Totem’s Thunderbird Takes Flight with New Tribe Tower Loudspeaker
Totem Acoustic has unveiled the Tribe Tower Thunderbird, a striking new floor stander that builds upon the company’s highly regarded Torrent Technology™ while promising broad placement flexibility and immersive, room-filling sound.
Totem says the Thunderbird can deliver full-scale, spatially rich sound with minimal sensitivity to room placement—an impressive claim for any loudspeaker, let alone one designed with visual elegance in mind. Drawing inspiration from the original Tribe Tower, the Thunderbird takes things further with new drivers, upgraded internals, and a dramatic design that aims to disappear sonically, if not visually.
Described as “a modern lifestyle loudspeaker,” the Thunderbird’s tall and sculpted obelisk-like form factor was designed for sonic performance and physical adaptability. According to Totem, this speaker integrates easily into most living spaces and manages to energise the room with a 3D musical canvas—pushing beyond conventional two-channel presentation.
At the heart of the Tribe Tower Thunderbird is a newly developed 6-inch Torrent™ mid-bass driver. Three years in the making, this driver employs a multi-layer voice coil and upgraded magnet geometry for low-frequency performance claimed to reach down to 28Hz while also extending cleanly into the upper midrange. Notably, the dual-driver setup operates without a crossover in its path, a Totem hallmark intended to preserve signal purity. Partnered with a proprietary 1.3-inch graphene dome tweeter mounted on a thick machined aluminium faceplate, the Thunderbird offers exceptional staging, clarity, and a natural sense of scale.
Totem’s founder, Vince Bruzzese, describes the Thunderbird as a "mini Metal V2" with a more relaxed and articulate vocal character, noting that it offers impressive height and width in its image rendering while also matching well sonically with the company’s new Tribe On-Wall series.
Design features include a dual-ported 2-way cabinet, unique Borosilicate damping for energy management, and a rigid monocoque enclosure free from parallel surfaces. Totem claims the result is a speaker that offers the dynamic capabilities of much larger designs while remaining easy to drive, with a 6-ohm nominal impedance and 90dB sensitivity.
Symbolically, the Thunderbird name draws from Indigenous North American mythology, where the creature represents power, protection, and a connection between the physical and spiritual realms. Totem’s take on the Thunderbird aims to reflect these qualities through a blend of sonic authority, spatial expression, and design purity.
The Tribe Tower Thunderbird is now available in satin white, black, and premium dusk or ice finishes. It will be priced at US$13,500, with an additional US$1,500 for premium gloss finishes featuring 4-way WBT connectors. Pricing and availability for other regons are yet to be confirmed.
For more information visit Totem Acoustic
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Jason Sexton
Joining StereoNET in 2025 as Deputy Editor, Australia & New Zealand, Jason’s decades of experience comes from a marketing, brand development, and communications background. More recently, a decade in specialist retail has armed him with the knowledge required to deliver the right information to a captive and curious audience.
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