Opinions of GoldenEar Triton 1

I'll bite.
Like a broken record, I stand with my recommendation of Vandersteen speakers.
Ribbon tweeters never worked for me, but 'horses for courses'.-And, I have listened to the Golden Ear. 
They are nice, but just not my 'cuppa'.
Are you buying new or used?
Bob

I’m afraid I haven’t spent much time with the T1 but I love the Triton line and have chosen its slightly smaller, less expensive sibling, the Triton 2+ as our next speaker. That said, I think all the Tritons are all terrific values.

The Ones have rave reviews (as you probably already know) - full range, natural sounding, coherent, outstanding sound staging - but I didn’t really audition them at the dealers since they were out of our reach $$. When we auditioned others in the line, we found them to be easy to drive and relatively unfussy about placement and I would expect the 1s to share these virtues.

I like ribbon tweets, and I think the Triton drivers are very well integrated with the mids and bass modules so that’s a big plus for us. I hate a tipped up treble (awful on massed strings) but the 2+ ribbon tweet sounded open and airy to me. My impression is that the Ones just have more of everything than the speakers in line below them, I don’t really want to know since I can’t afford them. My room’s not that big anyway.

We auditioned a fair few speakers before settling on the 2+, In another life I had Maggies, Alon IVs and Alon Circes, all more expensive than the T2+. We listen to mostly classical - large scale orchestral and opera - plus rock and jazz (the stepson is in My Morning Jacket). We play music from very loud to very soft, so I love the fact that the 2s sound great on all kinds of music, The timbral accuracy is quite good on the 2+, but better (as I remember ) on the T1.

The only way to know if you like the T1 is to find a dealer and audition a pair. I dismissed Goldenear speakers for a long time, much to my regret. My only caveat when you go to listen to them is to be sure they’re hooked up to electronics worthy of them and not HT gear. They will sing with good front end and reasonable amp (even tubes).

Haven’t listened to the One, but when I was auditioning close to 20 speakers six months ago, I listened to the GE Triton 2+, Focal Aria 936, and Paradigm Prestige (whatever the $3.5-4K model is) in one sitting playing thru Rotel gear. 

For me the Goldenear was a distant third. Just sounded a lot less refined, less exciting, less musical than the other two in my opinion. 

But they get great reviews views and everyone hears differently, but didn’t work for me that day. Ymmv. 

Danoo, unless you are looking at a deal, the Triton 1 are not the same speakers as the new Triton 1R is a different story. 

We have been fascinated with Golden Ear for years, the concept of having a built in and adjustable subwoofer system especially for a Home Theater is a very appealing concept.

So for years we wanted to sell the brand but not for music listening mostly for our Home Theater clients.

We heard the original Triton 1s at a few dealers and despite the fantastic press, we always found the speakers to have a few issues, the bass tended to over power the midrange, which sounded distinctly recessed also the high end never seemed to integrate.

On a few demos the top end was too much on others the top end was a bit too rolled sounding.

Fast forward to the Tritron Reference which we heard at the New York Audio show, here with an inexpensive Peach Tree intergrated was a speaker that sounded was better than the other Tritons.

Then at the recent Axpona show we heard the Triton 1R with a simple system of a Prima Luma intergrated amplifier and a CD player and it was a shocker.

The speakers for the first time that we heard them totally disapeared, the bass was integrated, the top end was cohesive and the midrange was fully integrate neither too warm or too bright totally natural.

No matter what music Sandy was demoing the speakers sounded fantastic, in fact after walking the entire show for three days, one of the demos that stood out was how remarkable the Triton 1R were even compared to way more expensive demo rooms.

We signed up with Golden Ear right after the show. After living with the Triton 1R’s for a few months they are one of our favorite speakers and are a screaming buy for the sound quality, and understand we sell some of the best loudspeaker brands out there, Kef, Dali, Legacy, Paradigm, ATC, Quad.

So the question if you can trade in your speakers and only have to add $2,500.00 is there any better upgrade, after living with the Trition 1R we would say no.

Although on the surface the speakers seem similar the parts are totally different and were designed for the Reference versions.

The Trition 1R are a fantastic loudspeaker and are probably the deal of the century for the amazing sound quality they produce.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Golden Ear dealers