Totem Acoustic Metal V2 floorstanding loudspeaker

I am keenly aware of the privilege I hold being a semi-pro reviewer for Hi-Fi+. During my stint with the magazine without question, the most exciting journey I have been fortunate enough to embark upon is my now several-year relationship with Vince Bruzzese’s Totem speakers. I have had the good fortune in past issues to review several of Totem’s loudspeaker products over a diverse range of pricing and have thus become well acquainted with Vince’s design goals, design execution and signature sound pallet that in my opinion is second to none. So here I sit in my listening room marvelling at what some might say is Vince’s finest work to date, the £17,000 Totem Acoustic Metal V2 floorstanding loudspeaker, and I can’t help but think what a nice capstone this makes for my Totem reviewing quest.

I have now spent well over half of my audiophile years building my system slowly (as one does) with one Totem speaker or another seemingly always present in my stereo chain. I hope my rich experience with Vince’s speakers can help illustrate an accurate picture of Totem’s mountaintop.

All cards on the table, as you may or may not have known I purchased my review samples of the Element Fire V2 monitor that I last reviewed a few years ago. I was an unabashed fan of the Fire V2 monitor speakers, and for my system and listening environment, it was an easy choice at the time to put my money where my mouth was after writing a glowing review. Over the resulting couple of years (including more listening hours than I ever thought possible due to the pandemic lockdown). The Fire V2 monitors have never overstayed their welcome and I continue to be floored by the value and spectacular listening experience they provide on a regular basis. So with actual skin in the game, if anyone out there has a stake in jealously minimising the upside of Totem’s vastly more expensive Metal V2 Floorstanders it might very well be me.

Apart from the obvious size difference between the Element V2 Fire monitors and the Metal V2 floorstanders one does not have to burn out their left brain to see quickly the two speakers look strikingly similar. The Metals look like what you would easily imagine happening if you were to start with the Fire monitors, add another 7’’ torrent driver to the mix, and built the seductively non-parallel cabinet down to the floor. We are just getting started here listing the similarities: both Fire and Metal are finished in the same head-turning multicoat polyester and both sport Totem’s improved 1’’ dome tweeter with a 3/8’’ thick front aluminium faceplate and a finned aluminium alloy chamber. Both speakers pride themselves in ingeniously eliminating any crossover whatsoever in the low-frequency path. Both Fire and Metal have Totem’s newest internal bass tuning design that doubles the frequency response in the first audible octave. Both are bi-wire ready with platinum WBT four-way connectors, and lastly, they are both internally borosilicate dampened. With so much sharing is a reviewer to conclude that the Fire and Metal are merely the same then? One of these guys costs about £10,000 more than the other, so what gives?

Well, you do play music through these highly stylised monoliths after all, and the sound is where the steep price difference quickly makes the £10K first-class Metal upgrade start to look like a fair transaction. In a direct A vs. B comparison, I recognise the same transparency and fast attack that I have come to associate with top-end Totems, but with the Metals, I hear so much more of the music due to the additional 7’’ Torrent drivers. I wrote extensively about the advanced technology in these Torrent drivers in my last review, but to quickly remind you with the Metals you are getting an additional driver’s worth of increase in the capability of the voice coil, an additional driver’s worth of improved magnetic cradle which allows for a most natural and organic energy flow, phase correctness, and ultimately rock-solid control. The magnification effect of having another startling expressive driver on each speaker in my listening room was nothing short of pure audiophile joy. Yes, I was hearing more detail, more nuance, and even more liquid transparency but now I was getting all the heft and slam I could handle as well. The added depth and space increase to the soundstage was so apparent that it will surely be equally as recognisable to an amateur as a seasoned audiophile. The abundance of new sound layers was pronounced and undeniable. There will be no splitting of hairs here, the Metal V2s absolutely blow the doors off of an already fantastic speaker in the Fire. What a cliché, but in my first couple weeks with the Metals installed I must have said “Wow this” and “Wow that” at least 25 times in my notes reviewing differing styles of music courtesy of a recently acquired Naim NDX-2 streamer. That digital combo was absolutely mouth-watering paired with the Metals as time and time again artists seemed finally be able to show me their true colours and true talent. I felt like it was the additional clarity and space the Metals offered that allowed me to start enjoying multiple selections which before the audition frankly I didn’t think I liked very much, I’m looking at you, Ornette Coleman! Heady jazz aside this new musical clarification and newfound enjoyment was a repeated and consistent experience, a sincere compliment to the game-changing nature of adding the Metals to my rig.

Digital was not the only source the Metals could make shine either. My Sumiko Starling/Rega RP-10 analogue front-end combo also never sounded better than with the Metals, quite a bit better actually. One of the first of many memorable vinyl epiphanies I heard listening to the Metals was the Speakers Corner masterful reissue of Bill Withers’ Just as I am [Sussex.] I’ll direct you to the short, but touching ode Grandma’s hands. The Metals speakers absolutely exploded the sound of the kick drum into my listening space on this track. There was such a burst of vitality and energy release contrasted by such a slow-motion and beautifully measured decay that it absolutely felt the thrill of a first-time listen though it has been on and off my platter for years.

Sticking with Speakers Corner records (why not, they are the best after all), I can tell you that listening to Janos Starker’s suites for unaccompanied Cello [Mercury] was also a near-religious experience paired with the Totem Metals. The point is easily made on any of the tracks so start at the beginning with Suite No 1 in G Praeludium. The Metals push the cello right out into the living room in a way that was disorienting for the first few moments it was so untethered to the speaker cabinets. In a way that you would read the sound if someone were to break a wine glass on a wall close behind you, the Metals endowed Janos’ playing of the cello with that electric “in the room” crispness that can not be faked. When Janos draws the bow across the strings and you hear his physical mannerisms and body shifts coming through in space behind the cello; word to the wise, make sure you know who is presently in your house. You wouldn’t want to have to jump up to look in the other room for robbers (as I did more than I would like to admit) while getting used to the knife-edge detail and realism the Metals illustrate so well.

The Metals have the goods, they are the total package. The Metals have the top end and high mids covered like a glove (most Totem’s do), and the definition at the far edges of the soundstage in the mid-range has the power to make your music transcendent. If you can spend £17,000 on a pair of speakers maybe you are also the person who could also spend £25,000 or even £30,000? Why stop at this bus stop? My answer is I found the Totem Metal V2s to be able to take me past the very real and discernible threshold between reproducing music and having living breathing music in your house. Why do you need to spend more, if you are already through the door?

So is it my duty that I have to pick a weakness? With the Metals I don’t hear one, it’s pure pleasure from start to finish. I think I recall having heard more defined and ‘raw-er’ bass from other similarly priced speakers. However, long term after the new wears off I liked the Metal’s more subtle orientation to the bottom end of my music. As a package, the Metals have just enough to give me everything I needed on the low end, and the mids and tops were unmatched in my experience to date. This is coming from a guy who was just a short while ago still trying to minimise the difference between his Fire V2s and the Metals. I can’t do it with a straight face, the Metals are that much better, they are worth the price upgrade, and dammit all if I had the coin to buy these review samples I would be confident this is the best hi-fi purchase this reviewer has yet made.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Type: 3-way Floorstander
• Driver complement: Two 7’’ torrent woofers, 1’’ titanium dome tweeter
• Frequency response: 26Hz–22kHz
• Impedance: 4 ohms
• Sensitivity: 91dB
• Dimensions (W×H×D): 11.7” × 43.5” × 14.9”
• Weight: 73.34lb/ 33.3kg
• Finishes: Multi coat Dusk or Ice
• Price: £17,000

Manufacturer: Totem Acoustic

URL: totemacoustic.com

Distributed by: Joenit

Tel: 0032 15 285 585

URL: joenit.com

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