Totem Kin Play

What if you could have your cake and eat it as well? Wouldn’t that be nice.

In home audio terms that would be having a system that sounded awesome but was also small, simple and had great connectivity. Well, this is where the Totem Kin Play speakers come in. Woah there! A pair of speakers doesn’t constitute a ‘system’ I hear you saying. Why, yes it does if there is amplification in the speakers and there is a Bluetooth AptX-HD receiver built-in for wireless connectivity. There is the ability for a digital device to be connected via an Optical connection, an Auxiliary input, a subwoofer output for those that like sound to go a little deeper. And there’s more - there is a Moving Magnet phono-stage so that you can hook up your turntable and get your vinyl groove on.

The icing on the cake that you’ve already eaten is something that the ‘men in white coats’ at Totem threw in as a feature that is ‘Genius’. It is what they called ‘Amp In’. What this allows you to do is by-pass the pre-amplifier stage of the Kin Play by way of a 3.5mm input so as to access or connect directly with the power amplification. So, for example, you might want to connect a streaming device that has its own DAC and volume control and is controlled via an App – the flexibility of this feature opens up so many more possibilities.

Sticking with the ‘cake’ analogy – how much is this masterpiece of audio engineering going to set me back? A mere $2199 per pair, available in either Satin Black or White and the grills are included with the speakers.

If the Kin Play is a ‘little too sweet’ at $2199, there is a ‘DeCaf’ option, a smaller sibling called the Kin Play Mini at a very reasonable $1599 offering a similar Totem Family sound but just on a slightly smaller scale. You do forsake a couple of inputs along with the ‘Amp In’ feature but you still retain the fabulous sound – which is ultimately, what this hobby is all about.

By John Vivian, The Real Music Company Auckland