Golden Ear Triton One.R Tower Speakers

Triton One.R Tower Speakers
The Triton One.R is an extraordinary reference quality loudspeaker that is a smaller, less expensive follow up to our award winning flagship, the Triton Reference. The 54" tall Triton One.R's upgraded technology includes a 56 bit DSP engine for the powered sub, a fully balanced crossover design, high-end film capacitors, advanced cabinet design, and much more. The Triton One.R's built-in subwoofer section is powered by a 1600 watt GoldenEar SuperSub digital amplifier. The amp drives three racetrack shaped active subwoofer drivers with huge magnet structures, coupled to dual (per side) side-mounted 7" x 10" quadratic planar infrasonic bass radiators to extend the low frequency response. These are inertially balanced (two on each side) in order to minimize cabinet movement, for more detailed sound. The two 5.25” upper bass/midrange drivers with GoldenEar’s proprietary Multi-Vaned Phase Plug (MVPP™), incorporating a cone utilizing a special formulation of polypropylene and focused field magnet structure developed for the Triton Reference. The drivers are housed in dual discreet midrange chambers, arranged in a D’Appolito array surrounding the extraordinary GoldenEar Reference High-Gauss High-Velocity Folded Ribbon (HVFR™) tweeter, the same as used in the Triton Reference. This design incorporates 50% more neodymium magnet material than previous units, for higher efficiency and greater control.

Setup and listening
I had the benefit of having Sandy Gross, a Manhattan neighbor, set up the review samples. Before he arrived, I put the One.Rs where I usually place new arrivals before listening and repositioning. (Each column sits quite stably on a large black base, fitted with a choice of height-adjustable rubber feet or spikes.) Sandy immediately asked if he could move them closer to the listener, and then he moved them progressively closer and closer until he settled on having them less than 10' from the main listening position—more than 2' closer than the starting point. He angled them in so that the listening position was nearly on-axis with both. Tilting them down a bit (vide supra) snapped everything into place. The only remaining variable was the level control for the woofers, which Sandy left at its midpoint.

Conclusions
Prior to writing this review, I was familiar with GoldenEar's products from audio shows. Those demonstrations have always been impressive: When asked to guess their retail price, I usually greatly overestimated. But their use of multiple niche technologies, all assigned proprietary names and descriptions, is a bit offputting. Mind you, all those technologies—passive radiators, rectangular diaphragms, powered woofers, folded ribbon tweeters, etc.—are well proven and valid. Yet it has seemed to me that the GoldenEar speakers have too many widgets.

Description:
Three-way floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1.06" × 1.31" High-Velocity Folded Ribbon (HVFR) tweeter, two 5.25" cone midrange units, three 5" × 9" woofers powered by an internal amplifier, four 7" × 10" planar passive radiators. Frequency range: 13Hz–35kHz. Nominal impedance: "compatible with 8 ohms." Sensitivity: 92dB/W/m. Recommended amplifier power: 20–650W. Built-in subwoofer amplifier: 1600W, class-D.
Dimensions:
54" (1372mm) H × 8" (203mm) W × 16.62" (423mm) D; base increases width to 12.375" (314mm) and depth to 19.75" (503mm). Weight: 80lb (36.3kg).