GoldenEar Technology has a habit of impressing show attendees and this year's CES was no exception. The company's brand new Triton Five tower speaker ($999.99/each) made its debut at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas this week, and boy, did it make an impression.
Like the larger Triton Towers (One, Two and Three), the Triton Five features a High-Velocity Folded Ribbon (HVFR) tweeter design, which is similar in many ways to the sound of much more expensive electrostatic panel, but in a much smaller form factor. This tweeter gives the Triton Five that same gorgeously liquid midrange and treble of the other Triton speakers.
But the Triton Five is a bit more like its little brother the Triton Seven in that it uses a traditional acoustic woofer instead of the powered subwoofers in the One, Two and Three. Actually, in the case of the Five, it uses two 6" high-definition cast-basket drivers and four 8" planar sub-bass radiators to reach all the way down to 26 Hz (according to the specs).
Happily, this year Sandy Gross (GoldenEar's founder) diversified with his demo material, actually using some content from the current millenium. For our listening pleasure, Sandy put on a cut from Beck's latest album, "Morning Phase" in addition to his old standby demos like "Fanfare for the Common Man" by Copland.
Both the classical piece and the rock track displayed excellent dynamics, that lush folded-ribbon midrange, and remarkably deep, extended bass for a fairly small tower speaker (it measures in at about 8 x 12 x 44 inches). But more importantly, the blend of sound was entirely coherent from top to bottom. There was no bass bloat or lag, no strident highs, just a smooth blend of frequencies and a deep, immersive sound stage. I told Sandy he had a problem: once people hear the Triton Five they may not want feel the need to pony up for the more expensive towers (OK, admittedly, they sound excellent, too, with even more powerful bass).
Bring the Boom!
GoldenEar also had a new subwoofer on display in a separate suite, the Dual-Plane Inertially-Balanced SuperSub XXL Subwoofer ($2,000). This sub was paired with the production version of GoldenEar's newest soundbar, the SuperCinema 3D Array XL ($1,599) for a discrete but nice-sounding home theater package.
The subwoofer's inertially balanced driver design and rock solid cabinet construction allowed it to create some powerful low bass with virtually no visible cabinet resonance or vibration. To illustrate this, the GoldenEar rep placed a nickel on its side on top of the sub. Even with an action movie blasting through the soundbar and sub, and deep bass notes throbbing through the room, the nickel didn't even move, let alone fall over. Great! I needed another side table to put my drinks on while watching movies. This'll do fine. Thanks, Sandy.
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