Issue 118 Hot Preview – GoldenEar Technology Triton One

Hi-Fi+ Issue 118 will be available from December 4. As ever, the magazine is stuffed to the gills with the latest and greatest audio equipment, but here is a preview of one of the hottest topics in the new issue – the excellent GoldenEar Technology Triton One loudspeaker.

Our Publisher Chris Martens was fortunate enough to receive one of the first pairs of the £5,000 flagship Triton One loudspeakers to leave the GoldenEar factory. “At first glance,” he says, “the design of the Triton One might appear similar to that of earlier Triton-series models, but the closer one looks, the more obvious it is that the Triton One breaks new ground in terms of design and—especially—sound quality.

Chris Martens also suggests, “the Triton One is a tall, slim, three-way floorstanding loudspeaker that combines a passive tweeter-mid/bass section positioned near the top of its enclosure with an active subwoofer section down below.” However, he also points out that “GoldenEar’s new subwoofer crossover network is arguably the most precise that the firm has ever built,” and that, “together, the new passive/active crossover and powerful woofer amplifier do a terrific job of preserving bass transient speed, focus, and pitch definition.”

In sheer performance terms, Chris Martens felt that “the Triton One’s design elements coalesce in a synergistic way, giving the speaker a far more taut, well-focused, and coherent sound than any of its earlier-generation Triton-series predecessors could have provided.” He also felt that, “the T1 is able to maintain a very high level of continuity from top to bottom.”

The benefit to the listener, according to Chris Martens, is you can, “put all these design elements together and you get a loudspeaker that sounds far more sophisticated, expressive, expansive, and refined than its mid-level price would lead you to expect.”

This marks a significant change for the company, and a change for the better for audiophile listeners. “Where earlier GoldenEar models tended, conceptually and sonically, to have one foot in the world of high-end audio and the other in the arguably less demanding (or at least differently prioritised) world of home cinema,” says Chris Martens, “the new Triton One is, by design, a true connoisseur’s high-end loudspeaker, with no ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

But if you want to know more, if you want to know just how good the Triton One really is, as well as the latest Kuzma and Transfiguration products from the Vinyl Frontier, great power with great responsibility from B.M.C. and Resolution Audio, a CD player (yes, new players still exist) from Roksan, top loudspeakers from Crystal and Kudos, plus the greatest little headphone amp and DAC (not that much) money can buy… well, you just have to buy the magazine, in print, on PDF, or through all good tablets and smartphones. Don’t miss out!