Pbgalvin wrote: An audiophile friend (Mike) has a friend (Gary) who was interested in upgrading his Ohms, and was interested in GeT, so Mike put Gary in touch with me. One other option he was considering was the Tektons.
What scared him off was, the only way to try them was an order with a return policy, but return shipping was $500. So he gave up on testing them. He couldn't easily try the GeTs at home either so he ended up with Polks. I wished him good sound but worry about what's he's missing by not going with GeTs!

It is shocking that the whole "I have to hear it in my room" thing continues .... this unfounded belief leads to unfortunate decisions like this one ...

Moderator wrote:

Pbgalvin wrote: An audiophile friend (Mike) has a friend (Gary) who was interested in upgrading his Ohms, and was interested in GeT, so Mike put Gary in touch with me. One other option he was considering was the Tektons.
What scared him off was, the only way to try them was an order with a return policy, but return shipping was $500. So he gave up on testing them. He couldn't easily try the GeTs at home either so he ended up with Polks. I wished him good sound but worry about what's he's missing by not going with GeTs!

It is shocking that the whole "I have to hear it in my room" thing continues .... this unfounded belief leads to unfortunate decisions like this one ...

Amen...well said Mr Moderator.
Del

Hello GE fans and or possible fan/owners.

I've posted on here a few times my recent experiences with the T-Refs. I won't go into detail but if you'd like to look at my past posts go for it. So I'm now a full two weeks into my T-Refs and I'd like to give a few impressions. A little background. I'm coming from T-ones, to Tekton Double impacts and finally to T-Refs. Let me start by saying that the Refs are all that the reviews are saying and maybe more. I was very skeptical, the Ones truly wowed me, and if you read a few of my past posts, I had some bad experiences with a couple planned listening sessions at my local dealer, that's why I didn't jump right to the Refs after selling my Ones.

After a final demo with different equipment and on a different wall at my dealer I decided to pony up and order a pair of References. Straight out of the box everything I had remembered loving about the Ones were there, open, deep soundstage, tons of air, deep powerful bass..but...all those things were amplified and taken up, not just on notch...I'd say quite a few notches. I was truly blown away.

Fast forward to this past weekend. My good friend flew up from Atlanta (he bought and owns my T-ones) and we drove to Axpona in Chicago. We walked our asses off and were able to get to listen to just about every room (at least the ones that were high on our list). I even met Sandy at the GE room. So what did I take from hearing $100,000 of gear.

No I'm not gong to sit here and say the T-Refs were the "best of the show". As well as the GE room, the Refs were set up in the PSAudio room (much better room then Sandy had). I had my favorites, the Sonus Faber room was amazing....$120,000 speaker, all DCS digital front end, huge Audio Research mono blocks...my best in show...but after a couple hundred different rooms...the T-Refs were in my top five, and my friends as well, sure the Wilson room was pretty amazing...but for the $ there was nothing even close, most rooms had more money in their speaker cables and interconnects then what the Refs cost.

If you're thinking of upgrading, having a hard time with the price difference...all I can say is...DO IT...DO IT and never look back...

Just my .02

Hi Deviate2112 - thanks for the interesting show report.
Never been to a big audio show so interesting to hear your views. Glad GoldenEar acquitted itself so well!
Would love to hear one of those mega-$ rigs sometime .

Moderator - sorry but I disagree with you. After reading reviews etc my first experience with GeT Ones was at a dealer and I wasn't impressed. I think they had an underpowered integrated driving them and they seemed rather dull and lifeless. I wouldn't have bought based on that. But the dealer let me borrow them and in my place they lit it up and the rest is history.

I almost never buy anything audio unless I can try it in my house with a return possible. Sometimes I do by used though figuring if I get a good deal and the component isn't an improvement I can sell it again at about the same price.

So, maybe the home trial thing is overblown but in my experience it's important.

Thanks Deviate for the great show report!!!!
And for your good comments Peter!!!!
Moderator Dude, although I agree with you in principle, IF you and Sandy visited the stores in Mumbai, India in K.L. Malaysia, in Singapore and heard them demo your speakers you would either yank them out of their stores, or at least TRY to teach them a thing or 3 about setup and demonstrations.
I cannot even guess the sales GEt has missed because of these HORRIBLE demos.
I bought my speakers in spite of their demos, more because of the great reviews/write-ups, etc. And then of course, in my own home theater auditions.
I would not have bought the TOnes without hearing them in my own home theater.
I can count the number of good Hi Fi equipment auditions I have enjoyed in my life, done in a professional way where one could really hear what was going on, (and two of these were in the home studios of the sellers) on one hand and still have a finger or two left.
Part of the problem, most of us know, is that the price of our speakers is so reasonable that many in the brick and mortar stores are uninformed and saddle our Triton Towers with crappy low level receivers for their demos. Shame, shame.
This is not always the case, though; I once heard them demoed with cables and every piece of equipment that cost more than the towers, in a cramped little room placed in corners, pointing straight ahead, no toe in--just not set up properly.
I will hush, this is an old story, nothing is gonna change.
God Bless,
Wayne

deviate2112 wrote: We walked our asses off and were able to get to listen to just about every room (at least the ones that were high on our list). I even met Sandy at the GE room. So what did I take from hearing $100,000 of gear.

No I'm not gong to sit here and say the T-Refs were the "best of the show". As well as the GE room, the Refs were set up in the PSAudio room (much better room then Sandy had).

Just for clarity....

1) The complete GoldenEar system, cables and all, was about $25,000 (Speakers and electronics totalled around $16,000)
2) The GoldenEar room was large, which is what they wanted, as they had seating for 20 people at a time.
3) The PSAudio room was very small and they had a very intimate setup with 9 seats. I would guess the equipment costs were easily double GoldenEar's system.

I heard Sandy's setup too, I thought it was much more impressive in the scale of the sonic presentation than the PSAudio setup, but both rooms sounded fantastic.