Goldenear Triton One.R - can it be driven with low power tube amp?

Charles does know his stuff and you like to give your opinion on things you have not heard based on measurements you did not make.

Have a great evening.

Jim Perry

georgehifi

You really know your stuff regarding SE amps and high efficiency speakers.  

This sort of statement can be very misleading, and be misleading to many that don't know better.
As the Wilson Alexia has nearly identical efficiency to these Goldenear's, Stereophile measured the Alexia at 91.2db, but they have a very nasty impedance v -phase angle load. Even a very powerfull push pull tube will have a very hard time driving it, as for a 8w S.E.T.!! no chance in ****.
 
So one needs to look at lot more than "just efficiency", and learn to read impedance vs -phase angle graphs, which is even more important than efficiency all it's good for is to give you an idea how "loud" to can go, not how good the driving sound quality will be.

Cheers George  

I’m sure that having a built-in 1.5 kwatt amplifier is responsible for behavior very different from purely passive speakers.

cakids OP
This is what your 8w SET will be trying to drive.
https://www.stereophile.com/images/1119GET1Rfig1.jpg

The 1.5kw lower bass amp has nothing to do with this graph, as it’s just the passive part of the speaker your SET will have to drive, and it's up to you to decide if you'll get enough drive and volume for you listening.
Cheers George

Jperry,
Thank you for your very kind comments. They are much appreciated.

George,
I don’t disagree with your comments, you do have to judge each speaker individually in its totality. All things considered load impedance and associated phase angles are factors that deserve consideration. It seems that Sandy Gross uses an 8 watt SET that suits ’his’ desires with the speaker ’he designed’ . Granted what satisfies him may not satisfy you.

You make my point in referencing the Wilson Alexa speaker. Very similar load impedance measurements, no doubt. Yet there’s more to that story.
As cakids rightly noted the built in powered subwoofer of the G.E. Triton is a significant variable. The Alexa lacks a powered subwoofer so one might expect a different outcome match with similar amplifiers chosen to drive them.

Certainly cakids experience using his Manley Stingray demonstrates excellent compatibility with the Triton. I did not extrapolate that this would be true for all challenging speaker load impedance scenarios, hardly. My main point is you have to listen in most (Not all) cases to get a true assessment.

An example of where listening wouldn’t be a necessity, my 8 watt 300b SET amplifier matched with the Wilson Alexa. On the other hand the Tritons might be worth a listening session. Again, the LM 805ia heard by jperry would definitely be a major contender with the Tritons in my opinion.

I don’t believe that folks reading this thread will have any problems making distinctions of the information discussed here.
Charles

The Tritons need to be driven by your own amp from 80hz up to 400hz there's a lot of power asked from an amp in this mid bass upper bass to 200hz region and this is where Stereophile has given the impedance/phase loading that's well below 4ohms in conjunction with negative phase angle as well, this needs an amp that is more than a common 300b 8w SET can give.
Unless he has a purpose built special 8w set, that has 2ohm-4ohm output transformers with "low output impedance" and still able to give 8w. 

Cheers George