Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
Whenever I review a product, I try to not only understand the product itself but also the company that makes it. If it’s a good product from a reputable company whose products have historically been well received, I want to know what the story is behind the company, what makes it tick.
What makes Totem Acoustic tick is in no small measure Vince Bruzzese, who founded the company in Montreal in 1987. As chief designer, Bruzzese has been directly involved in the development of every speaker the company has ever made. He is effectively the voice of Totem Acoustic: he is the company’s spokesperson and the one who decides on each speaker’s sound. I’ve seen Bruzzese at work, voicing loudspeakers, during dozens of visits to the Totem factory (only a two-hour drive from my home). I have also seen him on many of his product presentations.
A signature aspect of Totem speakers is their bass output: I’ve yet to hear a Totem Acoustic speaker whose bass doesn’t belie its size. When demonstrating his speakers, Bruzzese uses this apparent incongruity to great effect, coaxing jaw-dropping bass from improbably small enclosures, much to the astonishment of his audience.
Another key aspect of Totem speakers is their simplicity of design, both technical and aesthetic. Most of the company’s speakers are two-way designs in a rather plain cabinet offered in just three or four finish options—a Canadian take on the minimalist Scandinavian aesthetics.
The Totem Acoustic Bison Twin Tower loudspeaker, the subject of this article, reflects the company’s sound and aesthetics, but it also has some charms of its own that set it apart from other Totem speakers I’ve heard.
Physical and acoustic design
On its three conically shaped feet—“claws,” Totem calls them—the 42.9-pound Twin Tower stands 38.9″ tall and is 7.4″ wide and, with the magnetically attached grille, 10.6″ deep. It is the largest and most expensive model ($4000/pair; prices in USD) in Totem Acoustic’s Bison series, which also includes the floorstanding Bison Tower ($3000/pair) and the bookshelf Bison Monitor ($2250/pair). All three models are made in Canada.
The three Bison models are two-way designs that share the same 1.3″ soft-dome tweeter, which is larger than the typical 1″ or 1.1″ dome. With its larger voice coil, this tweeter should have a higher power-handling capability than smaller tweeters. The Tower and Twin Tower both employ the same 5.25″ midrange-woofer, which features a copper-clad voice coil. But true to its name, the Twin Tower has two of those drivers; the Tower has one. The Bison Monitor’s 5.25″ midrange-woofer was designed specifically for that model; it’s a long-excursion design with a 3″ voice coil. All three speakers have ported enclosures: the Twin Tower has two ports, the others have one. Two pairs of binding posts are offered in each model, which enables biamping or biwiring. Most owners will likely drive the speakers with a single stereo amplifier and use a single set of binding posts and speaker cables, as I did.
The Twin Tower driver configuration, a tweeter over twin midrange-woofers, is not a common implementation of a two-way design. But from past auditions of other speakers configured this way, I know it can work well. There are pros and cons to this configuration. One advantage is that it allows for a simpler crossover than that called for with a two-and-a-half-way or a three-way design. (The Twin Tower crosses over at 2.5kHz with second-order slopes.) A disadvantage is that the two midrange-woofers are not equidistant from the tweeter, an asymmetry that can cause acoustic interference and disrupt the midrange–tweeter continuity. This problem doesn’t exist with a single midrange-woofer, of course. I detected no such continuity issues in my audition of the Twin Towers. Bruzzese has done a good job stitching the three drivers together.
The Twin Tower looks like a Totem speaker. It has the design elements that are now recognized as the earmarks of the brand: chamfered front edges, clawlike feet, insignia-free front baffle and grille—neither logo nor model name—and cabinet proportionality that is unmistakably Totem’s. That recognition was made evident to me recently when a visitor, an audio enthusiast, saw the pair of Twin Towers in my house. Even though he had never seen or even heard of the Bison series, he immediately knew what they were, exclaiming, “Wow, Totems!”
Totem Acoustic’s cabinets are made of MDF, as most speaker cabinets today are, but they have lock-mitered joints, which makes them five times stronger, the company claims, than conventional V-groove cabinets. Bruzzese prefers to avoid the use of damping material in his cabinets to tame internal resonances. Instead, Totem paints the inside walls of its cabinets with borosilicate, which “manages dissipation, keeps the cabinet musically alive, and never deteriorates,” their website states.
Two real-wood veneer finishes are available: Black Ash and White Oak. To prevent warping, the cabinet walls are veneered on the inside too. I specifically asked for a sample pair in the satin-white finish. Ever since the matte-white Estelon Aura speakers ($19,900/pair) arrived in my home, I’ve had a thing for the way white speakers look in my living room. I also liked the contrast of the Twin Tower’s white cabinet with its black drivers and feet. The grille, unusually, is also white. Like most grilles, it’s meant to serve a protective and cosmetic role when the speaker is not in use. For the best sound, it needs to be removed. With or without the grilles, most designers would surely agree, the elegant Twin Towers looked wonderful in my living room.
The Twin Tower is specified to have a nominal impedance of 4 ohms, so you’ll need an amplifier that can deliver sufficient current; 90dB sensitivity (2.83V/m); and a frequency response of 31Hz–29.9kHz (±3dB), promising the deep bass the company is known for. Its recommended amplifier power is 30W–200W, though you will not likely go anywhere near that upper limit.
Setup
The Twin Towers arrived at the tail end of my audition of the Sonus Faber Lumina II Amator loudspeakers, which I wrote about in March. The Italian-made Lumina II Amator is an exquisitely styled two-way bookshelf speaker priced at $1499/pair. It has a 1.14″ soft-dome tweeter and a 5.9″ midrange-woofer. Compared to the Twin Tower, the Lumina II Amator is tiny, and with a single midrange-woofer, its bass performance is much more limited, extending down to only around 50Hz. Clearly, comparing the Amator to the Twin Tower isn’t exactly fair. A more apt comparison would have been with the Bison Monitor, the Amator’s natural competitor. Still, going from the Lumina II Amators to the Bison Twin Towers was an illustrative demonstration of what happens when you move up in speakers’ price and size, other things being equal.
For most of this audition, I used the Marantz Model 40n integrated amplifier to drive the Twin Towers. The Model 40n is rated at 70Wpc/100Wpc into 8/4 ohms, a relatively modest power output, which proved more than enough for the Twin Towers, as it was for the Amators. I also tried the Twin Towers with a Musical Fidelity A1 integrated amplifier. Although the A1 is rated at a paltry 25Wpc into 8 ohms, it is said to have a robust-enough power supply and output stage to handle low-impedance speakers. I never needed to push the A1 to its limit, to be sure; but at times, when the volume was high, I sensed it might soon run out of juice. Anything lower in power probably would have. At the same time, you don’t need oodles of power for the Twin Towers either—certainly nothing near the recommended maximum of 200Wpc.
I set up the Twin Towers in my 14′ × 18′ (somewhat lively) living room as I did the Lumina II Amators: some 8′ apart, tweeter center to tweeter center, and about a foot and a half from the front wall. I immediately noticed that the Twin Towers’ highs were not as pronounced as the Lumina II Amators’. To compensate, I toed in the Twin Towers a little more than I did the Lumina II Amators: about 30 degrees rather than 15 degrees, to be right on-axis. Totem recommends installing the supplied spikes only if necessary. On my carpeted floor, to ensure stability, it was.
Sound
A few months ago, Jason Thorpe, SoundStage! Ultra senior editor, took possession of a pair of the now-discontinued Totem Acoustic Sky Tower ($2250/pair while in production). The Sky Tower is very similar to the Bison Tower in appearance and configuration—a single tweeter and a single midrange-woofer in a floorstanding cabinet—and can be considered the predecessor of the Bison series.
Jason has heard and auditioned many high-end speakers over the years but was still blown away by the Sky Towers’ sound and by how well they compared to much costlier speakers. Just before I sat down to write this section, I called Jason and asked what impressed him most about the Sky Towers. It was their soundstage depth and imaging, he said, and their bass output, which was far greater than their size would suggest. And while they sounded great with solid-state amps, he added, they really came alive with tube amps.
I didn’t get the chance to play the Twin Towers under tubes, but the moment the Marantz 40n lit them up, you would swear they were driven by tubes. The midrange was smooth, and the highs were silky, extending just right. With the Lumina Amator IIs, highs could be a tad bright, depending on the music. But it was the Twin Towers’ bass that really took me aback. It was deeper and fuller than anything the Lumina Amator IIs could muster and, yes, weightier than what I had expected, judging from their cabinet size. Still, it was not overpowering; it was in perfect balance with the frequencies above. That combination of heft in the low end and buttery smoothness above was special. Again and again, while listening to the Twin Towers, I thought, Damn, these speakers sound good!
Though deep, heavy, and full, the Twin Towers’ bass was not unimpeachable. With certain music selections, a slight lack of clarity, even blurriness, veiled the upper bass, at around 200Hz. On Bruce Cockburn’s The Charity of Night on CD (True North TNSD 0150), for instance, Cockburn’s vocals sounded a touch indistinct on some tracks; so did Mick Fleetwood’s drums on Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain,” from Rumours (CD, Warner Bros. Records CD 3010; LP, Warner Bros. BSK 3010). This is my sole criticism of the Bison Twin Towers. Still, the thrill of that bass weight easily outweighed its vexing occasional blurriness.
When I played Van Morrison’s Poetic Champions Compose (CD, Polydor 314 537 547-2), on both the Twin Towers and the Lumina II Amators, a clear contrast emerged between the two pairs in both soundstage and imaging. The Amators cast uncannily distinct, laser-sharp sonic images. In my March article, I wrote of the Amators’ solid spread of soundstage, which completely enveloped the speakers: “Sometimes, to perceive the full extent of a soundstage, its depth in particular, a certain degree of constructive imagination is called for. . . . The Lumina II Amators presented a soundstage with spectacular dimensionality, leaving no room, and posing no need, for imagination.”
The Twin Towers’ images were not as distinct as the Lumina II Amators’ and their soundstage was not as deep, but it was consistently wider. And while the Amators’ sharp sonic images were planted precisely across the soundstage at more or less the height of the cabinets, the Twin Towers’ more nebulous images were like sonic bubbles that extended above and below the cabinet tops. The Twin Towers could play louder than the Amators could, but even at low volume levels, they had a bigger, satisfying, room-filling sound. I attribute this to their bass output, which lent a sense of fullness to the sound.
The Twin Towers performed admirably with every musical genre I threw at them and were true crowd pleasers. I was hosting a casual listening session one evening with a small group of music lovers. We took turns picking songs, and played dozens of tracks as the evening wore on from a wide range of musical genres. After a while, having acquired a good feel for the sound of the Totems, I asked whether anybody wanted to hear what five times the price gets you. Needless to say, everyone did.
As soon as my Estelon Auras came on, the increase in bass depth, midrange clarity, and dynamic range was obvious to everyone. Somewhat less obvious was the absence of blurriness in the upper bass—I did notice it, but I was listening for it. In the end, we all agreed that the Estelon Auras sounded better. Considering the price difference, they ought to, of course, but while they undeniably outperformed the Twin Towers they did not “outclass” them—they were not a league apart. As one person remarked, had he not heard the Totems right next to the Estelons, he would have been perfectly happy with them, never imagining their sound could be bettered appreciably.
In view of the Twin Towers’ strengths—the full, weighty bass; the extended, sweet highs; and the smooth, tube-like midrange—their slight sonic sins were easy to forgive. That spectacular midrange performance, especially with vocals, is worth emphasizing.
For instance, when I played Ani DiFranco’s “Everest,” from Up Up Up Up Up Up (CD, Righteous Babe RBR-013D), a sparse recording that features mostly DiFranco’s vocals and acoustic guitar, I was instantly smitten by her smooth, clear voice. Cockburn’s vocals on “Pacing the Cage,” from The Charity of Night, sounded robust and natural, though not quite as textured as it did through the Auras. Stevie Nicks’s vocals on “Dreams,” from Rumours, didn’t punch through the mix as it did with the Auras (whether on CD or LP), but it was still clear and oh so smooth.
I’ve been reveling in the mellifluous midrange of the Bison Twin Towers these past several months. It is chiefly thanks to their aptitude in this audio range that I’ve enjoyed listening to these speakers more than to any other floorstander from Totem.
Conclusion
Is the Bison Twin Tower Totem Acoustic’s best-sounding, most-beautiful speaker yet? At least to the eyes of this beholder, the Twin Towers in satin white must be the most attractive of Totem’s current and past offerings. And of the ones I’ve heard, it is also the best sounding. When the pair of Twin Towers arrived, I thought, Ho hum, another pair of speakers. But they weren’t just another pair of speakers—they were special, in both sound and appearance, and they completely won me over. I encourage you to audition a pair and see if they do the same for you.
. . . Doug Schneider
das@soundstage.com
Associated Equipment
- Speakers: Sonus Faber Lumina II Amator.
- Turntable: Pro-Ject Audio Systems X1 with Pick it S2 cartridge and Connect it E cable.
- CD player: Pro-Ject Audio Systems CD Box S3.
- Integrated amplifiers: Marantz 40n, Musical Fidelity A1.
- Speaker cables: QED XT25.
- Interconnects: XLO DNA.
- Digital cable: Furutech FX-Alpha-Ag.
- Power cord: Shunyata Research Venom HC.
- Power distributor: Shunyata Research PS8.
- Acoustical treatments: BXI Sound Absorber panels (20), Tönnen Sound panels (2).
Totem Acoustic Bison Twin Tower Loudspeaker.
Price: $4000 per pair.
Warranty: Five years, parts and labor.
Totem Acoustic
9165 Champ d’Eau
St-Léonard, QC
H1P 3M3
Canada
Website: www.totemacoustic.com
