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Upgrading front 3 speakers to GoldenEar Triton Reference or B&W Nautilus 800?



I am an avid home theater guy and am looking to upgrade from my Triton Ones. Love movies and concert Blu-rays.

I have the XXL center channel and find it to be not as clean as I would like.

I have 2 choices, one to go from the Ones to the Reference

or

found some used B&W so wish to

Upgrade Mains from Golden Ear Triton One to B&W Nautilus 800

Upgrade Centre from Golden Ear Supercenter XXL to B&W HTM1D


The challenge, in my eyes, with the 2nd choice is that I am using the Classé 5300 and would bi-amp my front L & R but only have 1 channel left to bi-amp the centre, so would have to get another 3-channel amp to run my lower part of the centre + my 2 rears, as I did not bi-amp the GE Ones, but feel that I should do for the Reference.


The B&W may be a little large for my room (14.5' x 23'x8') but I will have front speakers that will be much more clean than the Ones that I have now.


Hope to hear from a few GE or B&W fans very soon so I can make a decision


Steve


128x128eternalcamper
bi0drain's avatar
bi0drain
72 posts
 
'No Matter how you configure it, the center channel should the the anchor for dialogue, and should run 2 centers for a couple reason #1 directionality and #2 phase cancellations, So I would skip it.. As far as the biamping you should use the same amplifiers due to gain structure and level matching...
Ditch the second center, especially moving up
As for your biamping question, I run  monoblocks on front left and right, mains, and a sigma amp5 on my center, surrounds, at one time was biamping my center channel with a Proceed amp5 before my Config Change. Would prefer to run 1 center and biamped mains if I had that option in your case.
hoboboston's avatar
hoboboston
2 posts
 
Hi Steve,

Which speakers did you end up going with and what do you think?

I'm currently trying to decide b/w Goldenears, B&Ws, or Martin Logan ESLs.  I'm thinkin going with Goldenears (T1 / T1+) for the L/R and possibly the Goldenear XXL (or Ref) or something else for the center (maybe the B&W, or maybe a ML ESL -- haven't decided which models)...   

Which speakers did you get and what do you think of your setup?
auxinput
2,920 posts
 
@hoboboston - your front three speakers (left/center/right) should all be the exact same manufacturer / series.  Otherwise, you will have noticable sonic signature difference across the front stage during movies.  This is not a good thing.  The surrounds are not as critical and can be different, as long as they are close in sonic signature.
soix
9,552 posts
 
Is this mainly a HT system or is 2-channel important as well?  What speakers/subs and electronics do you have currently?
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