Полочная акустика — GoldenEar Aon 3

The Aon 3 is a two-way stand-mount monitor from GoldenEar Technology, the company Sandy Gross founded in 2009 in Stevenson, Maryland. Within the Aon family it is the bigger of the bookshelf pair and was listed at USD 999.98 per pair, and the factory warranty on parts and labour ran for five years from purchase.

Key specs that matter

A High-Velocity Folded Ribbon tweeter of the AMT type sits above a 7 inch cast-basket mid/bass driver, and two 8 inch planar low-frequency radiators are mounted on the cabinet sides. Together the radiators offer 211.24 cm2 of surface area. GoldenEar rates the Aon 3 at 88 dB for 1 W at 1 m into 4 ohm, equal to 2.83 V at 1 m, with a nominal impedance of 4 ohm. Typical response runs from 40 Hz to 25 kHz, and the anechoic bass figure is -6 dB on axis at 66 Hz. Each speaker measures 22.9 cm wide, 27.9 cm deep and 35.6 cm tall and weighs 6.8 kg, or 7.7 kg when boxed for shipping.

Engineering and use context

The tweeter follows the air motion transformer principle, where a folded diaphragm pushes air from between its pleats, and it is mounted off centre on the baffle to reduce edge diffraction. The mid/bass unit uses a multi-vaned phase plug at its centre, a 25 mm Kapton voice former and a high-gauss magnet, all carried in a rigid free-flow cast chassis. Instead of a reflex port, the low end is loaded by the pair of side-firing planar radiators, which have no voice coils and respond to the pressure built up by the active cone. Seen from the front, the enclosure is a truncated pyramid built from MDF, and its interior walls are non-parallel to limit standing waves. Cloth wraps four sides of the cabinet, while the top and bottom are closed by high-gloss black caps. The shape allows placement on a shelf or on a stand, and GoldenEar suggests stands about 76 cm high, which put the tweeter near 102 cm from the floor.

Pairing

The recommended amplifier range is 10 to 250 W per channel, so a small integrated amplifier can drive the Aon 3 while a far larger power amplifier stays within the manufacturer's stated limit. Because the nominal load is low, an amplifier specified for stable operation into low impedance is the safer match. GoldenEar also builds powered subwoofers such as the SuperSub X for owners who want deeper bass output.

Alternatives

The GoldenEar BRX is a smaller bookshelf model with a 6 inch mid/bass driver and two 6.5 inch planar radiators.