of ’try at home’ policies. And the longer you can put off a return, get the customer to keep the item in question, the more likely they won’t end up returning it.  Suggesting a customer live with the item for hundreds of hours instead of making a flash decision to send it back is a helpful sales strategy.

I’d just be very cautious about depending on audiophile lore to fix your problems.