Triad speakers, Platinums or Gold?

I sold Triad for years. The Platinum’s are way over priced for the sound quality. They are large, bulky, awkward, and pretty ugly if you ask me. The highs are etched and brittle. There is really nothing magic about this speaker at all. Triad puts an internal crossover roll off at 70 Hz in almost all of their speakers (check the spec sheet). It's made for home theater applications coupled with subwoofers. That's a lot of box and bass drivers for no bass output.

The gold THX is ok for a horn speaker, but it still sounds like a horn. The drivers are good, it's much more compact, but it never did much for me.

The silver THX speaker was their best in the THX line. They even got the center channel driver configuration right. This model is going through a model change, and I never saw/heard the new model.

The new bronze theater speaker is suprisingly good for it's price point. I little brittel on the top, but not bad. The price is kept low, because I don't think it has THX badging. There is no horn on this speaker either :)

IMO The best speaker in their line is the plain old gold bookshelf speaker. It's a 2-way speaker with the D-28 dynaudio dome tweeter. Many high-end speakers have used this tweeter in their designs. The down side is that this is just a 2-way bookshelf speaker, and like almost every Triad speaker they need a sub to handle the bottom end. If you want to hear it loud, this speaker might fall short.

They have a new silver monitor (hi-fi speaker). It sounds pretty good, but there are a lot of choices at 4k. Oh yeah, you will need a sub with this one too. There are more exciting choices at this price point.

The silver sub is their best sub. The gold and platinum subs are slow and flabby. Get two silver subs instead.

Fit, finish and build quality are top notch. If you need/want a particular finish to match your decor, Triad is one of the only options. Also, if you want your in-walls to match freestanding speakers in a home theater application, Triad is one of the only manufactures that fits the bill.

e-mail your application and I will give you my recommendation.

I have only had experience with Silvers - I think my dealer only carried them and the new Bronze.

I've found that the Silver surrounds are really good, and their primary defect (to my ears) is a rolloff in the high treble. In my application this doesn't matter much to me and I'm pretty happy with them. (These are bipolar in-walls.)

I am running a Platinum front end and I will say, there is no trio of speakers I have owned that 'scare' me during films any more than the Triads do.

They do not hhave any bottom end, but then again, I have run Nautilus 801s in this same room with Krell 350MCs and THOSE needed subs. Apparenly, I am not the only one to complain about the Nautilus line (801N/802N) with this issue.

So, add a couple of subs, and then you start getting into a speaker being a true monitor. Dunlavy SC-IVa sound better with a sub. Not to mention, one won't tack their amp as much (in my case it won't matter - I have plenty of juice) and allow the speaker to play at volumes that it can get to that it otherwise couldn't do without a powered sub.

I raised the Platinums off the 5" Osiris stands, and actually put them on TOP of a SUB that is being used as stereo subs, NOT LFE. This has raised the horn loaded, believe it to be the same tweeter, D-28, to ear level.
It has also put the two 5" or 6" scanspeaker mid that everyone is starting to use (high end speakers, that is) above and below the listening position. Drastic improvement. Then, I put the Velodyne HGS-18's (2) in the mix and use those SPECIFICALLY for LFE and with some fine tuning, the Triads are incredible in music reproduction!

I do agree however, for their cost, the subs, the space, etc, there is other speaker manufacturers that may be a better 2 channel value, BUT, for home theater, there are none. Triad IS the speaker to have for home theater, music video, etc. The 2 channel, in the set up I have now, is very, very good.

I am just shocked at how darned good these Triad speakers are for theater environments. I have owned the Golds and they are about everything the Platinums are, but being larger, the Platinums fill larger rooms. For 98% of us, me included, the Golds would be more than enough.

Dan