Has anyone heard the Totem Hawks? I am looking to upgrade and have heard all of the Totems except for that particular one. Any advice would be appreciated. I am running a Rega Cursa/Maia combination with a Apollo CD player.
They are very warm and forgiven of your electronics,one of the few Totems to work well with modest electronics along with the Staff and the Mite.If you like their sound you will love them,they have very deep shocking bass extension,with a huge soundstage and lovely midrange,i like them very much my self,nice speaker,have fun auditioning them.
There is sufficient bottom end in the Hawk for my taste, and set-up. It really depends on the size of the room, and how much bass response you like. The Hawks will give you a very natural presentation of what's recorded.
I like the Hawks better,the B&Ws are a bit overpriced,they are good but their is a bunch thats better at the 804s pricepoint and they are very power hungry,I think the Hawk is a better overall selection,they are very forgiving of electronics something thats unusual at this pricepoint,you can come out much cheaper,and the Hawks go a little lower than the 804s.
I am very close to buying the Hawk but had a question about it's ability to play loud. The spec reads 107db although I don't plan on playing this speaker particularly loud. Do I run the risk of damaging the coils at moderately loud levels?
You'll only damage them if you play loud for really prolonged periods. Are you planning on partying the night away? If so, you should consider the Forests, which would also work well with the Cursa/Maia.
Other than that you'd be looking at the Mani-2 Signatures, but a) they're much more expensive and b) you need exxons, and preferably 4 of them to biamp.
We break in our speakers by facing them at each other right up against each other but not quite touching, wire up one speaker out of phase (i.e. red to black and black to red), put in a Mono recording of anything upbeat and hit play. Turn up the volume knob until it would normally be fairly loud. Walk out of the room and leave it playing on repeat for the weekend. If the speakers are really difficult to run in, we do it for a few weekends. Dynaudios need 3 or 4 weekends like this. Totems need a couple of weekends.
Since the speakers are out of phase and a mono signal is in use, most of the sound is lost and the speakers are just driving each other. The sound you get is relatively quiet (just lean one to the side so they don't self-cancel and you'll see what I mean).
If you do this when you go out for the day at the weekend, it will hasten the run-in process.
Jut a couple of days ago I happened to hear TOTEM HAWK with Linn's MAJIK System (majik 2100 - kontrol - cd). I don't know, the sound didn't really come out as expected. YEs, extremely powerful and yet natural response in the lower range, good sound stage and imaging but...the overall impression was the sound was a wee bit "thin" if you see what I mean, lacking somewhat personality and depth. Moreover, when we played Beethoven's piano sonata in e-flat major n. 18) quite loud but not too loud, we discerned some distortion in several chords. I don't know, it makes me wonder. I've listened to hawk in several combos (EXposure, Meridian and now linn, I won'r mention Cambridge..it was awful!) and these loudspeakers seem to work well only with Meridian.
help required please. I am upgrading my system to a planned system of totem hawks to be driven by an arcam avr 300. I will also be getting a rainmaker centre. Any thoughts on this configuration or advice to other setups would be great. Also any advice on cables. thanks for the input. scott
The break in period is over and MAN could I tell a difference. I was listening to Beth Orton and the amount of detail that I heard was amazing. The Hawk is a downright fantastic speaker with surprising dynamic slam. Frank, you were right, I don't need a sub. Scott, I don't know that much about cables but I am currently using DH labs silver sonic interconnects and love them compared to what I had used before. I'm also using Analysis Plus Oval 10 Power Cords for all components. Although I couldn't tell much of a difference with the power cords attached to source components, I did notice a marked improvement when used with pre/power setups. Once again, thanks everyone for your valuable insight. I am a happy camper and would definitely recommend this speaker as it does a lot of things really well. By the way, It is also very beautiful.
Thanks for the input stephen. I think that I am leaning toiwards nordost blue heaven, but just not sure if the are worth the money. Anyone ever use this speaker wire with the totem hawks. Thanks again. scott
