JY OK fsacinating to me: soundstage does not exist in the studio at time of rmost pop or rock recording - it doesn't really exist at stadium shows - clubs, well yes, if small enough, and you have the right seat close up - to my mind jazz records EG Ahmad Jamal Trio, forget please Diana Krall' from the day, or consciously created soundstage, EG Mahvishnu, Brian Eno, Floyd or Todd Rundgren - another thing would be to liten for reveerb repeats, for this Los Lobos Tchad Blake productions (given they make a cheap stereo sound better
Hey, Jay, I know they are made more for home theater setup but have you considered doing a review of the Totem Tribe V on-wall speaker? I would be curious what your opinion would be on those.
I've owned a pair of TOTEM Hawks for 20+ years, they've been an amazing speaker. Sound reproduction is excellent, and yes a slight warm sound similar to what you found in the Bison. Great Review!! TOTEM makes some amazing speakers for a fraction of the price of some of their competitors.
You dissected the speakers, made sensible assumptions, aligned with the designer and showed us that there are many ways to make a good product. Great review ~
Despite what Danny at GR believes, live cabinet design can provide great results, as you found. It does require a good understanding of the tuning process to get the sound right and it is more like making a musical instrument than a dead box. When done well the sound is very natural and lively.
the bashing is getting tiresome. Cabinet resonance as a function of poor design and cost cutting is one thing and that's what Danny aims to correct. If the designer figured out how to use cabinet and or port noise to improve sound or to achieve a specific goal as seems to be the case here then your point is moot and foolish.
Wow this was an awesome review video. I also follow Real World Audio channel and he expounds on live cabinet and room all the time. Measurements and specs are great guidelines but how it sounds and makes you feel is what matters most. 👍
It's amazing how a few inches with placement can make a big difference. When I was setting up my speakers in this new house. I was 3.5ft from the front baffle to the front wall and my F0 was only 35hz. I mean, that's what the specs say, but in my old house I was achieve an F0 of 26hz. I brought them out an extra 5 inches and my F0 of 26hz was back!!!!
@@michael-4k4000 26hz is no problem for my Martin Logan 60 XTi's. Sorry, I guess I didn't specify what I was using before. I guess you assumed it was the Totems. I was just making a point about how much a few inches can make here and there.
Totem makes great speakers. I was thinking about the Totem Forest as I watched your review. The Forest utilizes the HI VI D6.8 driver. I don’t know about the drivers used in this offering. Totem should incorporate the Purifi woofer in its builds. This would be a show stopper.
A fair overview -- naturally minus a drawing of the LT baffles or tubes used. No manufacturer gives that away. In the earlier days of line transmission (1990s) the TDL experimental company in the UK produced column speakers with a small footprint which reached to 17 Hz. In use they got lower but use trans-sonics with care, not just for neighbors. Given that all free standing objects have a native resonance it is easy to see why Totem tuned to a not very important frequency rather than leave a sonic gap and did not make the same mistake as Pearl.
Another speaker with an amazing soundstage is the Rega RX-5 mini towers I owned. Big surprises come in small packages! Thanks for the review Jay. Keep up the good work.
I was able to listen to the Totem Bison today. I was really impressed with them, unfortunately the shop I was at had a $6800 tube amp connected to a bluesound streamer using its DAC.... I was honestly shocked they did this I cant for the life of me understand this. That being said they sounded great, lovely sound stage and presence.
I've been very impressed with Totem bookshelf speakers. I've combined them with my subwoofer and was completely won over by their sound. I can well imagine these Totem tower speakers sound better.
175 Hz -> aims to be the resonance frequency of the material used for the furniture, MDF. Something causes that excitement that is so exaggerated in magnitude but narrow in frequency. I suspect that adding viscoelastic material to the internal walls (or Danny Richie's well-known No-Rez) will greatly mitigate the amplitude of the peak.
yes it will most likely but with consequences in my opinion. As I have said in the video, when I EQ-ed that region, it didn't sound as good or right (lifeless and disconnected). I'd leave these as they are and (if you are after perfect measurements), get a studio monitor. PS. Danny only measures starting at 200hz so this wouldn't have shown up on his FR/waterfall measurements although he could see it in his impedance sweep.
@@Jayiyagi The value, 175 Hz, catches my attention because, from memory, I have seen it many times in Stereophile measurements. Alta Audio Adam loudspeaker Measurements [ There is a wrinkle just below 200Hz in the fig.1 traces. When I investigated the cabinet's vibrational behavior with a plastic-tape accelerometer, I found a resonant mode with a high Q (Quality Factor) at 195Hz on the rear panel (fig.2). The sidewalls were extremely inert, however. ]
The resonance is almost certianly the internal cabinet length resonance mode leaking (un-damped) out of the port. Height is 0.97m so half wavelength standing wave resonance will be 176Hz. Porous damping in the cabinet would help drop the resonance, but would also slightly reduce lowest bass output level.
Great to see that you are happy with the speakers. For me the measurement data looks like something went wrong. But the measurement data is not complete without off axix response measurements. So very hard do judge without all measurements. Just by the on axix response (the quasi unechoic measurements) it is hard for me to imagine they sound well and balanced. The manufacturers comment sounds like marketing a flaw as a feature. If there is a gap in the response that needs to be connected by that peak there is likely something else wrong. For the Onkyo receiver: They are great for what they are and for what they cost. Very well designed amplifier section!
Hey! The measurements were confirmed to be correct by Vince (chief designer at totem). I’ll provide off axis measurements in the future. More importantly there’s the in room response at listening position that shows what was talked about in the video.
Interesting speaker. Great video . Would love to learn more about the silicate paint. I've seen a couple RU-vid DIY builders use various paints as part of their dampening process.
Part of the Charm of some vintage speakers is the LOW crossover for the tweeter. For Henry Kloss for example, most of his designs crossed over well below 2000 hz. Some even at 1.5 Khz or even lower. There is something wonderful about that softer, warmer, fuller sound.
actually the rolloff is 2.5khz, approx 4-500hz higher than most speakers ;) some 2-way horn speakers go below 1khz, and some expensive dome`s can go down to 1.4-1.5k.
I wonder if that resonance is being used to fill in for baffle step loss and that's how they keep the sensitivity so high with such small drivers by not adding much, if any bsc.
Any difference in details at low volume listening between the AGD audion and Orchard Audio? Are there any other amplifiers you feel excel at low level listening?
Hi Jay! Get review! How would you compare these to the Boresson X1 or X2 that you recently reviewed? I know the Totems are less expensive but do they compete sonically?
sonically, the boressons sounded more transient, faster, transparent and more "damped" or "dead" or "dry"... using the AXXES forte 1 and with other amps it sounded more warmer and richer (kinda like the totems) but still with faster and a bit more dry-er sound than the totems.
Cabinet vibrations are always going to create time smear even if they are pleasing additions to a frequency range. So I don't quite understand the cabinet lining, because polyfill and other material actually make the cabinets act as if it was larger not smaller.
Comparable in price is the Totem Forest. The Forest uses the HI VI research D6.8 driver. This is a competent 8 ohm driver at 6.5 inches. What are your thoughts between the two. Bison vs Forest.
Is it possible/probable that the 175hz ‘engineered-in’ peak is to help mitigate floor bounce in a typical installation? Because of the large distance from the woofers to the floor, most speakers have floor-bounce upper-bass cancellation suckouts.
Russell K uses a similar “live” cabinet with no damping. His RED100 speaker has a huge peak too at 700hz, it sounds shocking though and ruins the sound. I sold them due to this.
Interesting because I bought the Signature One bookshelves and they were so energetic or toppy that I had to sell them on. Things didnt behave themselves until I put in some jumper cables that got the tweeter under control. My system is very much on the warm side of neutral. Proac, Dynaudios and Zu speakers all sound excellent. I dont know what they were thinking but it would take a certain customer for the Signature Ones. Sounds like the Bison are more main stream.. Back in the day, a local guy sold ceramic paint then applied to the inside of your speaker helped the sound and box resonance. Supposedly it was the same paint used to cool the exterior of fuel tanks etc. I wonder if Totems cabinet dampening material is related to this ceramic paint?
I was really never a fan of the Totem speakers outside of the torrent line-up because of what you described. It was tad too much for me in the high fr. Bison Twin Towers are tuned way more to my liking
What are the "alot of speakers" that sound crowded? I don't remember you calling this out in your other speakers review. I would think if speakers sound crowded this should be first to be highlighted.
With Metal. Name a speaker I’ve reviewed and most of them don’t do very well in keeping things separated. With every other music, not so much an issue. Like I mentioned, I’m not a heavy metal lover so it might be why it wasn’t something I mentioned or worth noting as a negative.
Can you Please review the Totem LOON monitors? they are only $1299 a set and would be direct competition to LS50 Meta, Sonus Faber Lumia etc As good as these are, $4k is just a bit too much.
I think it’s worth trying it out to see if you vibe with the tone but I do believe that the bison twin towers are significantly easier to set up than the hawks
@@Jayiyagi also own Hawks - not sure how the Bison are more easily set up. Time and Patience is everything and the Hawks aren't a big deal to set up. Thanks for the review. What I like about the Bison are the specs. 90 DB and they seem to go lower than the Hawks. Probably worth a listen
So it certainly seems as if they go down all the way to 31 Hz as specified. But how about the speaker sensitivity? What db / 1w value did you measure in your room?
it matches up. Sensitivity in-room isn't quite accurate but with gated response, it did match up to that. Plus I was testing other speakers while doing this review and found that these take almost no effort to drive in comparison to some other ones Im reviewing currently.
@@Jayiyagi . In order for a speaker to go down to 31Hz, there must be a 31Hz signal recorded. What was the recording you were listening to that was recorded all the way down to 31Hz?
Bass response isn’t considered bad for an in-room response. It sure isn’t linear. Bass traps may help to some degree but nulls created in most rooms are hard to deal with just bass traps. I usually put two subs to take care of the nulls but I take them out of the equation since this is how the speakers would behave in most rooms by themselves.
Jay do you know if this speaker can be mass loaded? My old sky towers could be, per the manual. I filled mine with sand, more for stability than anything else (have small kids).
As a designer I find these shocking, lol. However, one must respect a person's subjective preference, and if you really like the result, it can't be wrong for you!
Hey, Jay. I want to get your opinion on something, I’m stuck in between two DACs, it’s the WiiM Ultra and the Eversolo A6, the biggest difference (on paper) seems to be the price and xlr. You’re maybe working on a review on the WiiM ultra, or have listened to it?
if you want a really good tower in measurements that sound really wide and holographic, with 0 ressonances: Concept 500. But i guess the concept 50 is the speaker who fight with this, but the concept 50 is cleaner with much better cabinet, plus more holographic, I do think this speaker won in term of subbass
Concept 50s cabinet is more dead for sure. While the concept 50s can be quite holographic with the right gear. I’d argue that the totem bison twin towers are easier to get holographic sound as it sounds more open and lively (not in the sense of being more tilted up in the highs) due to no damping inside the cabinet
Hello. The samsung sound bar is not the best. I proposed It as the only solution to fitting many many channels in a smaller space where traditional number of speakers for true dolby atmos multichannel is not possible I still use it in my small home theatre and love them
Sound matters for shure! But for 4k, it looks little boring for me... I dont want to look on the Bisons all day in my living room... Maybe in gloss Black i could, but not with wood veneer...
Not everyone can run subs. Also while not required, running multiple subs to augment the bass in your room is still not a bad idea to even out the room nodes.
