This is just a dream not sure if i would have money to do it but I may have a chance to upgrate Arro's to Forest. Would the difrence be really big? Would my Arcam AVR 350 be enough to power them? (in biwire mode) Squeezebox is the source.
Hmmm, not sure, maybe. The AVR350 allows you to biamp the front speakers. If you do this, there should be no problem. But if you only use the one amplifier per channel, then I'm not sure if the 350 is powerful enough to drive them well.
In that case, consider the Hawks instead. They're very good indeed.
Hi Frank Like I mentioned this is a dream and not sure if it would happen. The dealer just want to get rid of forest maple because they repainted one of the rooms and are bringing cherry color speakers, plus one tweeter has little dent(not a hole but dent), I have called Totem and was told that this should not be noticeable acoustically. If so $140 would be repair. Anyway, would Forest make a BIG difference comparing to Arro's? And yes I would biamp because this is all I am using 350 for. Stereo music with Arros (already bi amped) with squeezebox as a source Also I was told that Forest is easier to run than Hawk (it is 8 ohms, and Hawk 6ohms) Pablo
Hi Pablo. The AVR-350 will have no problem driving the Forests. I used to have that very combo but I will warn you to listen to the combo first. There are things your little Arros do that the Forests don't, which is namely dissapear. The Arros can dissapear when playing music even if placed 6" away from the back wall while the Forests need quite a bit of room to be able to do so.
The nice thing about Totem is that each of their speakers are voiced differently with different objectives in mind so one speaker is not necessarily better than another, despite different price categories.
My personal favorite Totem is the Hawk but these need quite a bit of power to control the woofer, especially if doing double duty in a HT set up as the woofer is of an extremely long-throw design and without adequate power can over-extend and literally crush the voicecoil. I was warned about this directly by Vince, Totem's owner / designer.
You may even want to look at Totem Sttafs which are an easy drive and sound rather nice on the AVR-350, albiet completely different than the Arros you already own. I owned this combo for a while as well and believe it or not, preferred it to the AVR-350 / Forest combo.
thanks Markus. If the deal is right I will take forest home and listen. I was told both by dealer and by totem guys that like you are saying all totem speakers are different, but the Forest would out-perform Arro in every aspect. When I had NAD 743 2 years ago I have tried Staff together with Arro and Arro was my choice, hands down. The only time Staff was better was with hard rock live like AC/DC concert. But Arro were shining in every other aspect. I was told when going to Forest I would benefit big way. We will see if I can afford first then I would bring them for test.
I just A/B'd the Hawks & Forests and preferred the Hawks.
The Forests sounded a little bright to me, which was a surprise as I expected to like them better.
While the salesman was out of the sound-room I hooked up one Hawk speaker and one Forest speaker simultaneously, and the Hawk sounded better to me -- the highs were a hair less open or 'airy', but also less likely to cause listener fatigue.
I love Forests so my initial reaction is yes, bigtime. However, I accept as Markus says that they require quite a bit more space around them. Their bass can be too much in my opinion. I have not found them to be bright, especially in comparison to Arros which in my view are brighter. As others here say, the best would be to try it, but I maintain that if you don't biamp there may be restrictions in what's achievable from the 350. Biamped should be no problem.
As for the disappearing act, my experience is that when they're setup well, Forests disappear very nicely indeed, but it is a question of setup and room. In smaller rooms, they can dominate because of their extra bass response.
I agree with Markus, the Sttafs are very easy to drive and smooth sounding. They even sound smooth with my Rotel.
I orginally had my eye's on the Arros but I was warned that they are not the best for my particular music tastes, which I found to be true.
Never heard the Forests, but spec wise the look fairly similar to the Sttaf, except they reach lower in the bottom end and are a little less sensitive.
Hmm... To start with -- the change will not happen -- Dealer wants too much money. If I gave my Arro's (cherry with claws installed) the difference would be more or less the same as price for Dream Catcher 5.1 set . I want to upgrade some time my HT speakers so this would be my priority. I just thought that I will get some amazing deal I could not refuse. I took forest's home for quick test. Big difference -- the base. No discussion they are beating Arro's hands down. I did not play too much with placing (no time) because in some cases there was even too much base. In some types of music they were much better than Arro's -- more details, you could hear more instruments, more open, room filling. Bebo and Cigala -- Lagrimas Negras cd sounded amazing. But Dire Straits Alchemy -- I preffered on Arro's Mark Knopfler's vocal was too scratchy on Forest's. The highs were too high. I had to put them at -4. Forest in some cases were missing middle. Perfect base high higs and not too good middle. With some male vocalists forest sounded not very manly. Shade was nice but Cohen, Watters, how do I say -- different. Of cause there is a matter of getting use to different sound, placement, ... This was just a first impression. If the deal was amazing -- I would probably go for it. Or if Forest would sound much, much better then Arro in every aspect I would think hard about this. By the way -- the set up -- Arcam Avr 350, squeezebox with music in wave format, totem tress cable bi amped. And Forest's were broken in. There were demo from the store so they had many hours on them.
The brand new retail price difference between Forests and Arros is about the price of a Dreamcatcher set so he's giving you a pretty good deal I think. However, it sounds like you had variable results and that's never a good reason to buy!
Frank the deal is very good but not crazy, not one I could not refuse. And maybe i was too fast with testing, not sure. It is a lots of $$ for me so I think I will get DC first when time is right
I think the Forrest is overpriced for their untweaked performance,they are not a plug and play speaker,they offer great performance but you have to work at it.If your not the experimenting type than the Forrest isnt for you,1st off they have to be mass loaded with their chamber on the rear of the cabinet,the rest is a lot of fiddling around,but they will never have the tone of the Arro which is what keeps people listening to them,with a bit of work the Forrest could rival the Hawks tone.Just plopped down and you will wonder why the Forrest costs so much and the hair pulling will commence,if your inexperianced stay away from the Forrest,but if you are willing to tweak they will be better than the Arro and the Hawk,although I've never heard them sound better but other trusted ears that I know have.