2. speakers
  3. 1183091942

Totem Hawk or Forest : 1' close to rear walls

Hi,

My living room is approximately 21' x 21', with 9' ceiling, with some irregular inner walls (kitchen), and! open to other rooms in the house. I'm leaning towards the Forest, an easy to drive (6 ohms min) but power hungry beast (86db/w*m), but I can't pull my speakers more than 12", say 18" from the rear walls. It has been said earlier in this forum that the Totem Hawks are better suited in such situation (i.e restricted "breathing space"). I fear that the Forest may produce too much "strength" in the the bass. On the other end, will the Hawks play loud enough when pushed hard?

The speakers will be put in one of the corner (90 degrees) of the room.

Amplifier will be the Bel Canto S300i integrated (100+ watts @ 8 ohms, 200+ ohms @ 4 ohms), replacing my nice Rega Mira3, and CDP is the smooth and musical Eastern Electric Minimax. The current resident speakers, the really enjoyable Totem Rokk (close to Totem Model 1 in tone and spirit, IMHO), are returning to Home Theater duties.

Notes:
- I enjoy my set-up with the Rokk but I do miss part of the bottom octave. I don't really like the fact that subwoofers, unless you pay big $$$, are not really phase-coherent with the speakers. So this is not an option for me.
- We do have some parties once in a while...

Thanks.
jpiche

Showing 1 response by ghosthouse

ghosthouse's avatar
ghosthouse
4,279 posts
 
jpiche -
I am running Forests in a space smaller than yours: 15 x 13 x 8'. Have the speakers along the long wall - no choice. The Forests take a while to break in and intitially I was concerned about LACK of bass so had them ~12" from the wall. If you visit the Totem web site, this is the minimum recommended distance for the Forests. After a few hundred hours, I now have them ~18" from the wall and slightly toed in. I am sitting only 7' away. I don't find them boomy in the least - bass is well controlled (witness Fagen's Morph the Cat). Overall they are very musical and balanced with excellent imaging and detail. FWIW - my amp is a JoLida 502B 60/65W per channel. I don't think you will have any problem enjoying the Forests in your larger space.
More to discover