Replacing Totems One's

The Devilsound DAC has brought new life to my Totems to the point that I may keep them. I've been enjoying listening to them the last two days way more compared to the last two years, it's just way better.

Maybe you need to experiment more with your current setup. After all, if your wife wants a wood finish, the Totems are already beautiful. You may be able to fix this with better sound sources, better stands, and some experimenting with speaker placement. With a rear-ported speaker such as your Totems, you can also experiment with the port loading if you need them closer to the wall by placing something like a rolled up wash cloth in the port to increase damping and lower the resonant peak.

Which makes me wonder: if you were ready to replace the speakers until you got a new DAC, what *have* your listening sources been? And what are you using for cables and speaker stands? Maybe your Totems have simply done their job of showing the quality of signal and resonance control upstream. If you replace them, maybe you're just "shooting the messenger."

After all, high resolution is a 2-edged sword.

Ok, I experimented:

I have a Ayre AX-7 integrated amplifier with a Mac Mini & Devilsound DAC as a source.

Results: Unbelievable scary how good it is.

The amp is solid state no doubt about it but I can not afford the Tube amp or the foot print size needed that can replace what the Ayre does.

I also have since mounted the Totem's on some very solid wood parallam beams 6" w x 10'' d x 8" h to raise them to ear height and have a more solid base for the Totems to rest on (w/blue tack).
( http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3234/2909236234_32755fa409.jpg )

This also made a big improvement. Parallam is so dense and solid that the bass is now tight and fast. I'm amazed how much bass there is, the Arye had a lot to do with this.

The Aryre AX-7 has no problem driving the Totems. They cranked and sounded very clean and full. There's high resolution but not at all fatiguing.

I had a good listened to the Guru's the other day and I did not care for the sound, a bit boxy certainly not bright or forward. It has great bass for the size but the soundstage did not go wider than the speakers. Imagining however was tight inside the narrow soundstage. I much preferred my Totem's even though they are too close to the rear wall.

I also heard Joseph Audio rm7 monitors against the Guru's, I preferred the Joesph's by quite a bit even though they were a bit brighter but did not hear them in my own room or felt the amp being used was nearly strong enough to drive them hence the brightness.

I don't think there's going to be a perfect solution for my problem.

Cheers

Keep the Totems. Bring them out into the room for serious listening. You won't get great imaging from any speaker that's back against the wall.

I didn't know your Totems weren't even elevated to ear-level.

I consider the Ayre a keeper as well.

Is the music on your Mac Mini stored in a lossless (e.g., as WAV or ALC) or lossy file format?

I'd vote for keeping them too.....I sold mine when I moved to the Vandersteen 2ce's and I like that change, BUT then when I needed a second system, I was kicking myself for parting with them..

Yes, all files are lossless. I replaced the Mac Mini HD with a new 500gb 7200rpm hardrive and it's still silent like a mouse and with the Devilsound Dac it sounds as good or better than a Meridian G08 that a friend of mine lent me. I borrowed it to use as a reference to find out where I'm at.

I then went to my friends house with my MacBook Pro and the Devilsound to connect it to his monster system and compare it to his Meridian 808i.2 CD player with the exact same music but mine was on hardrive. At off axis, it sounded the same, the devilsound was doing nothing wrong, we couldn't believe it, then sat in the sweet spot and the difference more noticeable with less air, imaging and smaller soundstage but pretty damn close. It sounded nice and not at all tiring or lacking since considering the Devilsound/Mac was competing with a $18K CD player. He's ordering a Devilsound to play with.

Sorry, I digressed.

I'm keeping the Totem's, since I put them on the Parallam, the sound is 10xs better than before but it is lacking some of the imaging and soundstage depth that the totem's are really known for but that's life when forced to keep speakers too close to the wall. The Arye 7 is such a good match for the Totems, I feel very lucky how good the setup sounds.

I may continue to keep my eyes out if I hear about another mind blowing monitor but I'm not nearly looking as hard now.

Cheers