Golden Ear Triton One Speakers $$$

05-16-15: Bcgator
Also, are all the models great at their price point or is the Triton 1 the standout in the lineup?

I have heard the Triton 2 when it was just being released at $2500/pair, the Aon 3 a year later, the Triton 7 (twice as a prospective buyer), and a GoldenEar center channel speaker plus sub.

They are all excellent values at their price points. My personal favorites are the Aons. Read between the lines of some professional reviews and the Aons are outstanding values. The Aon 3 can easily fill a mid-sized room (say 14x16) without a sub.

All the GoldenEars have that sweet, smooth folded ribbon tweeter. They also have cast basket midranges with phase plugs for wide dispersion and unusually wide bandwidth.

^^^ What Stereo5 said.

WIth active controls for the subwoofer portion of the Tritons 1, 2, and 3, you can adjust the bass down to whatever size room you have.

The Triton 7s are another story, however. It's an all-passive design, and on both of my shopping auditions, their bass overloaded the demonstration room. Although my own listening area is a lot larger, I didn't want to mess with trips back and forth from the store, and went with the Magneplanar 1.7s instead.

As for the Aons, Googling for the reviews will return a wealth of praise. You will find unqualified raves from Stereophile, TAS, Soundstagedirect, Tone Publications, WhatHiFi, HIFi+, etc. They consistenly say that the Aons sound much larger--and more expensive--than they are. There is also a lot of praise for their smoothness, seamless integration, dynamics, and imaging--all hallmarks of refined and more expensive speakers.

talley, I ran into the same problem a couple years ago when I was auditioning speakers. If the speakers were in the $2K-4K range, they were in the mid-fi room connected to AV receivers, and the receivers were usually pre-set to some A/V EQ contour which--combined with the hashy, compressed sound of so many A/V receivers--never gave the speakers a fighting chance to show what they could do.

I got a better sense of the speakers I wound up buying (Magneplanar 1.7s) when they were connected to an NAD C 375BEE 150wpc integrated amp. Even then, I would have preferred to play some vinyl I brought along but the turntable in the mid-fi room was some afterthought piece of crap, as was the phono stage it was plugged into. So I made do with hi-res digital sources. 

Concerning the Goldenears, your experience matches the warnings I’ve read in a few reviews: the Tritons are so affordable they’re often paired up with mid-level A/V receivers while their high resolution and linearity demand at least an NAD integrated amp such as I heard, or better separates. GoldenEar Designer Sandy Gross uses a handmade SET amp for his Tritons at home.