CES 2016 Press Center
GoldenEar Second Gen. Triton Two+ / Triton Three+ And SuperSub X Subwoofer

  MagiIn 2010, GoldenEar Technology successfully launched itself into the marketplace with the introduction of the Triton Two, along with the SuperSats and ForceField powered subwoofers. The Triton Two was an evolution of everything Sandy Gross had designed, starting with the his first creations at Polk Audio in the early 70s, through the breakthrough products that he and Don Givogue created for Definitive Technology, and then going beyond, as they knew that they must. The Triton Two, and the follow on Triton Three, have been recipients of an extraordinary series of rave reviews and record-breaking sales. Then in 2014, Sandy and Don introduced the Triton One, a flagship tower that took all the concepts and technologies that they had pioneered with the earlier Tritons, and moved them all up a notch, or two or three. 

These original basic concepts and technologies included GoldenEar's superb High Velocity Folded Ribbon tweeter, a high-powered built-in powered subwoofer (incorporating quadratic active sub-bass drivers, internally-balanced sub-bass radiators, and a high-powered digital amplifier controlled by an in-house precisely programmed DSP), along with cast-basket upper bass/midrange drivers that incorporate a proprietary polypropylene cone, butyl rubber surround and multi-vaned phase plug, and a linear phase crossover. Thousands of man-hours went into the development of the Triton One and the refinement of everything that had come before. The sonic results speak for themselves, and the success of the Triton One is legend, having been compared with loudspeakers selling for ten times as much and then some. Not surprisingly, the Triton One has won virtually every major industry award, including numerous Speaker-of-the-Year and Product-of-the-Year awards from many of the world's most prestigious and well respected audio publications.

Now, GoldenEar is pleased and proud to announce the second generation Triton Two and Three, the Triton Two+ and Triton Three+, which incorporate many of the new technologies and refinements developed for the One, along with the successful application of all of the additional experience that we have gained over the years and in the process. A successful loudspeaker design is much more than just the sum of both an excellent concept and the high quality parts incorporated in it. More importantly, it is the commitment to get it right, schedule be damned, and the knowledge and perseverance to execute this. In other words, making the effort and taking the time to get all the thousands of little details right, is the real key that makes the difference.

Often extra cost is directly involved, but more often, the cost is in the time required and commitment to make it as good as possible. As we focused on the major development project to bring the original Triton Two and Triton Three up to Triton One's sonic standards, this is the path that we took: examining the myriad of details, some very significant and some less so, in order to optimize as many as possible to bring us to our lofty goal. Simply put, listening will clearly, and instantly reveal how well we have succeeded. Initial listening by noted critics and important reviewers has been exceedingly well received, and the consistent response has been surprise and shock at just how closely the sonic character and voicing of the new speakers approaches that of the One.

As is usual, much of the work was done at our extensive Arnprior engineering facility, utilizing our superb, full-size anechoic chamber, which is a duplicate of the world famous chamber at the NRC. Our chamber is actually fully suspended from its environment, so that the delicate measurements taken within it are not interfered with by outside disturbances and vibrations. Our engineering group feels strongly that only by using a chamber like this, can you really measure, reveal and focus on many of the subtler, but important points of a loudspeaker's performance, and optimize them. It is worth noting that in the intervening time between the original Triton Two and Triton Three development project and the current one, we acquired powerful new development software, including a unique program for cones and surrounds. And additionally, we gained the services of a talented new senior acoustics development engineer, working under Bob Johnston, the head of engineering.

Some specific components that were changed include new upper bass/midrange drivers, which incorporate a new cone, surround, spider and voice coil. Additionally, a completely new balanced crossover with polypropylene capacitors, similar to the one developed for the Triton One, is incorporated. Many listeners don't realize just how critical the crossover is to the sound of a loudspeaker. They often think that the drivers are the drivers, and that two speakers with the same drivers will sound basically alike. Not so... The crossover is like the conductor of an orchestra, telling each driver exactly when to come in and how loud to play. Our acoustic engineers spent countless hours trying subtle variations of crossover and DSP tuning in order to get the voicing exactly right. Additionally, the DSP low-level control unit is, in effect, new, as it has been completely reprogrammed.

Sonically, both the Triton Three+ and Triton Two+ benefit from a significantly smoother, higher resolution, more open, more revealing and more highly detailed sound. In addition, there is dramatically more expansive imaging and tighter, faster, and better integrated bass. Remarkably, the Two+ ($1749 each) and Three+ ($1249 each) now sonically very closely resemble the award-winning Triton One, as was our goal.

You may note that considerable time was spent during voicing of the products to fine tune the upper bass/midrange drivers, and their crossover to both the tweeter and especially the powered sub-bass section. The complex crossover to the powered bass section of both speakers, which critically controls both the phase and amplitude transition, was optimized by utilizing the DSP software to as closely match the Triton One in acoustic presentation and characteristics as possible. Special focus was placed on enhancing the soundstage and clarity to more closely match the Triton One. The DSP software was rewritten using the methodology developed with the Triton One project. This reduced the number of filter stages in the signal path, yet at the same time, flattened the low frequency response, especially in the important sub-woofer/mid-range crossover area between 100 and 250 Hz, as well as in the lower bass and sub-bass regions. Availability is February 2016. Retail Price for Triton Two+ and Three + are $1749 each and $1249 each respectively.

Triton Two+ Specifications:
Enclosure Dimensions: 5.25" (13.3 cm) W (Front) x 7.5" (19 cm) W (Rear) x 15" (38.1 cm) D x 48" (122cm) H (height is with base installed, no spikes). 
Base Dimensions: 11-1/2" (29.2) W x 18" (45.7) D 
Weight: 60 lbs.
Frequency Response: 16Hz to 35kHz
Efficiency: 91dB/W/m
Nominal Impedance: Compatible with 8 Ohms
Driver Complement: 
Two 5" x 9" long-throw high-output quadratic bass drivers coupled to
Two 7" x 10"quadratic planar infrasonic radiators
Two 4.5" high-definition cast-basket mid/bass drivers
One HVFR™ High-Velocity Folded Ribbon tweeter
Rec. Amplification: 20 to 500 Watt/channel
Built-in Subwoofer Power Amplifier: 1200 Watt ForceField subwoofer digital/DSP amplifier

Triton Three+ Specifications:
Enclosure Dimensions: 5.25" (13.3 cm) W (Front) x 7" (17.8 cm) W (Rear) x 13" (33 cm) D x 44" (111.8 cm) H (height is with base installed, no feet/spikes)
Base Dimensions: 11-1/2" (29.2) W x 16-1/4" (41.3) D
Weight: 40 lbs.
Frequency Response: 21Hz to 35KHz
Efficiency: 90dB/W/m
Nominal Impedance: Compatible with 8 Ohms
Driver Complement: 
One 5" x 9" long-throw high-output quadratic bass drivers coupled to
Two 6.75" x 8"quadratic planar infrasonic radiators
One 4.5" high-definition cast-basket mid/bass drivers
One HVFR High-Velocity Folded Ribbon tweeter
Rec. Amplification: 20 to 400 Watt/channel
Built-in Subwoofer Power Amplifier: 800 Watt ForceField subwoofer digital/DSP amplifier

GoldenEar Technology Dual-Plane Inertially-Balanced SuperSub X Subwoofer

GoldenEar's new SuperSub line up is a very special group of ultra-high-performance compact subwoofers that incorporate many recently developed unique and advanced technologies and components. The goal was to create beautifully styled, finely finished, reasonably sized subwoofers, that could generate very low frequency pressure waves of extremely high amplitude, while delivering accurate and precise low frequency performance that is both highly impactful and extremely musical. In order to achieve this, we have incorporated a unique, patent-pending, 360 degree dual-plane internally-balanced driver and sub-bass radiator topology, combined with a very advanced electronics package.

The first of these extraordinary new subwoofers to be released, the SuperSub XXL, shipped in November 2015, and has already received fantastic press and consumer response. In addition, it is the proud recipient of one of the industry's highest honors, the 2016 International CES Innovations/Design and Engineering Award. We are now pleased to announce the second SuperSub, the SuperSub X. In reality, the new, amazingly compact SuperSub X, was the original focus of this development program. It is, as was intended, the best ultra-compact powered subwoofer ever created, delivering extraordinary musicality along with earthshaking impact.

The attractive enclosure of the X is constructed of very thick, high density medite , which is beautifully finished in high-gloss piano black lacquer. It is intricately and effectively braced in order to eliminate the possibility of resonances or the flexing of cabinet panels due to the tremendous internal pressure. There is a unique (patent pending) combination of two fully inertially-balanced 8"" long-throw active drivers in the horizontal plane and two fully inertially-balanced 10"x11" planar infrasonic radiators in the vertical plane. This force-cancelling inertial balancing preserves, conserves and focuses all the energy produced by the transducers in order to effectively move the air in the room (rather than the box), as well as enabling full recovery of the finest details, rather than allowing loss and blurring due to wasted box movement.

In a way, it is as if the enclosure were a totally inert 500 lb. cabinet, but in some ways even better. Also, because there are two active drivers that are separated horizontally in space, as well as two passive radiators which are separated vertically, the driver-to-room coupling is distributed much more smoothly. The different driver locations couple to different room standing wave patterns, thus working better with and driving multiple room eigenmodes, almost as if you had two separate subwoofers.

The electronics package that drives the fully balanced driver and radiator arrays is unique and effective. There is a 1400 watt Class D Digital Amplifier, originally developed for the Triton One, that is controlled by a 56-bit DSP device with a 192kHz sample rate. This Programmable Logic State Machine has nearly instantaneous 278ns update time to perfectly manage a myriad of functions including frequency response, soft clipping, DC offset control, output-stage saturation control, discrete multi-band limiting and phase-perfect equalization. The amplifier also utilizes many small, separate power supplies for each circuit section in order to provide isolation, so there is little opportunity for coupling through the power supplies. A fully balanced topology is used to minimize noise and distortion.

Finally, advanced reconstruction filters are utilized in order to maximize damping factor.
Sonically, the result is rock-solid bass response that is both exceptionally fast and tuneful for music, and extraordinarily deep and powerful, in order to effortlessly reproduce the most extreme movie sound effects. Also, of critical importance, is the fact that the electronics have been designed with a strong focus on minimizing latency to an absolute minimum. Latency is basically time delay that exists in digital circuits. It has the effect of moving the subwoofer back from its physical position. This creates a misalignment with the rest of the system.

We have measured many subwoofers that have relatively extreme levels of latency, which, in effect, moves the subwoofer back 15 or 20 feet. Two RCA inputs are provided for both LFE connection, as well as low-level connection from a stereo source. There is a precision level control as well as a phase perfect low-pass control to enable seamless integration into any system. U.S. Retail Price is $1249. Each. Deliver is expected in Spring 2016.

SuperSub X Specifications:
Enclosure Dimensions: 12.5" H (w/feet) x 13.5" W x 12.5" D
Frequency Response: 12Hz to 200Hz. 
Driver Complement: 
  Two 8" long-throw high-output bass drivers
  Two 10" x 11"quadratic planar infrasonic radiators
Amplifier: 1400 Watt ForceField Digital/DSP Amplifier
Low Pass Filter: 12dB per octave continuously variable from 40Hz to 200 Hz. for Stereo Inputs
Inputs: Direct Coupled, unfiltered LFE -input / Low Level Left and Right channel inputs

For more information about GoldenEar Technology, visit their website at www.GoldenEar.com. 

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