The Totem Acoustic Wind Design is a unique-looking floor-standing loudspeaker that combines a rakish appearance with extremely high-quality drivers and construction. At $13,995 per pair suggested retail, the made-in-Canada Totem Wind Design is clearly a high-end loudspeaker - and looks like one. Its cabinet is tapered from bottom to top and features a number of angular beveled surfaces, which not only look striking, but also position the drivers at precise angles for optimum imaging both on- and off-axis. The finishes are stunning - the pair I encountered was done in a gorgeous, perfectly done high-gloss red. The Wind Design is also available in gloss blue, white and black (standard Wind series models have a choice of more traditional wood finishes), and the multilayer polyester paint finishes are environmentally friendly.

Additional Resources
• Read more about Totem including other Totem reviews here on HomeTheaterReview.com.
• Read more audiophile floorstanding speaker reviews from the likes of Sonus faber, Wilson Audio, Bowers & Wilkins, MartinLogan, Paradigm, Magenpan, Vandersteen and many others.
• Learn more about reference level audiophile speakers from AudiophileReview.com - a blog by veteran writer, Steven Stone.

The Wind Design is a three-way, four-driver speaker system, incorporating an eight-and-one-half-inch cast-frame, long-throw woofer, dual five-and-one-half-inch cast-frame midrange drivers featuring a three-inch voice coil and wrap-around neodymium magnet structure, and a one-inch alloy-dome tweeter mounted in its own low-resonance chamber. The woofer and midrange drivers are also housed in separate but interlinked sub-enclosures, and the cabinet is of a monocoque design, a construction technique that supports structural load by using the loudspeaker's external skin, as opposed to an internal frame. This design, along with a unique "skid plate" bottom plate, helps to dissipate unwanted sonically deleterious internal vibrations.

The speaker measures 44.3 inches high by 10.7 inches wide by 14 inches deep. It has a frequency response of 24Hz - 21kHz, plus or minus 3dB in-room, 87dB sensitivity and a nominal impedance of four ohms. The crossover points are 195Hz and 2.5kHz, using what designer Vince Bruzzese calls "very shallow progressive proprietary second order" crossover slopes, featuring high-quality Mundorf gold and silver foil capacitors. The crossover has been recalibrated and specially tuned (compared to the standard Wind model) for use in the Wind Design. The recommended amplifier power range is 80 to 250 watts. The speaker features many additional refinements, including a tilt adjustment for setting the angle of the front of the speaker.