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Totem Hawks - my impressions

I just acquired a used pair of Hawks this week and am extremely impressed with them. They have significantly more presence in the low end than my Joseph Audio RM25XL speakers and the mid-range is just magical. They have an immense soundstage, too. They don't seem to be very sensitive to set up and sound fine just a foot away from the rear wall. They are easy to move around given their small size and weight. They do need a lot of power to make them sing, probably at least 100 wpc, I would think. In my 40 years in audio, these are the best speakers I have ever had in my listening room at their price point. Oh, one other thing. With their "claw" feet, they are quite top-heavy and thus unstable on thick carpeted floors. I am getting outrigger spikes that will greatly increase their stability and mass couple them to the floor, which will no doubt improve their performance. Very highly recommended speakers!
whitestix
abd1
156 posts
 
I owned a pair of Hawks for a couple of years. I got them used for $1200 and it was the best $1200 I've ever spent. Huge sound for such a small footprint and excellent imaging. I used a Peachtree Nova 220se and later a Primaluna Dialogue One. The Hawks like power but the Primaluna had enough to handle them unless I really cranked the volume. My only issue was the tweeter was a touch "etched" sounding to me on certain tracks. It had great detail, but I had to sometimes turn down the volume. But, it wasn't often and I would own these again.
pcc67
226 posts
 
I love the totem sound. Bought a pair of winds. They really are magical. Had the opportunity to listen to arrow, hawks and model 1 with Sig upgrade.  They all sound magical. U can use small amp,  but more powerful amp really brings them alive.
kiwi_1282001
312 posts
 
Also owned a pair of Totem Hawk loudspeakers for a couple of years.  I thought they were good within their limits.   They struck me as a speaker better suited to acoustical music, vocals and jazz rather than rock.   With rock the woofer can be easily over driven.  Do try and use Totem Acoustic Beaks with them.  I don't get how they work but they were an upgrade for my speakers.
213runnin
914 posts
 
I’ve now owned Totem Dreamcatchers, Rainmakers and the Sky Bookshelf speakers. In my system, the Rainmakers had a lot of magic, but were easily bested by the Hawks.

What a tremendous sounding speaker. There is a sense of presence, live music, and intimacy that is so captivating. I’m running them with a 200 watt amp that could be described as nothing special(Adcom 555SE -2018 version), but don’t need to over drive them as kiwi experienced. That said, any speaker can be over driven and any 2 driver design will have limits.

Totem lists the max volume peak of the Hawks to be 107 db at 2 meters in a room of about 12 x 20’. That’s very loud, and well into hearing damage range, but if hearing damage is your thing, buy some Klipsch and knock yourself out(not directed at kiwi, but anyone who prefers ear bleeding levels!)

Anyway, the bass coming out of this smaller sized tower is exceptional. The revelator driver in the Hawk is renowned in the audio community apparently. The tweeters are so much better than the Rainmaker tweeter as well. I didn’t realize it, but the Rainmaker tweets are kind of shouty in comparison, you get more texture and imaging with the Hawk tweeters.

There is a youtube reviewer called zero fidelity that goes into great detail on the Hawks, I’d suggest the video and suggest the Hawks for the speaker short list for sure.
schubert
7,386 posts
 
To say Totem is not much on rock, I must say I agree . There are made for real music . .

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