Floorstanding loudspeakers — GoldenEar Triton One.R

GoldenEar's Triton One.R is a tower speaker that houses a powered subwoofer section inside its own cabinet, positioned by GoldenEar as a smaller, cheaper follow-up to the Triton Reference. GoldenEar announced it in December 2018 and has since discontinued the model. The cabinet is finished by hand in rubbed piano black lacquer, the one finish listed.

Key specs that matter

Nine drive units work in each tower. At the top is one Reference HVFR tweeter, an AMT folded ribbon design, flanked by two upper bass and midrange drivers in cast baskets, while three long-throw quadratic subwoofer drivers of 5 x 9 inches feed four quadratic planar back-wave-driven radiators of 7 x 10 inches with a combined radiating area of 344.3 cm2. GoldenEar rates efficiency at 90 dB for 2.83 V at 1 m and gives a response of 27 Hz to 25 kHz, with the bass figure measured at -6 dB on axis under anechoic conditions. The tower is 14.6 cm wide at the front, 20.3 cm at the rear and 42.3 cm deep, standing 137.2 cm with its base fitted and no spikes, on a base of 31.4 x 50.2 cm, and weighs 36.3 kg, or 47.6 kg as shipped.

Engineering and use context

The subwoofer section is DSP-controlled through a 56-bit engine and uses a GoldenEar SuperSub digital amplifier, and its three active drivers are racetrack shaped with large magnet structures. The planar radiators are mounted two on each side and inertially balanced, which the maker says minimises cabinet movement, and their job is to extend the low frequency response of the active drivers. The upper bass and midrange cones use a special polypropylene formulation, a Multi-Vaned Phase Plug and a focused field magnet structure developed for the Triton Reference. They sit in dual separate midrange chambers arranged as a D'Appolito array around the tweeter, shared with the Triton Reference and built with 50% more neodymium than earlier GoldenEar ribbons, intended for higher efficiency and greater control. The passive section uses a fully balanced crossover design with high-end film capacitors.

Pairing

The passive section presents a nominal 4 ohm load, and GoldenEar recommends external amplification of 20 to 650 W per channel for it. Low bass comes from the tower's own subwoofer amplifier, so the connected amplifier does not have to drive the three active woofers.

Alternatives

The GoldenEar Triton Reference is the larger Triton tower, using 6-inch mid and bass drivers and 6 x 10-inch active woofers with a 93 dB efficiency rating.