With a design team based in Canada that included Martyn Miller, who is still GoldenEar's senior acoustic engineer, GoldenEar produced a series of relatively affordable speakers that garnered favorable reviews in Stereophile. The most recent of these was the BRX (Bookshelf Reference X) standmount, which I reviewed in September 2020² and have been using as one of my reference loudspeakers since.
The BRX was the last GoldenEar speaker to be produced under Sandy Gross's aegis; in January 2020, the company was acquired by The Quest Group, the parent company of cable company AudioQuest. At the 2023 High End Munich show, Quest announced a new GoldenEar speaker, the floorstanding T66, said to be the first model in a new series.
Enter the T66
The GoldenEar T66's form factor and upperfrequency drive unit array resemble those of the Triton One.R Kalman Rubinson reviewed in December 2019.3 Like the One.R, the T66 is a slimline, three-way tower with a powered subwoofer section. While the veneered enclosure is available in high-gloss black, priced at $6900/ pair, there is also an elegant-looking dark red finish, which GoldenEar calls Santa Barbara Red; the red finish increases the price to $7200/pair.
The drive units are mounted vertically inline on the front baffle behind the curved black mesh grille. The High-Velocity Folded Ribbon (HVFR) AMT tweeter is positioned between two 4.5" midrange/bass drivers with Multi-Vaned Phase Plugs and diecast baskets. One of two 5" × 9" "Quadratic" subwoofer drivers sits below the lower mid/bass unit; the other is placed at the base of the baffle. On each side of the enclosure is an 8" x 12" passive radiator, covered by a metal grille. The subwoofers are powered by a 500W power amplifier. The crossover from the upperfrequency drivers is implemented with DSP.
This story is from the August 2024 edition of Stereophile.
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This story is from the August 2024 edition of Stereophile.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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