Golden Ear - Triton (closer to the) Reference

[higher sound]

Those are thick cables, and they will be much more difficult to manage inside the cabinets, but I guess you can make it work. Obviously I have not tried working with these inside the T Ref’s so hard for me to comment specifically.

For instance, you should pay attention to the location of the holes you drill between the subwoofer box and Mid-woofer boxes. If you don’t get those fat cables all the way into the side/corner, you might end up with a conflict between cables and mid-woofer magnets.

EDIT: Just been in contact with Tony, who says the S-25 is thick, stiff and not easy to work with. He suggest using S-14 for the MTM section, and then maybe S-25 for the woofers. I agree with this.

Thanks so much Morten for the update
I just sent Tony the thumbs up as he said he would discuss this with you
Thanks again for taking the time
PS: I am now ready to drill the holes for the cables but just might wait
Until I see what I am dealing with
My very Best to you both!

 

[Sc00ter]

Thanks so much Morten for the update
I just sent Tony the thumbs up as he said he would discuss this with you
Thanks again for taking the time
PS: I am now ready to drill the holes for the cables but just might wait
Until I see what I am dealing with
My very Best to you both!

Good luck with the remainder of the upgrade/install! I currently have Triton Ones and am contemplating moving up to the References, so am following your saga with much interest. If any of you out there who’ve done the upgrade are able to give me an idea of what the total cost of the upgrade was, it’d be greatly appreciated. I’d have to hire someone in the Allentown/Philadelphia PA USA area to do the work: I’m not sure who’s in the area that’d be capable of doing it for me.

 

[higher sound]

Scooter
as you may know already but the Ref's are now discontinued and are or have been for some time being sold for 1/2
price
there are deals to be had so go out and get some! (better than buying used)

 

[MortenB]

Just to touch a bit on the price to performance again: As mentioned in the beginning of the thread: To me, this is the highest quality/price parts, that makes sense in these speakers. These are parts you will only in very expensive commercial speakers, but I could have choosen MUCH more expensive parts. The parts are not cheap at all, but worth it too me. If you find this is too much money, there are also cheaper options, that will still be a lot better, than the original parts. I’m sure Tony can help…

Even if this is quite a simple (and well designed) cross over with relatively few parts, there are parts driving the cost up by quite a bit, and I have tried to illustrate two examples on this picture.

There is a large 460uF cap in series with the mid-woofers. On the original cross over this cap is made by two large electrolytic caps and a 10uF polypropylene cap in parallel. See parts with red ‘’X’’ on the original board. On my cross over it takes all the caps marked with green ‘’X’’ to create the 460uF cap with high quality polypropylene caps, there is even a very high quality copper foil bypass on there. All those caps cost serious money, and take up quite a lot of space.

Another example is the woofer coil, again on the cross over for the midwoofers. On the original board, it’s the one I have circled in red in the center of the board. It’s a nasty iron core coil… On my cross over that is replaced by the big foil coil circled in green. Again, such a nice big foil coil cost real money…

And the list goes on…

Again: The T Ref’s are very, very well engineered speakers, but build to a low price point by high end audio standards, so compromises must be made to keep cost low.

 

[Raesco]

Hello, Morten,
I have ordered the upgraded crossovers from Tony G. just want to confirm if you upgraded the wiring to the 3 subwooferdrivers on each speaker also or just the wiring for the upgraded passive crossovers? Tony referred me to you for this information to be 100% sure. Thank you. Rafael

 

[MortenB]

Hello Rafael,

I have upgraded both the wiring to the 3 subwoofer drivers, and the wiring for the passive cross over. See my post #27 above, where I describe the upgrade of the wiring to the 3 woofers.

Tony and I had a talk about this, and he now has the specific lengths for all wires, so he can prepare exactly what you need

 

[higher sound]

Hello Morten
I had asked Tony if the wires to the binding posts from the sub amp were also replaced
He did not believe you had done that
If not why?
Also it’s great news about splitting the crossover to 2 parts instead of the one large one!
Thanks Best

 

[MortenB]

I have a dialogue with Tony about how to best make these cross overs, and he build his cross overs in a slightly different way, compared to what I did. He use different boards, as you can see on his website. We agreed, that it would be an easier installation to split the parts on two boards. The function and the sound will of course be the same, just the mechanical installtion will be a bit easier.

Tony mentioned to me, that he is happy to deliver these cross overs, but also, that he is getting a lot more questions, than usually, so he is spending quite a bit of time compared to what he normally does. I feel a bit guilty for this taking more of his time than he exected, so I suggest I answer questions here in the thread on everything related to the T Ref, the upgrade, why this?, why not that? etc etc, and he just delivers the cross overs. For instance Tony has no idea, if I replaced the wires from the binding posts to the DSP board, but I know that I did not so better ask me.

BTW, the wires does not go to the amp, but to the DSP board located just next to the binding posts, it’s the small red and black wires glued onto the PCB in this picture.

Why not? The wires are soldered into tiny holes on tiny PCB traces on the DSP board, no way to get fat speaker wires soldered on there, and if one attempted to do that, the heat from trying to solder fat cables on tiny little traces on a circuit board would ruin the board. That would be stupid. Also I bet that noone would be able to hear any difference what so ever on a few centimeters of wire going to a DSP board on a subwoofer section. I cut of the connectors on the small black and red wires, and soldered these wires + the Furutech wires into the new binding posts.

No, I did not change the wires from the DSP board to the amp either. You can do that of course, but you need to source the proper connectors, crimping tools etc, and you will not hear any difference. Basically I left the subwoofer section as is, exept for replacing the wires from the amp to the woofers with the Furutech.

 

[higher sound]

Hi Morten
Sorry misspoke on the wires from binding posts thanks for
The correction
Just worried about not having everything I will need once I
Start the assembly
You have have been a wealth of information (and I am sure I
Speak for everyone following this thread)
A Patiently Thorough one as well! (this can be said about Tony
As also)
Thanks for your response and most of all for bringing this
Great project and Tony to our attention
Best Martin

 

[MortenB]

All good, I made this thread to help others who would like to upgrade your T Ref’s. As I have promised I will help you all I can, and I will answer all your questions, concerns, worries etc etc… That’s what this thread is about, and when questions are asked here in the thread, all see the question, and we all learn from the answers. When you get to do the upgrade, you will also be able to share experiences and learnings from the process here in the thread.

Tony is running a business, and he is not charging any time for consultancy when selling cross overs, cables and parts. Now he is getting quite a few detailed questions on this speaker upgrade, also from people not already in this thread. When we all ask him individually by mail, it’s more time consuming for him, and we don’t have the shared learnings here in the threads. And basically: He does not know the answers, as he has not upgraded a pair of T Ref’s himself.

If you read through my posts I think I have explained it all in as much detail as I can. If there are still questions and worries, then ask away

 

[Raesco]

Hello, Morten,

what is your recommendation for burn in of the new crossovers?

Thanks.

Rafael

 

[MortenB]

Play music you like listening to

 

[Markuzz]

Good morning @MortenB,

Just a quick heads up that I got word from Tony that he will be assembling the filters in the coming days. He mentioned the split of the boards, which sound logical to me.

Would you happen to know if the back plate (where the connections are on) is glued to the cabinet?

Cheers, Mark.

 

[MortenB]

Excellent news, and I looking forward to your impression on the sound, after you do the upgrade

Getting the filters into the cabinet will be slightly easier with two boards, than one. On the other hand, you will of course need to drill more holes for threaded inserts with two boards. So ‘’same but different’’. And again: No change in function, sound etc etc.

No idea if the back plate is glued or not, as I had no need to remove it. I found that working through the holes for the passive radiators was fine.

 

[Markuzz]

Yes, probably with the ETI binding posts it is handy as they allow for screw-on connecting the speaker cables. Or did you solder the cables on the binding posts for the passive part?

I am really looking forward to the new filters. The sound quality of the Triton Reference's has come a long way since new, but it is nowhere close to my previous DIY horn loaded system when it comes to openness and/or high frequency extension.

 

[MortenB]

Soldered, as I could not get to the screws, due to the thickness of the cabinet.

The cross overs will for sure help with a much more natural and transparent sound, but not much out there can compete with a top quality horn loaded system. I feel the treble is much more listenable with the new cross overs, but it’s still not quite as natural as what I had before (18 Sound compression drivers, and the yellowish JMLC400 horns Tony use now). But this also has something to do with our individual perception of sound. Some find ribbon tweaters and AMT’s the most natual sounding of all tweaters, but for me they tend to be a tiny bit artificial somehow… But again, personal perception and preference…

 

[higher sound]

Hello everyone
Just wanted to know if anyone heard from Tony about delivery dates ( this should only pertain to us in the US)
It would be great to hear if someone is doing the install yet?
I have my speakers torn apart and waiting with anticipation of beautiful music to come!

Best
Higher Sound

 

[MortenB]

I can give you a small update

Tony now has the parts, at least for one cross over. We are now working on how best to locate the parts on the two - board design. The challenge with these speakers is, that there is so little space inside, and the metal baskets for the passive radiators also take up some space in the area for the new cross over. We have a solution now, that should work.

Unforturnately these parts sometime take forever and a day, especially the coils as they are non standard values made to order. I was also waiting for months for the coils…

Since we are discussing back and forth on the layout, I’ll ask Tony, if he has parts now for all the cross overs. Will post reply here asap.

 

[MortenB]

One more update, and I think you will like this one

Tony now has parts for all the cross overs you guys has ordered. Also, he bought parts for one more set of cross overs, so if someone else want to do the upgrade, parts are avaliable for a shorter delivery time.

All cross overs should be shipped out next week, so get ready for your upgrades

 

[Mikko Mattila]

This is my first posting on WBF. Glad to join finally after years lurking here around.
GE TRef upgrade has been very interesting topic. I love this speaker, it sounds fantastic as-is after burn in. I love also this version of the AMT and dislike any kinds of horns, except Acapella's plasma tweeters which have other issues. Also it's industrial design is adorable. I listen almost entirely classical and jazz with very narrow interest on popular. So, i consider these my end game speakers next best to live concerts.

So, I contacted Tony in Holland early on after Morten's first post and got necessary details how to move on. Unfortunately i'm not myself skilled for soldering and have not found anyone in my network who could do the modification work for me with proven experience and references of high level quality work. Still seeking on.

I have some questions:
- Could someone elaborate about "splitted crossover" as mentioned above? How is it splitted and why that might be feasible.
- If the small bracing marked on yellow on Morten's post #27 will be removed, can we expect some structural weakening of the cabinet resulting additional unwanted resonances.
- Have anyone considered placing the crossover outside of the cabinet?

Would be very much excited to hear also how others are progressing now and how are they perceiving the sound when ready.