Deep soundstage, disappearing speaker trick, price, build quality, detailed presentation without harshness.

High end is a little tinny when compared with more substantial speakers, but very respectable and never fatiguing, soundstage width isn't nearly as impressive as depth.

These are excellent speakers for the price and have given me a peek into high-end audio. I will definitely upgrade through the totem line-- I'm sold on the company from my experience with these speakers. I don't have a very expensive system-- parasound power amp and NAD CD player through audioquest granite single bi-wire into the totems. However, the low end on the Rokks is incredibly taut and musical-- none of the boomy overemphasized bass I was used to from cheap infinity bookshelf speakers. The high end is very natural yet detailed at the same time. In particular, tambourine and drum kit cymbals are rendered especially well-- the transients aren't hyper etched, even with the solid state gear I use. Voices are reproduced very well, and I can get a little insight into what was happening in the vocal booth when the recording was made. The speakers' strongest point is their ability to disappear and throw a very deep soundstage. As someone below mentioned, the soundstage isn't especially wide. I spent an afternoon listening to some expensive audio physic floorstanders through much better source equipment and electronics than mine and when I came home I was able to see the Rokks' shortcomings in the high end, yet as far as soundstaging goes, the Rokks were right there with the 8x more expensive speakers. If you can get the speakers well away from the back and side walls, the voices, bass and drums (on a rock recording) are smack against or even behind the rear wall, while solo instruments and percussion are more up front-- very good back to front layering. The center fill is incredible-- you can listen with the speakers toed in directly at you and stare right at the drivers and still not believe that the sound is coming from the speakers. These are not perfect speakers, and I understand their drawbacks, but in my small listening room, and at the low price I found them for used, I just love them. I listen to a very wide variety of music, but most often to studio produced records of whatever genre. I can recommend these speakers for rock and jazz very stongly.

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JM Lab Mini Utopia, Quad 11 and 12

Warm. Detailed. No noticeable drop-off anywhere in the audio spectrum. Of course, don't expect any lows beyond 40-50hz.

A little big for a "bookshelf". Soundstage seems a bit narrow. I have my Rokks toed in quite a bit.

What a great speaker. Very involving. I am currently bi-amping with 4x85, and it sounds beautiful. You can find a few new pairs of these at a good price on the 'net.

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Rega Jura, Linn Tukan, Paradigm MiniMonitor, Cambridge Soundworks Ensemble

gobs of detail, suprising bass

can honk when pushed

I've owned these speakers back in 1997, sold them, then bought the very same pair again recently. Dare I say I enjoy these speaker more than the more expensive Totem model 1 sig's? Yup!! Detail, bass, harmonic presentaion and a general easy gait to the music makes this speaker a pleasure to listen. The tweeter is very well behaved (surprising for a metal dome), but fast and detailed. I hear everything in the recording, well, more than I did before anyway!! What a sleeper of the Totem line this is. "Balance" is the word that comes to mind. Love this speaker!! Other equipment include: Rega Planet CDP, Acurus RL-11 Pre, Linn LK-100 Amp. Wire by Goretz.

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totem 1 sig, proac 1sc, vandersteen 1C, krix equanox, old drive-in movie speakers

Deep and wide soundstage
Smooth highs and mids
Very good bass considering the size of the Rokks

Sounds get mixed with complex music
Sounds and voices could be more precise

Had a good listening session with the Rokks. Very impressive soundstage ! The imaging was deep and quite wide. Voices were not so precise but very decent.

Very smooth mids and highs especially with piano and acoustic guitar.

Considering it's under 1K$, it is really a high value.

Similar Products Used:

Totem One Sig, Sttaf, Forest

LF response considering size

Sound Stage / Sound Quality

I'm by no means an expert in this regard but will offer my findings after a full week on side by side listening. I would not consider my equipment high end nor consumer grade either. I used a Classe CA-100 AMP, Adcom GCD-700 CD changer, Meridian 501 preamp with Quad 12 guage speaker cable and silver interconnects. My listening room is 12 x 15 and lightly furnished.
Many of the speaker reviews I've seen are geared towards the classical music / listener and the monitor catagory even more so. I listen to Classical, RB, Light Jazz, Classic Rock and Easy Listening depending on mode and wanted a monitor speaker capable of performing in all catagories.
After rotating the speakers in and out for almost a week using the same materials (none of the equipmemt used was new)my brief summary follows:
N.H.T. - Style and build quality was good, stereo sweet spot was narrow, sound stage limited although accurate and detailed. 3.8

Totem Rokks - Cabinet construction was exceptional, sound stage, imaging and detail outstanding but depending on music type hard / harsh on the top end. 4.4

Sendor Elegance S1 - Style, cabinet construction and appearence were all excellent. The Spendor's were every bit as good as the Totem Rokks but had a more natural sounding mid-range and put up a larger / deeper sound stage.

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N.H.T 1.5, Spendor S1

open and detail of sound

none

I use the Totem Rock as my front speaker in my appartement. I think the company made an error, you can't find speaker of this size(small) and and this price sounding so great. They made a perfect balance of detail hi and lo notes. The bas is precise and clear not as the jbl where you find a very too smooth and uncontroled base. Th Totem rock just fitt great with a small integrated amplifier like simms audio pw5000. This speaker has a sound equal to very more expensive speaker at 2500$. Listen to it, precise, the sound is there not disturbing your listening even at high output level.

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JBL, Kef, Mordaunt Short

Bass, brightness, well everything

I couldn't find one.

After five years now, I want to replace my Mission 735.
After a listing session with a lot of speakers I found out that I liked two speakers much more then the rest:
Totem Mite
Totem Rokk
I think that the more expensive Arro can't compete with these two.
I took the Rokk and the Mite with me home. After listing with a lot of different music I found out that the Rokk has "something" the Mite doesn't have. It is better in positioning and voices (e.g. Celine Dion). The bass of the Rokk is also slightly better. Of course the Mite is less expensive. If you have the money I would suggest to buy a Rokk. I cannot find anything better in this price range.

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Totem Arro, Totem Mite, Linn Tukan, Mission 735, Elac, Tannoy, ASW

great 3d imaging, good bass for their size,natural sound

bass doesn't go way down, but what do you expect from a 5" woofer

I don't want to bore everyone trying to sound like a Stereophile reviewer with a bunch of details explaining details about the resolution, and mid-range, etc.. If you want to know what a speaker sounds like go listen to it. Instead I'll tell about my personal experience.
I've been using the Rokks in my main system since I bought them in 1998. When I bought them I had my heart set on some full range floor-standers. Over the course of about 3 months I auditioned several pairs of speakers at length(over an hour for most,It's great to have an understanding dealer). The day I went to the store, money in hand, to buy speakers I had narrowed the selection down to Paradigm monitor 9's, a pair of Cantons(don't remember the model #,in the $1300 range), a pair of McIntosh(can't remember the model # here either, $1300 range), and Tannoy M5's On advice from my dealer I listened to the Rokks even though I had already ruled out the tiny mini-monitors, a bit of prejudice on my part. I was blown away. I still am. The only pair of speakers I've heared that I would rather own are Martin Login SL3's, this includes speakers all the way up to $14,000. The only thing I can say is; if you are looking for speakers listen to as many as you can including the Rokks. Let your ears be the judge.

Other equiptment I own: 3 Marantz receivers from the 70's, 2 Dynaco pas pre-amps, a Crown amp, several mid-fi turntables, a Marantz SR-585se surround receiver, Nakamichi MB 3s CD player, Toshiba SD-2108 DVD player, NAD 314 Int. amp, Marantz CD-63, Optiimus LX Pro-5 II's, Cambridge Soundworks Model 6's, Cambridge Soundworks Sub-2, Celestion Center 2, Celestion Little 1's, and other a lot of other mid-fi stuff I've collected over the years.
My main system is usually, the rokks, the NAD, and the Marantz CD-63, with Audio Magic Spellcaster Ints. and Qed Qudos Bi-wire. I've also tried Kimber 4VS

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I own nothing to compare to the Rokks

EXCELLANT MIDS AND HIGHS.BEAUTIFUL CABINITS,VERY GOOD BASS FOR THERE SIZE.

MAY BE SOMEWHAT HIGH PRICED, BUT YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

THIS IS AN EXCELLANT BOOKSHELF SPEAKER.THEY ARE TRUE AUDIOPHILE SPEAKERS.I WOULD THINK THAT ANYBODY LOOKING FOR A HIGH END BOOKSHELF SPEAKER COULD NOT GO WRONG.THEY STOOD OUT FROM THE OTHER BOOKSHELF SPEAKERS IN THE STORE.I'M STILL VERY PLEASED WITH THEM AFTER ABOUT 1 YEAR.HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

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PARADIGM STUDIO 20 V2,TANNOY M1,M2.

The Totem Rokks are a very relaxed & natural-sounding speaker, the best I've had in my system. They have an unusual amount of bass for such a small enclosure, but the trade-off is they won't play exceptionally loud and can only handle about 50 watts before excursion limits of the woofers are reached. But they're plenty loud in my apartment living room!

There's a good article in Audio magazine (June 1995) by D.B. Keele, Jr. on the Totem Rokks. The metal-dome tweeters apparently don't send their sound directly forward, but instead send sound at an upward angle, or "lobe." This results in the soundstage moving back when listening from a seated position, and coming forward when you stand up from the seated position. Keele suggests reversing the wiring (if you have bi-wire cables) to the tweeter on ONE of the speakers - not both. This will result in both tweeters directing their sound downward, as opposed to upward. Then turn BOTH speakers upside-down on the stands (my stands are 24" tall). Now both tweets are directing their sound upward from a much lower (upside-down) position. This results in the sound & timbre of the speakers remaining the same whether you're seated or standing. Sensitivity is also increased to 86.6 dB (from 85.2 dB) when the Rokks are upside-down with one tweeter reversed. When designing the Rokks, Totem apparently wired the tweeters out of phase - intentionally - to get the sonic signature they have when listening in the normal-wired configuration. But I much prefer the sound with the wiring to one tweeter reversed & both speakers flipped upside-down.

This reverse-tweeter set up is apparently okay with the manfuacturer, that is, it won't damage speaker or amp; when I wrote to Totem asking for literature on the Rokks they sent the above-mentioned Audio article. I've also listened to my Rokks 8 months now with this set up without a hitch. If you don't have bi-wire cables for the Rokks, remove the metal jumpers supplied by Totem and use short lengths of wire as jumpers on the binding posts, reversing the wires when connecting the tweeter. But use a high-quality wire, preferably the same type as the speak cable itself, or sound quality may be compromised. And be sure to use the same wire on the other speaker's tweeter also (in normal configuration), as opposed to using the supplied jumpers, to ensure uniform sound quality between both units.

Nominal impedance is 4 ohms.

Totem Rokks don't have grilles so be sure to keep them out of direct sunlight to prevent the rubber surrounding the paper-cone woofers from becoming too warm. This may cause the glue (connecting rubber to paper-cone) to become soft, possibly detaching paper from rubber. When not in use I cover both speakers with cloth for sunlight protection. It also keeps them dust-free.