First Mr. Parneer, I am not a great believer that older technology has the sonic charm to possibly sound better than newer speaker technology. On rare occasions, that might be true as several members have qualified. Basically, to me that is an old wives tale, If that were the case, then I might as well go on e-bay, and look for a mint pair of the original Advent speakers, or even maybe a pair of the defunct Rectilinear 3A's
However, Lowrider's points are helpful though I have heard them before; that is, the Hawks can be a pain in ass to set-up and very room dependent.This might be also true for the Forest, but I have read fewer complaints about that speaker. Also, I use a Rogue Sphinx hybrid integrated amp (100 RMS) which is not necessarily high current, despite using a variation of class D circuitry, like NuForce, Red Dragon, Bel Canto.
I don't want to start a quest for a new amp with that type of pedigree(though high current amps do provide better performance overall, especially bass) to run either Hawks or Forest. In addition, the least expensive used pair of Forests on Audiogon were I think selling for $2800. I never seen even a moderate condition pair lower than $2300. So no matter how much I like the Hawks, practically, they may be less than ideal sound, or not work for me
In my opinion, Totem's pricing had always been off the charts, and looks like Vince has continued that strategy with the Element line of new speakers. Inflated retail pricing forces resellers to offer Totems at proportionally higher prices which leads many buyers to pursue newly marketed speakers of other major brands
However, Lowrider's points are helpful though I have heard them before; that is, the Hawks can be a pain in ass to set-up and very room dependent.This might be also true for the Forest, but I have read fewer complaints about that speaker. Also, I use a Rogue Sphinx hybrid integrated amp (100 RMS) which is not necessarily high current, despite using a variation of class D circuitry, like NuForce, Red Dragon, Bel Canto.
I don't want to start a quest for a new amp with that type of pedigree(though high current amps do provide better performance overall, especially bass) to run either Hawks or Forest. In addition, the least expensive used pair of Forests on Audiogon were I think selling for $2800. I never seen even a moderate condition pair lower than $2300. So no matter how much I like the Hawks, practically, they may be less than ideal sound, or not work for me
In my opinion, Totem's pricing had always been off the charts, and looks like Vince has continued that strategy with the Element line of new speakers. Inflated retail pricing forces resellers to offer Totems at proportionally higher prices which leads many buyers to pursue newly marketed speakers of other major brands