Ability to WOW on first listen.

Overly bright and colored tweeter, resonant cabinet.

Excellent review by James. Took the words right out of my mouth... Found a speaker for 1/3 the price I wanted to spend. Sounded great the three times I demoed it in the store WITH my Integrated Amp. Unfortunately, I could not take home a demo, so I purchased it. A few days later, the overly bright tweeter started to bother me. Since I was stuck with this speaker, I decided to play around with the crossover. I bought 3 different resistors and found the right combination of tweeter loudness and smoothness. I changed out the 1.8ohm Dale resistor with a 6ohm Mills Non-inductive Wire Wound resistor. That did the trick! Extremely detailed but smooth and not in your face treble!
Still, it is not refined sounding and is a bit colored. It is a bit hashy and grainy (could use more break-in time I suppose), and does not have that nice metallic RING on cymbals that the Tannoy MX3's have. The Tannoy MX3 has about the best tweeter I've heard in a sub $1000 speaker.

Imaging is great but not the best I've heard, but the soundstage is fairly large. Midrange detail is only average. The Tannoy MX3 has amazing midrange detail, but suffers from a bit of glare, so it can be fatiguing to listen to for extended periods, also made bad recordings
unbearable. The Arros on the other hand are a bit laid back in the midrange, so it makes bad records sound pretty good.

The Bass is admirable for a woofer it's size. It is very tight but not as defined as I expected. The Coincident Triumphs has incredible bass detail. Also the Sonus Faber Signums had the most incredible bass I've ever heard. The back of our listening chairs were pounding our backs playing Christian McBride. In the Totem literature, it says it has "unique borosilicate damping" Someone must have forgotten to put it into my speakers... which brings me to my next area: The Cabinet.

The cabinet is finished very nicely, although the inside of the cabinets are NOT veneered as it says in the literature, and it does resonate at I would guess 300hz. There is this one track on Patricia Barbers Cafe Blue CD where is resonates like mad! I can brace the cabinet with my hands and it goes away. I'm going to try some Deflex panels... Also, I found it very cheesy to assemble the bases with a yellow "blue tac" like substance.

All in all, I find the speakers quite enjoyable with the
mod. I'm sure the bass will improve somewhat with the deflex panels. 4 stars with the mod, 2 stars without so I give an average of 3 stars.

System:

Cary Audio SLI-50 with oil caps
Ah! Cd player
Cableplex Power 1 and Connect 1 Silver cables.
Kimber 4TC Speaker Wire.
Carver True Subwoofer.

Similar Products Used:

Coincident Triumph, Tannoy M1 and MX3, Sonus Faber Signum.

Imaging: Stunnning. When properly set up and cabled these little fellows disappear from your consciousness and the music comes from all the space around them with instruments and voices laid out nicely in terms of height, depth and breadth. As an instrument, mouth or mike is moved slightly by the artist, you become aware of it.
Dynamic Range: with good source and a clean, fast and unrestricted amplifier, these little guys will stun you and scare your dog.
Sound stage: Again, with excellent set-up, and proper cabling (avoid silver or silver coated copper)these speakers will cast a magical spell of airiness, depth and breadth that will draw you into the music far better than some $3k to 4K speakers I have owned. Really.
Tonality: in reviewing the tones of musical instruments one by one, accoustic instruments and the human voice are wonderfully depicted by this little beast. As to amplified and electronic instruments, who knows? I can only gues what the intended sound was supposed to be as few of us are in studios and understand the phase-shifting and tweaking that many instruments undergo before they are laid down on the master-tape. As to sounds of nature, my Scottie (dog) is the tester. She gets very concerend when recordings of squirrels and thunderstorms -- things she knows very well and is interested in. Other speakers have not eleicited this reaction from her and I think it is because they are superbly phased and time-aligned across the audio band, hence a deeper sence of sonic realism.
Bass: this has to be heard to be believed -- especially when you have equipment that can auto-equalize the spectrum of signal being fed to the Arro's through pink noise broadcast and feedback. Your jaw - and that of your pals -- will drop when your mind tries to deal with that quantity and quality of sound coming from a single 4 1/2" driver.
Midrange: when properly equalized to the room accoustic,midrange is wonderful in every way.
Treble: Beautiful, extended and spot on! However, if you have cheaper CD players, preamps and amps, they usually tend to be bright in an effort to come across as delivering "definition". Add silver cables inot this mixture and irritating brightness will prevail. If this happens in your system do not blame the Arros. It is likely not their fault.
Build: nice finish, light and easy to move about, beautiful wood veneers with high wife acceptance factor.

Bass: yes I know I said they were good and they are but I wish they could somehow produce the last octave that my Meadowlarks can.
Volume: the tweeters will breaks-up around 96db if over driven by enthusiasts who have lost some hearing sensitivity, or are sucked into the music by thes little fellows (I was). They will play plenty loud for most humans in most circumstances that include sensitivity to neighbours.

Cable COnnection Point: Should be nearer the floor for purposes of aesthetics.

Whether I played Bruce Cockburn, The Who, Loreena McKennit, Handel's Water Music, Torelli or simple nature recordings; these Arro's are capable of translating the recordings into the world of ears without coloring it or adding any glaring time or phase problems that would suspend my beleif and ruin the event.
Well done Totem. A stunning achievement that throws down the gauntlet to your competitors at this price point.

Equipment used in testing:
Exposure Super 21 amplifier
Spectron 1KW amplifier
OCM 88 preamplifier
McCormick Micro preamplifier
Z-Systems RDQ-1
Yamaha EQ 1100U auto-equalizer
McCormack SST-1 CD Player
Monarchy Dual 20-bit DAC with DIP
a dozen cable combinations

Similar Products Used:

JM Labs (variety), Saturn S6 & 8, Royd Prior, Dunlavy SCII, B & W CDM1, Magnepan 1.2