![]() ![]() It’s also borosilicate-damped internally, which is unique to Totem in the audio world. The apex of the loudspeaker is cut through at an angle (meaning the loudspeaker doesn’t end in a point, or the kind of flat top-plate that would end up being a beer-rest at a party). In print, they might look like giants, but unless you are ant-sized and looking up, these are small, tapered designs. In fact, it’s a trick of perspective that goes away when you are faced with a pair of the speakers in the real world. This needs to be highlighted for most audio enthusiasts a cursory look at the images, especially when the speakers are photographed at their mid-point, makes them look like really tall uniform floorstanding loudspeakers, photographed from below. The 93.5cm tall Tribe Tower has a narrow rectangular base, but this tapers out as you move up the cabinet. The Tribe Tower should perhaps be called the Tribe Shard, because its shape is not that dissimilar to the Shard skyscraper in London (currently the tallest building in Europe). Which is precisely where the Tribe Tower comes into play. So, to continue down the ‘what we need’ line of reasoning, what we actually need is a speaker that doesn’t look like a ‘monkey coffin’, doesn’t sound compromised when you don’t have it in an ideal installation, and doesn’t require the listener to spend thousands on dedicated DSP room correction. A few companies have tried to resolve the problem through digital signal processing with varying degrees of success, but inevitably that creates a different set of compromises… the “I can’t afford it” set of compromises that limit the number of prospective owners in a different way. Put simply, what we need is equipment that can compromise on size and positioning but doesn’t sound compromised. However, the reaction to those concerns is often overshot in making a product that fits snugly into today’s spaces, the usual position is to sacrifice the sound quality. ![]() With property prices skyrocketing and young families increasingly having to shoe-horn themselves into ever smaller spaces, a loudspeaker that places installation and aesthetic demands on the user is something increasingly unconscionable in today’s society. ![]() The days of the dedicated audiophile ‘man-cave’ are increasingly a function of the 20th Century, not this one. That 21st Century quip is more than just a throwaway. The Tribe Tower addresses those concerns. Relative to the rest of the loudspeaker industry, Totem’s stand-mounts and floorstanders look great, but a little ‘boxy’… and ‘boxy’ isn’t the kind of shape that will please those with more 21st Century design-led concerns. Totem Acoustic makes some wonderful loudspeakers that don’t break the bank, but sometimes – like most loudspeaker designs – they don’t tick as many aesthetic boxes as they do sonic ones. ![]()
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