Totem Acoustic Forest Signatures

Welcome strat1117!  My experiences are similar to yours...the Sig’s are special indeed.  I have found the MIT cables to be an extremely musical choice as well.  Keep on posting and enjoy the music 🎶 

Hey dave_b!
How’s it going? Did you ever get a chance to listen to Black Light Syndrome, featuring Terry Bosio, Tony Levin and Steve Stevens? It is a recording masterpiece, am I right ghosthouse?

strat1117,

Thanks for sharing your system and setup info. The Plinius has good upfront wattage and 40 amps of peak current. Should make for a good combination with the Totems. How’s the presentation on the Plinius? I’ve read that it comes across as warm, not solid state sounding.

What source are you using?

Any service issues? Ive considered the Plinius Hiato but I don’t have a local dealer any longer.

I found your comments on the choice of decoupling spheres interesting and I feel that the hard - inert rubber balls overall presentation to be warm also. In fact my whole system tends to be warm due to the high bias class A/B components. And the Cardas Golden Reference are warm by nature. But your intel on the different decoupling spheres has given me reason to experiment with other options, thanks!

Recently adding the Mapleshade 18x15x2 plinths has opened up the soundstage and added more articulation to the low frequencies.

The new Wireworld Eclipse speaker cables offer more micro and macro detail and sonic transparency. They have a neutral and natural balanced sound.

I’m with you guys. Totem makes many excellect products. The Forest Signatures are beautiful both visually and sonically.

N

Thanks, Dave_b, I just read your post in another thread and your story leading back to the totems does, indeed, sound similar to mine (although my earlier totem experience was with a pair of pre-signature, biwire model 1s, which I still have in my basement).

Nutty - After almost 20 years with an AI preamp and VTL amps, the Plinius sounds very neutral to me, neither overtly yin as described by some reviewers nor yang as described by others. The best compliment I can pay any audio component is that it never draws any attention to itself, and that has been my experience with the Hautonga - I don’t hear it adding or subtracting anything of its own. It has more than enough power in reserve for my small-medium sized space (~180 sq ft). N, I don’t know where you are located, but if you call Thomas at New York Sound & Vision, he can hook you up with plinius. I’ve found him to be knowledgeable, reliable and competitive on pricing. I haven’t had any service issues in the 10-11 months that I have the plinius - it sure seems like a bullet-proof brick to me. I went to it for the express purpose of downsizing and getting away from the hands on of tubes, but without making any sonic compromises. I feel like it is a huge success on all counts, exactly what I was looking for and a perfect match for the Forest Sigs. (I did not feel that way about the vtls, good as they are, the totems needed more grip on the bottom). I have zero tolerance for any hint of midrange glare or treble brightness/harshness, so it is possible that what sounds neutral to me would sound warm to someone else but, as I said, I honestly do not detect a particular sonic signature of any kind from the plinius through the totems.

Analog front end is an SME 10/IV with a Lyra Kleos cartridge and a vintage Cotter mk2L sut, cd is via BAT VK-D5 with hdcd and diy ‘six-pak’ upgrade. I also listen to Spotify via an audioengine B1 Bluetooth receiver/24-bit dac which sounds surprisingly good for its $189 price tag. It doesn’t have the detail or palpable 3D presence of my other front end components, but it is perfectly enjoyable - you can listen to it all day and it won’t make an unpleasant sound.

Anyway, to get back on track, I found the Forest Sigs are revealing enough to make changes in upstream components clearly audible, they’ll let you know exactly what a new component is doing right or wrong. Even power cord changes, which used to be of little interest to me, became much more noticeable with these speakers. I dealt with it by going with all one manufacturer. I personally chose Marigo, but there are plenty of contenders. While it may seem more obvious for signal cables, I was very surprised by the huge increase in overall coherence when I stopped randomly mixing and matching a/c cables. Again, the Forest Sigs made the difference(s) easy to hear.

Be very careful when you experiment with hard decoupling balls - the rear of the speakers will literally be on ball bearings. I used the very thin bdr discs to help keep them in place, with a nice little boost in overall resolution as a bonus. I think the current bdr “lm discs” discs are thicker; I don’t know what effect they might have on the sound of speaker (in my experience, the effect of adding bdr is usually good), but they would raise the speaker enough that you would probably have to re-experiment with tilt back if you were to use them (you’ll have to do that anyway - the hard balls don’t give the way the soft black ones do, so you’ll need to raise the front a hair to maintain your tilt back).

Enjoy!

NSC

Likewise, @strat1117 ... welcome.  Enjoyed reading your comments about the Sigs.  Many of your comments (e.g., audibility of upstream changes) apply to the non-Sig Forests as well.  

Chiming in now in response to Nutty's recommendation of Black Light Syndrome.  I agree it is a very well recorded rock album.  Standout tracks musically and sonically for me:  Duende & Book of Hours.   Definitely worth a listen.  BLS as well as Dangerous Situation (same artists) are both on Spotify.  

Black light Syndrome is excellent!  Title track is my favorite...love the groove.  Loved King Crimson with Levin...Discipline was awesome!