Possibly controversial: Totem arro overrated?

You know Pete, I wondered that, I did confirm that they were wired red-to-red, black-to-black. Should I try to purposely do black to red, red to black to see if that improves things?

There is always the possibility that the speakers were miswired internally...stranger things have happened in quality control.

Trust your ears.

Its quite easy to check, use a battery applied positive to the red terminal and negative to the black should produce a outward movement of the woofer cone.

You can do the same to the tweeter but it will require opening up the speaker and applying the battery voltage after the crossover. I don't know if the Arro is designed so that the tweeter is in electrical phase with the woofer, ie positive voltage to the positive wire produces an outward movement of the dome but if you check both they should be identical.

I've had a few Totems through here for repair and the tweeters are wired with a fine gauge solid core silver teflon insulated wire that's twisted with both the positive and negative wires of the same color (purple on the ones that were here) so a mis-wiring is a possibility. I'm sure Totem has a stringent QC program, but as Steve stated stranger things have happened.

Best of luck

Peter

Slikric3000 and Aenergi,
I an inclined not to comment, as well. Unbelievable imagining? I think not. That reads like ad copy. I used to own the Rainmakers and have auditioned the Arros many times. They are a nice little Totem speaker -- with emphasis on the word little. Don't expect any miracles. You get what you pay for.

"... that right there may be the root of your different experience.... but do have 2 other Totem speakers and enough experience with all sorts of gear to know that some combinations work better than others...."

NAILED IT!

I've had both the ARROs and FORESTs at the same time. They are fine kit, -- but arguably a tad finicky that are sensitive in that they excel with PARTICULAR hardware kit AND cables.

There area well travelled threads in AGON that Totems need a lot of grunt to perform at their max. In my experience, they only performed at their max when they were bi-amped.

Vis-a-vis cables, ARROS preferred -- (in my experience and I swapped in and out a lot of candidates)TOTEM's own TRESS, higher-end CHORD or higher-end ATLAS.(the latter was best in my kit)

Lastly, in our experiences, it is my understanding the older models wwere equipped with different speaker drivers (same ones from the company as the Dynaudios I believe ) than than the current models. IN my expereinces, there was never a less than optimal imaging sunject to the introduction of a bi-amping setup.

That you swapped in MLs with a marked improvements supports the premise that ARRO synergy with your kit appears absent and therefore ARRos are not your preferred choice.

Good luck