Koss Totem Mani-2 - Manual (Page 54)

T
he first time we ever met Vince
Bruzzese he was showing a
prototype of a very small speaker
with what seemed at the time
like an absurdly high price. We're glad to
say that we encouraged him to persevere,
and the rest is history: the tiny “overpriced”
speaker turned out to be the Totem Model
One, arguably the world’s most successful
mini-monitor.
We talked with him a lot after that,
and ran a Rendezvous feature with him
in UHF No. 43. We thought it was about
time we talked with him again.
UHF: When you look back to the beginning,
when the Totem line was just one model, does
it seem an awfully long time ago?
Bruzzese: Actually not, because we still
live with that same model, but it has been
a wonderful journey, and it still is. The
joy we got out of the Model One, we get
from most of our other models.
UHF: Has the marketing side gotten easier
as the line has grown? It must have been
difficult when you had just one model.
Bruzzese: Without a doubt. It was dif-
ficult to penetrate the market back in the
late 1980’s. Back then the big speaker
ruled, and a small speaker was out of the
ordinary. Of course the addition of other
models made the line extremely accept-
able to the mainstream market.
UHF: The Mani-2 was the speaker we all
thought would be called the Model Two. Tell
us how you thought about going beyond the
Model One.
Bruzzese: Actually the Mani-2 was
brought out almost at the same time
as the Rokk and the Tott. Those two
were excellent in their own way, but the
Mani-2 was supposed to be the flagship
“monitor” speaker. Back then monitors
had certain limitations, and the Mani-2
was totally different. No one else had
tried a vented box with a double woofer
inside. I wanted something that would
coalesce correctly and would have an
extremely low noise floor, with holo-
graphic imaging, keeping that same
emotional context and pace that I was
always interested in.
UHF: Though it’s not obvious from the
outside, the design of the Mani-2 is radically
different.
Bruzzese: Yes. There’s no written
theory on that type of speaker, very
few parameters you could follow. Being
largely self-taught in the engineering
of speakers, I delved into things that
had never been approached before, to
produce the ultimate monitor. And it
has survived the test of time. I think
Rendezvous
The Totem Man
 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine