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Replacing Forests???

OK, I am looking for some friendly advice. After going through 3 pairs of Forests in a 6 month period, my dealer is allowing me to trade them back in for full value towards another speaker set-up. I am a HUGE fan of the Totem sound, and have never had problems with Totem before these Forests.

I have owned the Tabus and Arros with great results. Moving to a larger space forced me to move away from the Arros and up the Totem line. I had longed for the Forests for a long time, but the problems I've had with these in the short history of owning them has me throwing in the towel with them!

This is a 2-channel music/HT set-up powered by a Simaudio i-5. I am thinking of going with one of the following 2 options:

Totem Sttaf with 2 Dreamcatcher subwoofers

(or)

Totem Hawks

Although I think I am more partial to the Sttaf sound, as I have never been 'wowed' with the Hawks on the gear I've listened to them on (Naim/NAD - both bad; Ayre - pretty decent, small hotel room set-up), I would love to hear people's opinions.

Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
jh2os
walkman
50 posts
 
Fascinating, but helluva story. Sorry for the legwork you had to do, it must have been quite annoying -- I can see why you'd not want to bother with the Forests, let alone any other speaker from the company, but you seem to be pretty mellow about it, and that's pretty gentlemanly of you. Good luck in your next speaker quest...

- walkman
baroque_lover
102 posts
 
I say if you are not going to move up from the Forest you should look into the Sonus Faber lineup.
jh2os OP
244 posts
 
Walkman - if this had been my first pair of Totems I may have been a little more irritated. Being the third, and that Totem has been bringing beautiful sound to my ears for the past 3+ years is why I assume I am so mellow about it? ;)

Baroque_lover - I am going to give the piano homes another listen...
bdgregory
1,710 posts
 
I've owned a pair of Sttafs for 2 years now. I still think they're fantastic in many ways, and would recommend them to anyone. I've never tired of listening to them. I'm a fanatic for deep bass however, and in my room they were lacking. I was happy with them without it, but I added a Rel Storm III to them and that's a great combination. As long as you can have them some distance from the wall they are easy to position and tune. Super easy to integrate with the sub. So . . . I guess that's my endorsement for the Sttaf/Dreamcatcher idea, fwiw.

I haven't compared them to the Hawks, but I recently added a pair of Mani-2. The Manis are much better because they are mor precise, and they have better, deeper bass w/o a sub, but they did not cause me to become unsatisfied with the Sttafs - I move the Sttafs to room #2.
24u
15 posts
 
Hi

I own a pair of Forests and have not had any problems, but if I experienced what you did I would not have so patient. Have you heard Equations? The Equation 7's are about the same price as the Forests and, I think, more musical. It is too bad about the Forests though for they are a good speaker. Great imaging. Anyway good luck in your choice.

24u
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