Hi @kjl1065
First of all, welcome to the forum! As you're probably gleaning already, there are a lot of opinions here. I'm a Golden Ear Triton Reference owner and prior Golden Ear Triton One owner, so naturally I would recommend them.
You should know that this particular forum doesn't give much love for Golden Ear, for whatever reason. If you head over to the Golden Ear forum, you can read about all the positives.
Of course, your could also read the scores of professional publications and hundreds if not thousands of satisfied customer testimonials.
Obviously you would want to hear the speaker first hand (or first ear?). But like any other piece of gear (speaker or otherwise), only so much credence can be given to a dealer audition.
Also worth keeping in mind is that there is flexibility on the pricing. Lastly, if you are near or around zip 11520 I'll invite you to listen. I'm a member of an audio club and have listened to perhaps as many as 15 different quality speaker pairs (I'm a two channel stereo listener only), the most expensive of which was a $200K pair of alta statement towers, where the T1s could basically fit inside its cabinet. Suffice it to say in my view/opinion I'm not missing anything and am perfectly content with my T Refs.
Something else to note for the folks who can't get past the price difference between T1 and TR.... The T Refs are stunningly beautiful. Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there is no comparison from both a sound and physical appearance perspective when evaluating T1 to TR.
Best of luck.