Hello from Ottawa, Canada

[dmitchell]

Just ordered a pair of natural Sierra's. I'll be driving them with a Rotel preamp and Bryston monoblocks - really looking forward to hearing them.

Let me say that David was phenomenal to deal with - he responded to all my inquries, even at 9:30 at night!

[kylem]

Congrats on the Sierra's, you're gonna love 'em.

...and you're right, Dave is great to deal with!

[dmitchell]

Thanks for the kind welcome.

The Sierras will be replacing (for the time being) a pair of Totem Sttafs. It will be interesting to see how the Sierras stack up against the Sttafs.

[DougMac]

Thanks for the kind welcome.

The Sierras will be replacing (for the time being) a pair of Totem Sttafs. It will be interesting to see how the Sierras stack up against the Sttafs.

Greetings from the sitcks in Georgia! I went to check to see what your weather is like, and we're expected to have the same high and low temps for the next day or two. That's hard to believe.

I'll be interested to hear your impressions and comparison. The Totem site was confusing to me. It looks like more than one speaker is under the Sttaf heading. Which particular speakers will the Ascend's replace? Are they equivalent in price?

Doug

[dmitchell]

Hey DougMac. The weather here in Ottawa can be very warm in the summer/fall... it's the winters that are brutal here. It's not uncommon for -35 celsius, and last year we got almost 12 feet of snow!

The Sttafs are the second smallest floorstanders in the Totem line. They have a freq response of around 39 Hz - 22 kHz and are rated at 8 ohms. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE these speakers. The imaging on them is scary, and the cabinetry is beautiful. I picked up the Sierras to replace the Sttafs while they're getting repaired. The woofers got smoked by a cheap Chinese tube preamp that went haywire. Once I get the Sttafs repaired I'll probably switch back and forth between them and the Sierras in my listening room, depending on my mood.

I would guess that the closest Totem equivalent to the Sierras would be the Mite (http://www.totemacoustic.com/ca/en/products/compact/mite/specifications/), which is really the bookshelf version of the Sttaf.

[DougMac]

It's not uncommon for -35 celsius, and last year we got almost 12 feet of snow!

Yes, I think our weather is about to rapidly diverge!

Sorry to hear of your calamity. Thanks for the link. It looks like the Sttafs are a level up in size and cost. It seems they use a similarly sized woofer. I wonder what the additional cabinet size will do, although I think good design is more important than sheer cabinet volume.

Doug

[dmitchell]

I agree with you Doug. Design and build is definitely more important than sheer size. The Totems are all very, very well constructed speakers. They have a different design philosophy than many speakers, though. If you lift them you'll notice that most of the models are quite light.... they rely on tight cabinet resonance for their sound.

If you're wondering, the going rate for the Sttafs here in Canada is around 2k. Worth every penny, in my opinion :-)