Nola Contender & Totem Forest comparison?

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.

well, I have a pair of the Esprit (similar to the Elite and Viper speakers, but with only one woofer), and i can't say that their treble is better than the Contenders - with one caveat: the tweeters in more recent versions of the Contender do not have the mid-treble rise that the older versions have, and consequently, even though they sound fantastic, the older Contenders give the impression of more detailed. It's not the very top that gives the detail, it's the region between 2k - 10k that will make a speaker sound "bright" - or, conversely - dull. I have both older and newer Contenders and they don't sound the same, I can tell you that. One version of mine is from 2010, and the other from 2013. I like the 2010 version better. The difference is clearly the tweeter, which I had replaced when one blew in the older pair. It was OBVIOUS that the replacement tweeter and the original had different energy in the 2-10k band. All you had to do was play 1 speaker at a time, placed dead center in front of the listening area and play something with considerable treble, and on one speaker, the orchestra was sorted out in rows, while on the newer one, it was more "compact"- sounding and you could not hear flutes, piccolos, clarinets as distinctly tonally different from each other.
I heard the $27k ones at the New York Audio show, too, and they were crystal clear-sounding. And if you have $30k for the electronics to put in front of them, they'll sound spectacular.