My system suggestions on improving bass - Totem

I have Totem Hawks and a Totem Lightning sub, and it's a great combination. Sure, it takes a week or two for you to get the positioning and dials worked out, but once you do have it in the sweet spot it is seamless.

I've most recently upgraded my power amp to an Audio Research VS110 and although after the upgrade I did notice a huge amount more bass from the speakers. Let's face physics, though: there's no way the Hawks can produce bass as low as a Lightning no matter what is driving them.

Another reason I have the Lightning is that it matches my maple hawks perfectly from a visual angle, too. As you can probably guess by now, my (strong) recommendation to you is to push a little over your $1000 budget and get the Lightning.

Dunko,

I also own a pair of Totem Acoustic Hawk loudspeakers and love it. For your $1000, a subwoofer would be by far the best upgrade for bass.

Do not move the speakers too close to the walls to improve your bass, becuase that's not exactly "improving" your bass, but making your walls sing. Leave the speakers where you get the best imaging and soundstage.

No component, tweak, or an expensive cable will provide more bass than adding a subwoofer. You can worry about the cables and power conditioning later when you have extra money lying around, but for now get a subwoofer.

For $1000, I'd suggest one of REL's strata 3, or Totem's own Lightning. The setup should not take you more than a couple of hours if you concentrate and have patience. I don't know why Ghunter's setup took weeks!

Hope this helped. Good luck and happy listening!

It took a matter of minutes to get it set up sounding great, and a few weeks to experiment with the dials and positioning to make the final tweaks.

I'd expect the same from any sub (without automatic level setting controls)