GOLDENEAR’S NEW T66 tower speaker offers audiophiles and home theater enthusiasts high performance in a slender and stylish design. It is a speaker that takes what is already great about the brand and elevates it to a higher level of fit and finish.
The curious thing about these towers is that I feel like I’ve come full circle in an audiophile journey. It was 34 years ago that I put together my first high-end audio system. My speakers then were a pair of Image Concept 200s from API (Audio Products International), a now-defunct group from Canada that also included the Mirage and Energy brands.
My personal proclivities drew me to the Concept 200s because it was a D’Appolito array focused on a high-performance tweeter that was situated in a large, low-tuned ported enclosure. But I wanted even more than what they offered, so I placed each speaker on top of a Bowers & Wilkins AcoustiTune passive subwoofer. I then connected each “stack” to its own Sony TA-N77ES amplifier operating in monoblock mode. The result? 500 Wpc, extension into the 20 Hz range, and exceptional imaging. It’s a combination I have sought in my speakers ever since.
Interestingly, 1990 is the same year that Definitive Technology was founded, and Definitive Technology is well known for putting active subs in tower speakers. It is hardly a coincidence that Definitive Technology was co-founded by Sandy Gross, who previously co-founded Polk. He also founded GoldenEar, where, since its inception, the focus has been on speakers that leverage a D’Appolito MTM (midrange, tweeter, midrange) array featuring an AMT (air motion transformer) tweeter. It’s a combination that offers highly detailed, cohesive sound. The T66 speaker renders exquisite levels of detail in the mids and highs but also plays clean, deep, tangible bass into the 20 Hz range.
So here I am, with the latest evolution of this concept, of a D’Appolito MTM driver array perched atop a subwoofer and wrapped up in a slender
