I recently purchased a pair from Ultimate Sound in San Francisco Union Square area. I also purchase a Mite TC for center channel but will comment on that is that section. I am driving this with a Sherwood Newcastle R-945 av receiver. Not the ideal choice due to budget and space wise in my room. The speakers cables used are Kimber Kable model 8TC. The source is mainly from my Panasonic A-110 dvd/cd player. Once in a while, I will watch tv through these speakers.
I've had these since the 6th of August. Thus far, they have been splendid. Good detail in highs but not bright. Probably due to soft dome tweeter. Bass is strong enough for music and movie watching in small rooms - not the type that will rock the foundation. If you want to get the police to file a disturbance certainly help. It is quite amazing that they can produce such an abundant charge against you, this can do it OR if you want to be evicted these can amount of bass from a single 5" woofer. WOW! Thus far, I've gotten 2 complaints from my upstairs neighbor claiming that it felt like an earthquake from their level. I was watching Tomorrow Never Die and Star Trek First Contact on dvd. The explosion was so cool. Really looking foward to watch more movies. The speed of these speakers are quite fast. The Boston Acoustic A10 that I am using as surround is having a difficult time keeping up with the Sttafs. Alsp going to be hard to mate a subwoofer to them. Ultimate Sound recommended getting a sub with a small woofer 8-10" in diameter such as the new NHT Sub One or Sub Two. But I had my eye set on a Sunfire Sub.

The instruction sheet recommended burning them in for about 90 hours. My pair have been running for about 192 hours continuous since the 8th of August because that was what the shop owner recommended from his experience. Thus far, I have agreed with his recommendation and each day the sound quality is getting better. I will probably stop it around 200 + hours. I am thinking of biwiring them and/or getting a separate amp to drive these in the very near future. Any amplifier recommendations out there? When I move to a bigger place with more room for full 5.1 channel, I will consider getting another pair for surrounds so that I could get matched timbre.

Cheap upgrades or modifications, I am considering is getting better feets for them or getting a pair the BEAK advetised on http://www.totemacoustics.com

I will probably write more later when I have more to say but thus I am very happy (5 stars) with build quality and sound reproduction. BTW the finish was one of the reasons that I pick Totem. The wood scents smell great and they also look like a piece of high grade furniture.

Just heard the Totem Staff for the first time at Codell Audio in Montreal. First I was impressed... until I heard the Model One ! The Staff delievers a good bass and very good mids. Highs were OK, but not impressive.
Build quality is A-1.

holographic soundscape, attractive design, surprisingly deep bass, "musical"

a little pricey, but worth it

For many years, I have followed the trends and developments in the hifi world by reading magazines and occasionally visiting showrooms. My father keeps me informed as well---whenever we chat, the conversation invariably steers towards hifi equipment. Call it bonding if you will.

However, I've suffered the "champaigne taste on a beer budget" syndrome. Until recently, that is. I sold my stock options and treated myself to the opportunity to buy my dream system. And my first upgrade needed to be the speakers. Sorry, old Infinity bookshelf workhorses, you served me well for the $80 bucks, but it's time to move on...

During my last visit to my dad's place near Grass Valley, I asked him if there were any hifi stores nearby. He thought a minute and said, "oh yeah, there's this guy who recently started a small home theater store." So off we boys went in search of our new toys.

The proprietor (whose name I can't recall at the minute) was very patient, unpushy and relaxed. He had a small collection of Polks, Totems and Paradigms. I'd listened to some Polks and Paradigms before (and didn't really care them), but had never heard of Totem before. I listened to the Mites first, then the Sttaf, and just for the fun of it, the Forrests.

I was totally amazed by the sheer musicality of all these models. The little Mites sounded incredible for their size and price (around $650). The Forrests were spectacular, but too refined for my tastes (and too much at $3000). But the Sttafs, well, what can I say? I had to take them home with me.

Since then, I've been happily rediscovering my music, drinking in the sonic qualities like I would a fine wine. Sure, my system still needs to be upgraded from the Denon amp and the Sony CD player. Also, the speakers have not burned in yet, and I do detect a slight shrillness in the upper octave, which the manufacturer says will go away after 90 hours. But it's still lightyears beyond what I'd had to live with.

My little, boxy listening room is not ideal for imaging, but they do enhance the Sttaf's already impressive bass output (rated to 39Hz, an amazing feat for 5 1/2 inch drivers). Still, I've got an eye out for a good little sub to fill out the bottom.

And my wife approves of both the physical and audible aesthetic qualities, even though she's never really paid attention to hifi stuff, per se. A win-win situation.

Soundstage, and lots of it.

Nothing worth writing!

Being a student and a little shy in the financial dept, it was a long painstaking trip to determine what speakers to purchase. I was looking for a product that was within my budget (>1500 C$) but still would sonicly handle a amplifier upgrade in the future. Currently I am using a Cambridge audio CD4-SE (which I bought buy accident, not realizing that it is a phenominal player for the money-check out the reviews!) and a '97 Rotel RA-971BX. The Rotel isnt bad but it will definatley have to go in the future as money allows (hopefully to be replaced w/ a used Bryston?). Anyways, back to the shopping. After checking out some of the 'national chain' stores (Sony Store, HIFI2000, etc) and listening to Infinities, Kefs and Paradigms, I instantly realized that I needed something a bit more 'high fidelity'(I had been listenig to a friends system which is based around 2 Mac 60's -> Hieco Symphonies). Off I go (to where I would continually spend my Paycheck,if i got them regularly), American Sound of Canada in Richmond Hill. Here (hear?) I auditioned the;Totem Arrow and Sttaf, PSB Status Bronze, NHT Super two, and Soliloquys 5.0's. The PSB's and NHT's were neat, but they would have suited the hard rock secene a little better than what my real goal was. After heavily auditioning the Arrows, I realized that I would have to spend a crazy amount of money to purchase a sub to finish the deal (the Arrows are great and a cheap sub just wouldnt do if you want more bass than they put out) they sound absolutely super, but a bit shy in the bass dept (actually, seeing their actual size Im suprised that they make any base what-so-ever) and seeing as I had a couple bucks left in my budget, I though to look elsewhere. Enter Sttafs and 5.0's. Both of these speakers have some of the highest cabnet build quality I have seen in any speaker of any price. The 5.0's had the ability to make it seem as though your head was caught in a silky smooth wave of bliss when positioned properly. Also (uncommonn for a bookshelf) the bass was very tight and low! The two things that made me turn away from the 5.0's though, were the totally stunning stands(and the extra 600$ it cost for them -on top of the 1200$ for the speakers) and I didnt feel that with exchange buying any American$ speaker would live up to a Canadian$ speaker (For all you Americans out there, if I was to buy a 2000$ speaker that originated in the states, I would only really be getting a 1000$ speaker because of the 50% loss on exchanging the dollar!)That really sucks. So here I am, looking at the Totem Sttafs (made in Quebec Canada). Nice Mahogony finish. Strong heavy Cabnet. Nice gold bi-wirable binding posts. I listened to them through a variety of high end equiptment that I could only dream of obtaining, and they never ceased to amaze me. They have a wonderful wide soundstage, and the highs are sharp and those lows are LOW (and tight!). This was a trend that continued on once I got them home, which was a rather pleasant suprise! I just cant say how happy I am with these speakers. I am listeming to a variety of music and they alway bring out the best in it. They are very highly recomended for jazz (esp w/guitar). To top it off when they let me buy the demo's for XXXX$ I was SUPER happy, they still had 5 years of warranty and were pre broken in! But if you cant find the money for the Sttafs, still listen to the Arrows, they are the best thing you can buy for the 1100$ list. These babys are worth every penny, even if you pay list! So...Even if there was 420 stars the Sttafs would still be perfect in my world!

Similar Products Used:

Kef Q55.2, Totem Arrow, Soliloquy 5.0, Paradigm somethings (not worth remembering...) and a bunch of other British stuff.

Clarity, Imaging, Sound accuracy, quickness of Bass (upper range). Great ability to disappear. Wonderful for jazz, classical, or more jazz/acoustically oriented rock (Fagan, Sting, older Genesis, etc...).

A bit laid back for Acid/Hard Rock.

It's interesting when you set out to audition speakers and as you listen to them, your mind will evaluate them and judge them as good or bad. I've never really had that "toe tapping" emotional experience and, until listening to the Sttafs, I was set to purchase speakers based on purely objective means.

Until I decided on Totem, I was about to purchase the Soliloquy 5.3 which is a vantastic speaker. However, It couldn't pull off the dissapearing act (at 5 feet from the wall) that the Monitor Audio Silver 5 was capable of doing. And the Audio Monitor Silver couldn't provide the bass accuracy that I desired. In listening to the Joseph Audio, these speakers were very accurate but lacked warmth. An analogy (not my own) that I think applies here is that the Joseph Audio will make you feel like your in the 5th row (brighter) at a concert where the Totem will make you feel like your in the 20th row (warmer). FYI, the Polk Audio made me feel like I was outside the stadium (which bothers me because I used to adore my monitor 7's)!

My test music consisted of Casandra Wilson's (New Moon Daughter), Bill Evans (Explorations), Donald Fagan (Kamikiriad), Jesse Cook (Vertigo), and Poncho Sanchez (Conga Blue). The cut that I used primarily was was Strange Fruit from Cassanda's New Moon Daughter. The opening bass line will tell you how accurate the bass handling can be. The Sttaf nicely handled the "driving acoustic bass" sounds and when Cassandra added her haunting vocal, I simply got lost in the whole scene. Her range is incredible and the Sttafs performed flawlessly. The music from the Sttafs became very tactile (interactive) to me. Finally, an emotional experience.

As you can tell, I'm acoustically inclined in my musical tastes and this appears to be one of the Sttaf's strengths. So, after doing lots of background research on Totem Acoustic and finding how much great technology goes into this product, I decided to buy. Mine are on order.

The only dissapointment which is of no concern if you don't have to have Cherry wood for the veneer finish, is that this option costs a couple of hundred dollars extra. This would cause me to drop the value to 4 stars (but I'll leave it at 5 because I suspect most will not take the Cherry route).

Similar Products Used:

Soliloquy, Monitor Audio, Energy, Polk Audio, Tannoy, & Joseph Audio