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Listening Room
Totem Model One
With this small but gorgeous
speaker, we were
convinced that we were
in familiar territory.
The Model One is a known quantity. We
reviewed the original one when it came
out in the 80’s, and we did the Signature
version in UHF No.65. Both times, we
loved it. It is one of the world’s great
speaker designs. The Model One’s very
strong imaging power makes it a natural
for a surround sound system…but only
with an accompanying centre speaker.
And this speaker sure looks like a
member of the family. Think of a pair
of Model Ones glued back to back, but
sharing a single tweeter, like Siamese
Twins. The enclosure includes two
separate spaces for the two 14 cm Dynaudio
woofers, each with its own reflex
port at the rear. There are, as usual with
this series, two pairs of the wonderful
WBT binding posts at the rear. The
mahogany finish on ours was…let’s just
say you could buy the speaker for that
alone.
The Totem is small compared to
the competition, but that could be just
one more reason to choose it. At least
it would if it turned out to be as terrific
as the other speakers in the series.
Like other small Totems, this one has
relatively low sensitivity, at least by the
standard of the current fashion. You
can’t make a speaker this size with this
ability to dig out extreme lows without
Centre
it showing up somewhere.
Though the speaker is no larger
than the first two tested, it projected an
image of solidity you don’t expect from
something its size. The two male voices
in the first live vs recorded test had good
body, without ever becoming artificially
chesty. We were surprised by the higher
frequencies, though, which were slightly
elevated. We expected to hear sibilance
on Reine’s voice, but Albert’s esses were
a touch prominent as well. This is, as
we’ve noted before, a brutal test, because
a first-generation recording of our own
voices gets us as close as we can get to
an absolute standard.
The Model One did much better
than the other two compact speakers
on the two recordings, as we expected.
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Totem Model One
Center
Price: C$1595/US$1400 as tested,
slightly more in some finishes
Dimensions: 63.5 x 16.5 x 24 cm
Impedance: 4 ohms
Claimed sensitivity: 86 dB
Most liked: Surprising body, plenty
of dynamics
Least liked: A somewhat elevated top
end, occasional coloration
Verdict: Add four more Totem speakers,
plus a sub, and stir
The strings on the 1948 Beethoven
recording can be shrill to the point of
brittleness, but the Totem pulled down
the highs to a much more tolerable level.
“I can still hear something odd in the
high midrange,” said Gerard, “but this is
a lot better, isn’t it?” So was the Jennifer
Warnes recording. The tight but ample
bottom end gave her voice a richness
that neither of the other two speakers
had been able to deliver. The percussion
was detailed, with body but no tendency
to boom. “This is a good speaker,” said
Albert.
But how would it do on movies? We
listened to the pink noise during the
alignment phase, and noted how unlike
our Energy speakers this Totem was.
This is not a black mark by any means,
though it reduced the chances that we
might be able to get by with such a
pleasingly small speaker in our Kappa
system.
Gerard noted with relief that the level
of distortion, which had cast a greyish
veil on dialog with the previous two
speakers, had largely lifted. Reine liked
the greater depth that the three front
speakers were now managing, and she
took interest in the proceedings once
again. The choral voices on The Abduction
From the Seraglio in Amadeus were
better detached, and more lifelike, and
even the applause was better rendered.
Were we unanimous? Not this time.
Albert found the voices more colored,
and rather too homogeneous. “Even
Katarina’s voice sounds like the others,”
he complained.
With the other two speakers Reine
had complained of not being to follow
the text, which is of course delivered
with British accents. She found the
dialog clearer this time. “I could have
written it down,” she said. Gerard also
liked the rendition of the scene, despite
the speaker’s tonal balance, which didn’t
quite blend with our speakers.
As for Albert, his doubts were growing.
“I don’t like that coloration,” he said.
“I can live with other forms of distortion,
but not that one. The sibilance is too
prominent, and there’s gauze wrapped
around everything.” The other two
panelists looked at him quizzically. It
looked as though unanimity was out of
reach.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 35