Anyone who has been lucky to get to know the Totem Acoustic family will be drawn to their generosity. Visit Totem’s Montreal HQ and Vince Bruzzese, CEO and Chief Designer, never fails to exit his office to greet whoever is coming through the company door. Vince then gets to work on his Italian espresso machine and soon hands you a rich Americano. This attention to detail and presentation of a coffee is emblematic of all things produced by Totem – world class. There’s a kindness with such hospitality. On a past visit to Totem, I once suggested we could head out for lunch but that was politely shut down and replaced with an offer of home-made pasta, gorgeous Chiantis and fresh salads miraculously appearing in the back dining room. In classic Totem style, just when you thought you were the host, you have become the guest.
Take the stairs to reception and there’s Annie who never fails to ask about your own family. There’s usually at least one dog rubbing a snout against a leg. Seeing Vince on these visits is what I call a bonus, never an expectation. My main reason when I visit is to see Totem’s Global Vice President, Lucy Lentini, who has been the stalwart Totem ambassador for close to three decades. Lucy is the gate keeper of Totem and has her pulse firmly on what’s going on in the global industry. Lucy, often wearing Gucci or Prada, has championed the marriage of fashion and sound. Lucy has figured out how to make speakers desirable and sexy.
Visit Totem’s HQ and you can’t miss the team’s passion for life, their loyalty to family that continues to be redefined and expanded to include customers and friends. There’s a strong emotion emitting that what the company does is meaningful and important. Such rarified access to the underpinnings of how the company operates and treats each other, of course influences how I perceive their products which in a word, are consistently terrific and the reason that I wanted Totem in my home.
Now that I am pushing into my golden years, I felt it was time for a meaningful upgrade to my personal two channel sound system. I’ve been covering the CE industry news for 25 years, but you would be totally mistaken to think that I am flush with high-end audio gear. Oh, don’t feel sorry for me. I’ve had a chance to test magnificent products over the years, but they most often arrive with a return-to-sender waybill – a tease for what’s out there but I don’t have. My permanent collection would be categorized more as mid-market; still envious to most passive music lovers but not even in the ballpark, even entry level, of those that take audio seriously.
I am not a guy that will ever spend $2,000 for six feet of speaker cable and I firmly believe that the laws of diminishing returns are exponential as you move up the audio food chain. What I’m after is a speaker that looks sophisticated, of course sounds great, but at a price that remains attainable for mere mortals. While Totem create speakers that sell north of $20,000, they also have an offering for every budget and their reputation for over-delivering in performance regardless of price is unwavering. Vince once spent 20 minutes with me passionately talking about the cross-over in their most entry level product. You would think such lengthy detail would be reserved for only the highest end Totem speaker. Not so, Totem firmly believe every customer regardless of what they can afford, deserves the best possible sound inside their budget. Somewhere across their model range was the perfect speaker for me.
Knowing that my brand would be Totem and Canadian-made no less, it was now down to determining what model would suit me best. The speakers would be driven by another meaningful upgrade; a Bryston Bi-200 integrated amplifier. It has taken me twenty years to own a Bryston amp and that joyous experience will be reviewed in the coming weeks. I shared the specs of the Bryston amplifier with the Totem team and their pairing suggestion was their recently released Bison Twin Tower speakers.
At 200 watts, the Bryston amp delivers plenty of power to liven up the Bison Twin Towers, a spry speaker with lightning response. I had no intention of adding a subwoofer, an add-on that would be unnecessary with the Bison Twin Tower’s two dual ported 5.25” midrange woofers and a 1.3” soft dome tweeter. My guess is that Totem and particularly Vince, know from years of me visiting their offices that my technical understanding of cross overs, voice coils, 2-way design and all the other technical specs that make a product shine, is a bit over my head. In the same way that I love sports cars without understanding gear ratios, and cameras without understanding light refraction, and buildings without understanding the formula for determining a load bearing wall, I love speakers and audio gear for the industrial design, the cosmetics, the pedigree and the emotional response that comes from touching my hand across the cabinet. Totem knows this about me and suggested the Bison Twin Towers knowing I would gravitate to their glorious Scandinavian minimalist look – mine are in matte white that powerfully contrasts with the matte black drivers with a hint of bronze hue, and the three matte black claw feet that balance the speaker’s design.
Those three little feet are so simple, yet such an enormous detail. The Twin Towers would look completely different without those feet – like a pair of beautiful shoes that finish a favourite outfit. Those feet are like a designer handbag, a subtle tell of sophistication and craftsmanship that puts the whole package together. Again. the parallel of fashion with technology is never far away.
The hand-built Bison Twin Tower speakers are tall and skinny, attributes that don’t ever go out of style. There’s no look-at-me logo to be found on the front of the speaker and while they come with grills, you’d be a fool to use them. Indeed, The Twin Towers are perfect for me. There is no fussing with room placement, I don’t need to position a seat to a “sweet spot.” No, they just connect and do their job; one that keeps improving as the hours of play accumulate.
The sign of an incredibly well-designed product, whether it’s an iPhone, a Rolex, a Mercedes or a speaker, is to remove from the conversation the complexity and intricate detail that is so necessary to produce the product in the first place. At some point, you know that the product is going to be amazing. Sure, there will always be buyers that only want to talk about the production details, but not me. I want to be left with something that is beautiful and just works. While Totem is in the audio business, they are really experts in the emotion business. It has been a long road, but after decades of exploring and testing, I have arrived at a place of perfect contentment with my sound system anchored by my beautifully designed Bison Twin Towers.
Coming up next in “My System” series: How I finally came to owning a Bryston amp. How Bluesound’s Node is my go-to for audio streaming and how after ten years, my Rega P6 turntable still delivers.