GoldenEar Tower designs have always utilized powered subwoofer units in their mid- & higher end speakers. Great Sound for the money; absolutely LOVE their BRX Standmount Speaker!
But aren’t they made by the guy who worked at definitive technology, whose towers with powered subs had notoriously unreliable amps? Hope these are a more reliable made-in-china design, with better chinesium parts 👍🏼
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant 👏 Thank you so much for including a stand mount + sub option in your comparo. Honestly, I can't recall a review in which such a direct comparison was performed back to back with full range speakers. Well-done! That's precisely the type of insights the Hi-Fi community wants, but so rarely receives.
I added a pair of subs to my system not too long ago. The (near) full-range extension revealed all kinds of sub-bass detail I'd been missing across my music collection. Now that I'm hearing those extra frequencies, I wouldn't want to give them up, to say nothing of the mid-bass frequencies I recovered after the subs' positioning flexibility helped me defeat some gnarly room nulls.
I was at Axpona and didn’t know which room I walked into. I heard incredible sound as soon as I walked into this room, from all over the room from the back to the front. Then realized it’s golden ears. Can’t remember which model but it sure sounded absolutely incredible and had a huge soundstage and excellent sound from many parts of the room.
Great review 👍 These were on demonstration at a local Audio show and they drew quite a crowd. Being very impressed by their overall performance I’m now the proud owner of the T66. The first thing that struck me was how BIG and wide the soundstage is, the performance is clean, effortless and exciting that makes music a fun and engaging experience. 😊 Great to hear your comparison with one of the big players in this game, Kef 👍
Hey John! Thanks for another great review. I really appreciate that you’ve started including more floorstanding speakers and the side-by-side comparisons are super helpful. However, I’ve noticed that some of these comparisons feel a bit brief. Personally, I’d love to see either fewer comparisons with more in-depth analysis or, even better, more detailed side-by-sides in a longer video. Keep up the awesome work!
I have the Grandfather of the T66, the Definitive Technology Mythos ST's with built in powered subs & gain control If fed a good source like my tube amp & tube pre amp they sound pretty darn good!! I also have 2 SVS Ultra 13 subs with DSP I really enjoy the full range music they deliver, plus the way my subs can energize a room
Fantastic review. Thank you for that! They look amazing, I like the color! And smart thinking about the subs being active so that the speakers are more versatile. It would've been a cool take with a comparison between those and the B&W 702 S3.
😊Tubes! I know you said Sandy wasn't involved but he loved tubes.Perfect compliment for 91 db sensitivity. I already have the MTM (5.5 M) set up in the Zen Acoustic Adagio used with the REL S510 sub. Using only 27 watts triode from VAC Integrated Amp. I can switch to 60 watts ultralinear with a little less magic in the midrange but don't really need the extra power as the amp barely makes it to 12 O'clock in triode mode with $10K vinyl rig and even less into CD. The sub has only one great location (for the sub not for me😅) in my weird room so it would be great to integrate to a speaker that has it all. Alas l have to try open baffle next. Going to build from some plans shown elsewhere on yt. Great review here exactly what l needed to know.
Yes, it's definitely a grower. And you'll need to love it as the first half of the live show is the band playing the album in full. The second half is an impeccable selection of classics. GIANT to close!
Great review, John! Succinct and to the point but with plenty of helpful details and comparisons. I've been kinda smitten with the GoldenEar towers ever since your pal Michael Lavorgna reviewed some of them on Twittering Machines and I still feel I would enjoy them immensely. And I must say, you have some of the best licensed music in all of UA-cam-land. Nice!
I bought the Triton One way back when. Updated those to the Triton One.R a few years back then added a sub last year - very happy with the sound so I’m done - for now……😎
Thanks for the coverage of Golden ear I love my Triton 7s. I use WIIM pro to pull down 13 kilohertz. I like to point the speakers directly at me for imaging.
I’ve heard the LS60s in three different stores and never was really impressed…considering it’s an all in one solution it’s fairly priced but my dream speakers are the Kiwi Three 😍
Enjoy your takes on gear over the last few years years and have a ROON playlist entitled "DRKO suggestions" :) Good stuff. I moved up (significantly) in sound quality to the KEF LS60 about 4 months ago (in part due to your reviews and of course the $2000 US price drop)- and so was interested in your side by side comparison. T66 + Amp is about ?3x? the price of LS 60's and I took your point as if the T66's were a bit but not that much better. Maybe I'm trying to self-reinforce my buying decision but find it strange you made more of a comparison with the KEF stand-mounts and sub-woofers than with the LS 60's. At any rate, keep up the great work and hope you're enjoying your time in Portugal.
I find bass gain requirements are different for different music and movies. So I really need a remote control that can adjust bass gain depending on what I'm listening to.
Have you ever tried speakers made by Orbid Sound? They're real hidden gems, imo. I had their Pluto's for over a decade before switching to some nice Jupiters. I've tested countless Klipsch speakers and other well reviewed brands in a one to one comparison over the years and always kept my Orbids. I got all my friends hooked to those speakers. One of them even bought Galaxies, which are just insane. You could power a concert with those. Again, I've tested many of their speakers, I've been using them for almost 20 years now, and I still can't recommend them enough.
How cool is that CD player, had such a mission trying to get to play my old CD's on an Xbox recently. Works great for 4K Blu-ray's, but CD's it's a flippin nightmare 🤦
@@stevenkelby2169 I don't remember what Dirac set the time delays to. Time delay and high passing won't fix it. It's an issue with the design. I suspect it's a combination of multiple things. Group delay, step response, and their implementation of an extended bass shelf. The only thing that greatly improves the timing issue but doesn't completely fix it is an amp with a very high damping factor which I find very strange and interesting.
You need review the new Danish speaker. Radiant Acoustics Clarity 6.2. Design by the best people from Denmark. Heard them today, driven by Lyngdorf TDAI-3400. Its was fantastic
I just won a bid on a set of Bowers & Wilkens...... $20 for the set and they looked IMMACULATE. The late owner shared one of the last name: Bower... only the 's' was missing. I'm sure just coincidental None the less, how'd I do? I was the only bidder so I hope they are good. Guess I will find out in 4 days
‘For people who want a speaker that sounds technically impressive’… Oh yes. That’s been my point of difference for years. It’s something that is very popular in - unsurprisingly - American designs. I have no problem with this but if you want something like that is totally neutral, you can bypass manufacturers like GoldenEar and go for simple studio monitors. After all, they are supposed to be the most neutral (unless you’re Bob Clearmountain). It’s not that I think music should be coloured by speakers. It’s that I think a lot of people - me including - buy speakers simply because we like the combination of the sound they produce and other considerations, not because of what their waveform looks like on a CRO.
Hi John, great video, again. When I biamp, I found after an initial wow, that different topologies don’t work well. Doing some homework I found out that Frankenstein-ing even and odd harmonic dominant amps bothers our auditory after a while. Could it be the reason you preferred the NAD over the Hegel in this case? thank again for the video.
John, any reason you had the speaker cables hooked black up and red down? Is it how you always use it or the t66 sounded better that way and if so , why is that? Thanks
To the point John always makes (correctly, as usual) that HiFi gear is not just about sound, that looks matter: I'd never have those speakers anywhere near my home. lol.
I don't own either speaker, could it be possible that the balance between the bass units and the upper frequency units on the t-66 could be unintentionally balanced louder on the mid treble end? If that were the case it could possibly explain a lot of your impressions
How do these compared to the Piegas you had in a few months ago? They are about the same price I think and I’m looking at getting one of these speaker systems.
Are the passive radiators supposed to face inward, or depending on room, can the speakers be switched around to have them facing outwards? For what it's worth,my Rega RX 5 sound better in my area facing inward as well.
Haven’t you heard? That’s a polariser. It’s job is to align the ionic waves emitted by the DAC and has been shown to massively improve high frequency transients, as well as eliminate the notorious switching problem distortion. Actually, I believe it’s just a weight he uses to stop the DAC being dragged off the top of the unit by the weight of the cables. I think he mentioned it a couple of years ago.
Thanks for having introduced me to The The in a previous video when you featured the Mind Bomb album. I recently found Infected on vinyl which is hard to find at my local record shops, and I’m looking forward to seeing them live in Seattle in November.
LOVE ME SOME MATT JOHNSON! I’m going to see The The in Detroit next month. Soul Mining came out during my college years. Been a fan ever since. Interesting speakers….Thank you John!
buying a tower speaker with any sort of plate amp or power unit is asking for trouble. Just ask the people that have been buying the cheap crap from China that Klipsch is now putting out. It's one more thing to go wrong and if people are gonna spend this kind of money, they probably have a very powerful amplification system anyway.
Why not just make the whole speaker active I don't get making only half the unit powered but fair play I guess there are a few reasons why . Would they would get better sound alchemy if they had all the same amps used ,maybe I dunno?
think Sandy was a fan of low watt tube amps, with this set up the sub bass is covered and you can run the rest of the speaker with almost any amp at any wattage. even a decware will run tritons without issue, probably these ones too
Yes! More floorstanders please :)
GoldenEar Tower designs have always utilized powered subwoofer units in their mid- & higher end speakers. Great Sound for the money; absolutely LOVE their BRX Standmount Speaker!
But aren’t they made by the guy who worked at definitive technology, whose towers with powered subs had notoriously unreliable amps? Hope these are a more reliable made-in-china design, with better chinesium parts 👍🏼
@@jimbanville Sandy Gross departed GoldenEar roughly 2 years ago.
Did not expect this one! Good stuff, not one of your usual brands to be reviewed.
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant 👏
Thank you so much for including a stand mount + sub option in your comparo.
Honestly, I can't recall a review in which such a direct comparison was performed back to back with full range speakers.
Well-done! That's precisely the type of insights the Hi-Fi community wants, but so rarely receives.
Thanks for your appreciation. 🙏
I added a pair of subs to my system not too long ago. The (near) full-range extension revealed all kinds of sub-bass detail I'd been missing across my music collection. Now that I'm hearing those extra frequencies, I wouldn't want to give them up, to say nothing of the mid-bass frequencies I recovered after the subs' positioning flexibility helped me defeat some gnarly room nulls.
I was at Axpona and didn’t know which room I walked into. I heard incredible sound as soon as I walked into this room, from all over the room from the back to the front. Then realized it’s golden ears. Can’t remember which model but it sure sounded absolutely incredible and had a huge soundstage and excellent sound from many parts of the room.
Nice video and thank you for the many comparisons! Looking forward to the T44 review 🙂
The The Ensoulment... Listening on your recommendation John, what a great album. Thanks!
Great review 👍
These were on demonstration at a local Audio show and they drew quite a crowd.
Being very impressed by their overall performance I’m now the proud owner of the T66.
The first thing that struck me was how BIG and wide the soundstage is, the performance is clean, effortless and exciting that makes music a fun and engaging experience. 😊
Great to hear your comparison with one of the big players in this game, Kef 👍
I love the red and the grills. Form follows function with an artist's touch. Thanks for the review John. 😊
Thanks for watching!
Hey John! Thanks for another great review. I really appreciate that you’ve started including more floorstanding speakers and the side-by-side comparisons are super helpful. However, I’ve noticed that some of these comparisons feel a bit brief. Personally, I’d love to see either fewer comparisons with more in-depth analysis or, even better, more detailed side-by-sides in a longer video. Keep up the awesome work!
That intro music on the Klipsch Fives and a 10" Sub was killer!
I have the Grandfather of the T66, the Definitive Technology Mythos ST's with built in powered subs & gain control If fed a good source like my tube amp & tube pre amp they sound pretty darn good!! I also have 2 SVS Ultra 13 subs with DSP I really enjoy the full range music they deliver, plus the way my subs can energize a room
So you added 2 subs to your floorstanders?
good review. I look forward to more info about the T44
Love to see some Tipper thrown in the mix. Great review!
Fantastic review. Thank you for that!
They look amazing, I like the color! And smart thinking about the subs being active so that the speakers are more versatile.
It would've been a cool take with a comparison between those and the B&W 702 S3.
😊Tubes! I know you said Sandy wasn't involved but he loved tubes.Perfect compliment for 91 db sensitivity. I already have the MTM (5.5 M) set up in the Zen Acoustic Adagio used with the REL S510 sub. Using only 27 watts triode from VAC Integrated Amp. I can switch to 60 watts ultralinear with a little less magic in the midrange but don't really need the extra power as the amp barely makes it to 12 O'clock in triode mode with $10K vinyl rig and even less into CD. The sub has only one great location (for the sub not for me😅) in my weird room so it would be great to integrate to a speaker that has it all. Alas l have to try open baffle next. Going to build from some plans shown elsewhere on yt. Great review here exactly what l needed to know.
Good call on the Ensoulment record. It has really grown on me. Going to see them live in three weeks
Yes, it's definitely a grower. And you'll need to love it as the first half of the live show is the band playing the album in full. The second half is an impeccable selection of classics. GIANT to close!
Great review, John! Succinct and to the point but with plenty of helpful details and comparisons. I've been kinda smitten with the GoldenEar towers ever since your pal Michael Lavorgna reviewed some of them on Twittering Machines and I still feel I would enjoy them immensely. And I must say, you have some of the best licensed music in all of UA-cam-land. Nice!
I bought the Triton One way back when. Updated those to the Triton One.R a few years back then added a sub last year - very happy with the sound so I’m done - for now……😎
What sub did u get? How big is your room?
Thanks for the coverage of Golden ear I love my Triton 7s. I use WIIM pro to pull down 13 kilohertz. I like to point the speakers directly at me for imaging.
I have Def Tech 9080X and they are insanely good for the secondary market pricing of ~$2000-$2500/pair
Great info. It would be great to see also how they measure in your space.
Nice review John. (Love The The - I'll have to pick up the new CD)
Thanks John, semi passive / powered !! that's a first for me !
Really looking forward to seeing The The live in Sydney when they pass through here.
They were really good in Berlin last night 👍
That Matt Johnson album is brilliant ! Thank you !
I’ve heard the LS60s in three different stores and never was really impressed…considering it’s an all in one solution it’s fairly priced but my dream speakers are the Kiwi Three 😍
Here is an idea for a product review: radiant acoustics clarity 6.2 speakers!
Enjoy your takes on gear over the last few years years and have a ROON playlist entitled "DRKO suggestions" :) Good stuff. I moved up (significantly) in sound quality to the KEF LS60 about 4 months ago (in part due to your reviews and of course the $2000 US price drop)- and so was interested in your side by side comparison. T66 + Amp is about ?3x? the price of LS 60's and I took your point as if the T66's were a bit but not that much better. Maybe I'm trying to self-reinforce my buying decision but find it strange you made more of a comparison with the KEF stand-mounts and sub-woofers than with the LS 60's.
At any rate, keep up the great work and hope you're enjoying your time in Portugal.
I find bass gain requirements are different for different music and movies. So I really need a remote control that can adjust bass gain depending on what I'm listening to.
THANKS JOHN 🤗💚💚💚
They look the biz. Beautiful
Have you ever tried speakers made by Orbid Sound? They're real hidden gems, imo. I had their Pluto's for over a decade before switching to some nice Jupiters. I've tested countless Klipsch speakers and other well reviewed brands in a one to one comparison over the years and always kept my Orbids. I got all my friends hooked to those speakers. One of them even bought Galaxies, which are just insane. You could power a concert with those. Again, I've tested many of their speakers, I've been using them for almost 20 years now, and I still can't recommend them enough.
I love the new The The album. Sounds great on vinyl too.
How cool is that CD player, had such a mission trying to get to play my old CD's on an Xbox recently. Works great for 4K Blu-ray's, but CD's it's a flippin nightmare 🤦
That’s a Pro-Ject CD Box RS2 T. What a mouthful of a name lol
Kef has an inherent problem with bass lagging behind in time. This happens still even with bass management active.
By how long? What's the time delay?
@@stevenkelby2169 I don't remember what Dirac set the time delays to. Time delay and high passing won't fix it. It's an issue with the design. I suspect it's a combination of multiple things. Group delay, step response, and their implementation of an extended bass shelf. The only thing that greatly improves the timing issue but doesn't completely fix it is an amp with a very high damping factor which I find very strange and interesting.
You need review the new Danish speaker. Radiant Acoustics Clarity 6.2. Design by the best people from Denmark. Heard them today, driven by Lyngdorf TDAI-3400. Its was fantastic
I just won a bid on a set of Bowers & Wilkens...... $20 for the set and they looked IMMACULATE. The late owner shared one of the last name: Bower... only the 's' was missing. I'm sure just coincidental None the less, how'd I do? I was the only bidder so I hope they are good. Guess I will find out in 4 days
Im here for the “more boom in your room”
‘For people who want a speaker that sounds technically impressive’… Oh yes. That’s been my point of difference for years. It’s something that is very popular in - unsurprisingly - American designs. I have no problem with this but if you want something like that is totally neutral, you can bypass manufacturers like GoldenEar and go for simple studio monitors. After all, they are supposed to be the most neutral (unless you’re Bob Clearmountain).
It’s not that I think music should be coloured by speakers. It’s that I think a lot of people - me including - buy speakers simply because we like the combination of the sound they produce and other considerations, not because of what their waveform looks like on a CRO.
Ls60 just killer speakers😊😊
The lid on that cd player would be nice if made of clear glass so you can see the disc spinning👌🏼
Hi John, great video, again. When I biamp, I found after an initial wow, that different topologies don’t work well. Doing some homework I found out that Frankenstein-ing even and odd harmonic dominant amps bothers our auditory after a while. Could it be the reason you preferred the NAD over the Hegel in this case? thank again for the video.
John, any reason you had the speaker cables hooked black up and red down?
Is it how you always use it or the t66 sounded better that way and if so , why is that?
Thanks
Sorry, was it the Forcefield 30 you were using as a sub for the R3 Metas?
Are you planning to review the new monitor audio gold series? Im curious how the studio 89 will compare to the gold 50 & 100
To the point John always makes (correctly, as usual) that HiFi gear is not just about sound, that looks matter: I'd never have those speakers anywhere near my home. lol.
How is 5he nad m66 ? Are all the bugs worked out? Also has home theater bypass been implemented
I don't own either speaker, could it be possible that the balance between the bass units and the upper frequency units on the t-66 could be unintentionally balanced louder on the mid treble end?
If that were the case it could possibly explain a lot of your impressions
Micro-dynamic flicker??? New verbiage to me. Please describe what this means.
I think the engineer who made that speaker have a dustfree house! How you do the cleaning of that thing? Except that the speakers are very cool.
Congrats to John on sneaking into Septembers Stereophile issue (page 34). But why Wombats?
Is that Alex H's Munich report? If so, Alex's tale is a gross mischaracterisation of events.
So these replace the 2+'s? Because there's no way they replace the One.R's
had the same question
How do these compared to the Piegas you had in a few months ago? They are about the same price I think and I’m looking at getting one of these speaker systems.
The Piegas are long gone. Sorry.
Micro dynamic flicker !!! my head hurts, 😂
would love you to test Elac FS 247.4
Hi John! Are you going to test the new Radiant acoustics - Clarity 6.2 from the hands of Peter Lyngdorf?
I wish I had the time!
ensoulment is really great, probably the most anti-trendy album of the year (with the upcoming new album by the cure).
Is it necessary to use the LFE input on these?
LFE is for home theatre, its bypassed for two channel automatically.
@@damienlahozI believe they are summed. No bypass.
Are the passive radiators supposed to face inward, or depending on room, can the speakers be switched around to have them facing outwards? For what it's worth,my Rega RX 5 sound better in my area facing inward as well.
Per the video, there is one on each side of each speaker.
Ah, thanks.
What's that hockey puck thing on the dac m8 ? Thanks
Haven’t you heard? That’s a polariser. It’s job is to align the ionic waves emitted by the DAC and has been shown to massively improve high frequency transients, as well as eliminate the notorious switching problem distortion.
Actually, I believe it’s just a weight he uses to stop the DAC being dragged off the top of the unit by the weight of the cables. I think he mentioned it a couple of years ago.
Thanks for having introduced me to The The in a previous video when you featured the Mind Bomb album. I recently found Infected on vinyl which is hard to find at my local record shops, and I’m looking forward to seeing them live in Seattle in November.
LOVE ME SOME MATT JOHNSON! I’m going to see The The in Detroit next month. Soul Mining came out during my college years. Been a fan ever since. Interesting speakers….Thank you John!
Off Topic - any plans to review the new Schiit Audio Saga 2 anytime soon? Thanks
"Reared on a diet....."
Rared on a diet
* reared
So this replaces the One.R and Two +? Spec wise this looks like a downgrade from the One’s
buying a tower speaker with any sort of plate amp or power unit is asking for trouble. Just ask the people that have been buying the cheap crap from China that Klipsch is now putting out. It's one more thing to go wrong and if people are gonna spend this kind of money, they probably have a very powerful amplification system anyway.
I know the CD player is a Project but it reminds me of 47 Labs industrial design. Beautiful.
I really like the 47 Labs gear. Is it still being made?
@@DarkoAudio I haven’t seen them for years. I absolutely loved their designs. They’re up there with Braun for me.
No wife in this world would accept these in the living room 😂
I might have to make it a House of Love morning.
Why not just make the whole speaker active I don't get making only half the unit powered but fair play I guess there are a few reasons why . Would they would get better sound alchemy if they had all the same amps used ,maybe I dunno?
think Sandy was a fan of low watt tube amps, with this set up the sub bass is covered and you can run the rest of the speaker with almost any amp at any wattage. even a decware will run tritons without issue, probably these ones too
Umm - several k€-speaker but no y-lugs for a low-impedance connection between speakers & cables, free of a solid oxidation layer?
Don’t be that guy…
too much going on.
less is more.
the grill really disrupts the aesthetics
In my opinion, cold and ugly speakers!
Certainly ugly. It's a shame that grille is not removable as it's a horrible shape.
¿
Tower of money 🤑💰
1:39 what cd transport/player is that?!
Tipper is a hell of a ride, huh? 🫡🍄
Definitely!
@DarkoAudio You may also enjoy Shwamp, The Flying Mars, and Symbolico. All beautifully mastered traveling tunes 🤌