Triton Five review follow-up

Following my review of the GoldenEar Technologies Triton Five a subscriber wrote to ask the recommended break-in time. My reply:

They say 200 hours. I put mine on repeat with a disco CD at a loud level for 7 days. After that he bass was strong and tight down to the mid 20Hz region, dropping off below that.

Bass to the mid 20Hz bass response is more than enough for all acoustic music and most electronically generated bass. Exceptions would be deeper pipe organ notes, like the 16Hz sustained organ pedal ;note in ;Also Sprach Zarathustra that the Triton One and Two do so well. Most of what we think of as deep and powerful bass is in the 30Hz to 50Hz range, which the Triton Fives do very well indeed. For strong response the 10Hz to 30Hz region a subwoofer is needed, either built-in or separate.

“But I read that this speaker with a 4″ woofer had great bass!”

It’s true, there are many small speakers that have been praised by reviewers for exceptional sound, including very good bass, and you can believe all they say so long as you understand that they make mental reservations about what can be expected from speakers of their size. Reviewers (and audiophiles) in small rooms listening to acoustic music at reasonable levels have reasonable expectations regarding capability for deep bass and loudness.

The same listeners, however, who have large rooms and like to play loud, or who are building home theater, have much higher expectations of how deep and how loud they want their bass to be. To illustrate thisI have cut and pasted a short exchange between contributor and sandy Gross, founder of GoldenEar Technologies. from the GoldenEar Technologies Anticipation thread on AVS Forum.

So quick question. Let’s say theoretically that I got a pair of Triton 1’s for a dedicated HT. Since they have such great low frequency capability already, would it be just ridiculous to pair them with an external powered sub (or 2), such as a couple of FF5s or HSU VTFs? Would it be too much? Would it sound “off”? No such thing as too much bass capability?

Hi, I always say,” Bass is like horsepower, only you can say how much you want”. The bass from a pair of Triton Ones is exceptional. However, I have one enthusiast who is assembling a system with 3 pairs of Triton Ones (front, sides and rears) and 2 ForceField 5s, with an 8 way split coming out of his LFE out, into all 6 Triton Ones and the ForceFields, basically immersing himself in 8 LFE subwoofers. The key here is that the front Triton Ones are set as large, have the sub level set with 2 channel music, the other Triton Ones are set as large, and the overall LFE level is set to taste. Remember, having all this bass capability doesn’t mean the bass will be too loud: that will be determined by how you set the levels. What it means is the bass will be superbly tight, controlled and effortless.

All the Best, Sandy

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