LOUDSPEAKERS: Does the Totem Mani-2 still rate as one of the ...

The first time we ever met Vince
Bruzzese he was showing a
prototype of a very small speaker
with what seemed at the time
like an absurdly high price. We're glad to
Rendezvous
The Totem Man
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
say that we encouraged him to persevere,
and the rest is history: the tiny “overpriced”
speaker turned out to be the Totem Model
One, arguably the world’s most successful
mini-monitor.
We talked with him a lot after that,
and ran a Rendezvous feature with him
in UHF No. 43. We thought it was about
time we talked with him again.
UHF: When you look back to the beginning,
when the Totem line was just one model, does
it seem an awfully long time ago?
Bruzzese: Actually not, because we still
live with that same model, but it has been
a wonderful journey, and it still is. The
joy we got out of the Model One, we get
from most of our other models.
UHF: Has the marketing side gotten easier
as the line has grown? It must have been
difficult when you had just one model.
Bruzzese: Without a doubt. It was difficult
to penetrate the market back in the
late 1980’s. Back then the big speaker
ruled, and a small speaker was out of the
ordinary. Of course the addition of other
models made the line extremely acceptable
to the mainstream market.
UHF: The Mani-2 was the speaker we all
thought would be called the Model Two. Tell
us how you thought about going beyond the
Model One.
Bruzzese: Actually the Mani-2 was
brought out almost at the same time
as the Rokk and the Tott. Those two
were excellent in their own way, but the
Mani-2 was supposed to be the flagship
“monitor” speaker. Back then monitors
had certain limitations, and the Mani-2
was totally different. No one else had
tried a vented box with a double woofer
inside. I wanted something that would
coalesce correctly and would have an
extremely low noise floor, with holographic
imaging, keeping that same
emotional context and pace that I was
always interested in.
UHF: Though it’s not obvious from the
outside, the design of the Mani-2 is radically
different.
Bruzzese: Yes. There’s no written
theory on that type of speaker, very
few parameters you could follow. Being
largely self-taught in the engineering
of speakers, I delved into things that
had never been approached before, to
produce the ultimate monitor. And it
has survived the test of time. I think