I went in to my local dealer yesterday and auditioned a pair of Golden Ear Triton One's. Based on the review I was reading online, I thought this speaker had to be too good to be true for the money.
The T1's were in a room that was set up like a standard living room. It had a door in the back that we closed for the listening session. We fired up some good music and I immediately noticed something was wrong. The speakers sounded like complete crap. Hollow, dead, lifeless. We continued to audition more music and I was so unimpressed I asked to speak with the manager.
I asked the manager to have a listen and he agreed. Something was wrong. I asked him how these speakers could sound like this and get so much praise from reputable reviewers online.
He decided to move the Triton 1 towers to the 2 channel reference room and run them off a NAD stereo amp and pre-amp because that is what closely matched what I have at home. I told him I don't want to hear them on McIntosh equipment since I can't afford it. The 2 channel room we were in had B&W 802 D3's, B&W 804 D3's, McIntosh XR 100's, and McIntosh XRT Towers that were taller than me and cost $50,000 a pair. McIntosh mono-block amps were all over the room. Truly awesome to see!
The first song we fired up on the Golden Ear Triton One's was Wynton Marsalis - Feeling of Jazz feat. Dianne Reeves. The difference in sound we were hearing from the previous room was night and day. It was breathtaking. I have never been so moved by a pair of speakers. My best friend who is a hard core audiophile thought we were being tricked. He could not believe that was the same pair of speakers we just heard in another room.
When Dianne started singing, it was like she was on stage right in front of your singing to you and no one else. The imaging was incredible. The speakers captured highs and lows with incredible detail. The bass was accurate and not bloated. The midrange was smooth as silk.
The second song that moved me was Rebecca Pidgeon "Spanish Harlem". WOW!. A gentlemen that came into the room was a life long B&W owner. He came in to listen to the new D3 series that was recently released. When he first walked in, he thought the B&W's were playing and he kept talking about how impressed he was. Me and the salesman never said anything and kept playing awesome hi res music. When finished we finally told him he was listening to the Golden Ear Triton One's. He was not real happy that a speaker with a sock around it could sound that good.
He was old school and to him a good sounding speaker should LOOK like a good sounding speaker, and I completely understood his thinking. The B&W speakers in Rosenut are beautiful!
I first want to say that I am not writing this post to say the Golden Ear Triton One's sound better than B&W speakers. All I am saying is you have to make sure if you audition these speakers and they don't sound good, then something is wrong. Have the dealer move them to another room or use different electronics. The dealer I was at had them in a living room set up for home theater running off of the Denon flagship receiver and they were terrible. I think someone has messed up all of the settings in the receiver or it was defective.
I was VERY persistent about auditioning these speakers properly. I wanted to hear what the reviewers were hearing. I wanted to know why they were moved so much. I wanted to know why so many reviewers were emotional about these speakers.
I guess because of the way they look, many feel they are not worthy of going into the reference two-channel room. I told the dealer, they were now going to start selling these speakers more because they are being represented properly. It would be very interesting to see the Triton One's blind auditioned against other high end speakers.
I listened to every reference speaker they had in the two channel room for 3 hours with the door closed. It was the absolute best time I have had in years!
I bought a pair of the Triton One's. They were exceptional!
