A bona fide high-end home theater speaker system that won't break the bank

The complete GoldenEar Technology TritonCinema Two multichannel home theater system

(Credit: GoldenEar Technology)

A few months ago I had the pleasure of reviewing GoldenEar Technology's least expensive home theater system. The SuperCinema 3 ($1,750) comes with five small satellite speakers and a smallish subwoofer, but the sound was big and beautiful. More than that, the sound was distinctly high-end in its flavor. It was easy to tell it was designed primarily for home theater, but for those buyers who also have a hankering for audiophile-quality sound.

Home Theater magazine's Darryl Wilkinson recently reviewed a large GoldenEar system, the TritonCinema Two, which retails for $3,495. The five-piece system consists of a pair of Triton Two tower speakers, a SuperSat 50C center, and a pair of SuperSat 3 satellite speakers to handle surround duties. What, no subwoofer? No, the TritonCinema Two system doesn't need one; each tower speaker houses a pair of 5x9-inch front-mounted quadratic subwoofer bass drivers coupled with dual side-mounted 7x10-inch planar bass radiators, and a 1,200-watt switching amplifier. That's great, and you don't have to find a spot in your room for a humongous subwoofer.

Looking over the review it definitely sounds like Wilkinson was as impressed by the big GoldenEar system as I was by the little SuperCinema 3, saying, "The TritonCinema Two system is spectacularly spectacular." He thought the sound was comparable to large electrostatic speakers, and that's high praise indeed for a home theater system. Wilkinson awarded the TritonCinema Two five-star ratings (the maximum) for Performance, Value, and Build Quality.

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Steve Guttenberg writes for a number of magazines and Web sites, including Home Entertainment, Tone Audio, and Stereophile. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.

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