Nola Contender & Totem Forest comparison?

Quite a diversity of comments here. I attended the Newport Beach Audio show in 2011, 2012 and 2013. I kept going back to the Nola Contender room again and again as it was doing music like so few other setups. The man in the room kept saying, "you again?". With an ARC CD player and integrated amp, the sound was simply phenomenal. For an $18k retail setup, only a couple of the 100k systems got my attention as this. Sometimes the setup man simply does it right. For $3500, I have yet to hear another dynamic speaker that comes close to this….not even close…not Spendor, not Harbeth, no the VR series….albeit with stellar components elsewhere required. I ended up buying the Boxers for my apt setup.

Ironically, one of the few other setups that knocked my socks off each time was the Totem speakers. The dynamics and clarity with mid-priced MBL electronics was simply stunning.

John

Yeah, the comments don't seem reflective of Stereophile's measurements, where Atkinson found slightly more mid treble energy. Certainly isn't a dull speaker. My personal experience is that it's quite detailed, in a musical way, not in a hi-fi way.
The most obvious, eye-bulging effect is how deep the soundstage is. That seemed to be the same observation one of TAS' reviewers found at the 2011 CES. Think it was J. Valin who said the soundstage was huge…if a speaker is "dull", it is not going to have a big soundstage, since that requires significant treble extension.

I said, "wow, kinda dull." Yep, that is what I also thought with the newer Nolas. Could not understand how they could not sound better than my Alon V MKIIs. My friend went to the audio show in Brooklyn and he heard the Nolas (higher priced models). He has heard my Alons for many years and never said more than the sound very nice. He called me and said that he found the last speaker he would ever need and if he could afford them, he would buy them. Go figure. I am not sure why they sounded dull in the dealer set-up and knowing what the Aalons sound like, I cannot imagine that the sound that Carl has designed is worse than the Alons. Unless he and his wife have gone deaf!

Happy Listening.

Bigkidz--remember that the Contender and Boxer speakers are closed box designs, not the open baffle designs Alon used to make. The higher priced ones are open baffled for the mids and tweeters and use a ribbon tweeter, that's why I far preferred them to the Boxer/Contenders and probably why your friend liked them as well. The Boxers/Contenders are good designs for box speakers, but once you have that open, pretty much boxless, sound in your head they can come off as duller in comparison, in my view.

Your Alon Vs are terrific speakers. One of the NJAS members has them, and has had a number of upgrades done to them by Carl to get the drivers closer to the Nola ones. He;s been very happy with the results, and I thought the improvements were quite noticeable as well. Might be worth considering if you get the upgrade bug.

Russ, yes, I forgot to mention that in my comments. I thought that the open baffle ones also sounded a little dull versus my Alons but they also were more refined. It is hard to say because I am using a DHT preamp and DAC versus what the dealer was using. Once I finalize the last few adjustments, I will contact you for a listen.