Thanks for the comments and criticisms Nels and Art!
Personally, I find bass to be a tough topic to touch upon, particularly when it comes to speakers that depend on small drivers to produce lots of it. I find that a listeners perception of bass hinges entirely on their prior encounters. For example, one of the first 'real' speakers I ever bought was a set of Polk Audio LSi-15 towers ($1699.98) that were eventually replaced them with the Totem Acoustic Sttaf. When I stepped into the Totem's, it was immediately clear that they could in no way match the Polk's ability to dig low and hit hard. Naturally, that wasn't much of a surprise considering the Sttaf relied on one driver to do midrange and bass duties while the Polk's had the advantage of two mid woofers and a large 8" woofer. Does this mean the Sttaf's have poor bass extension and output? Absolutely not. Going into it, I knew that the manufacturers had completely different goals in mind with their respective products. The Polk's were built with home theater performance as a priority, whereas the Totem's were built as a music-first design. When evaluating electronics, I feel its paramount for people to bear in mind what a product was designed for and how well it achieves its design specific goals. In the case of the SongTower's, I made it clear that the SongTowers do offer great bass performance considering their driver compliment. However, I also wanted to clarify that your impression of its bass will hinge entirely on personal expectations gleaned from previous experiences with like products. Compared to most similar sized towers I've come across, the Songtowers fall short when it comes to raw output and extension. It's not that they lack those assets, its simply that a trade-off had to be made with that design. Either you get good bass extension and output to gain exceptional speed, clarity, and balance - or you sacrifice the latter for the former. Personally, I think Dennis and Jim made the right choice.
To address your concerns over the Sttaf: The reason why I focused so much on the SongTower's bass performance is because, well, it was a SongTower review, not a Totem Sttaf review. Both speakers are fantastic, and completely opposite of one another in terms of presentation. I felt the main differences highlighted in the review were far more important than deducting specifics on how the two differ with regards to reproducing bass. I figure that "bass heads" will find themselves adding a sub to the mix with either speaker. However, now that it's been brought up, I will add my personal take on the matter:
Both speakers dig to an honest 40Hz. The difference is that the SongTowers bass is cleaner, more resolute and sports a more gradual and polite roll-off, whereas the Sttaf is more colored (warm) and has sharp roll off beyond 38-40Hz. On one token, this warmth gives the Sttaf a sense of greater density. Although the Sttaf gives up the ghost before the SongTower's do in terms of extension and output, I feel that it does better at recreating the scale and tone of an instrument in the critical 40-60Hz region. Here's the compromise though, if you throw the Sttaf into a medium to large room (or any space that has wide openings to other spaces), you quickly lose that capability. The speaker is simply not as versatile as the SongTower is. However, under ideal conditions, the Sttaf and its little 5.5" driver still manages to do a few things the SongTower cannot. When you consider the man behind the design, it's not too surprising. After all, Vince Bruzzese was one of the pioneers that taught the industry that you could achieve great bass from a small enclosure with his model 1.
Still, when you get right down to it, the SongTowers hits a whole lot harder than the Sttaf's. You can simply "feel" the music more with the SongTower's. Although I feel that they begin to lose density at/around the 50Hz mark, their unique enclosure allows them to dig well into 30Hz territory (my guesstimate would be 35 or so Hz). The bottom line is that I cannot imagine too many people being disappointed with either speakers bass performance. What gives the SongTower such a big advantage is its overall versatility, which is in my mind, the mark of an excellent loudspeaker. Although it doesn't take much to get 'good' sound from the Sttaf, you really have to give it the right type of room and match it with the right type of electronics to truly extract its mojo. When you do, it's an exceptional performer. With the SongTowers, you really don't need to worry about all that stuff. Just pay some attention to positioning and away you go. It's a super easy speaker to play with and get good sound from, and a product you simply don't have to make too many excuses for.
Wow, it looks like I just wrote a second review. Alrighties, it's time to float away from the PC for awhile!
