Hey Bob...I think I may have found the solution to your dilemma. When you retire for the evening, say these 3 words over and over and over again, "GOLDENEAR TRITON 2'S". Tomorrow, report back on which speakers you've chosen. Best of luck...

Bro Anthem, I never saw that South African review of our beloved Triton 2s. For a Kansas boy, you do get around!!!! Good one!!!!
Bobt, $3000 is a lot of money to buy speakers sight un-heard. I would find my nearest GEt dealer and drive there to hear them. I have no doubt that you would be convinced. I had to audition them on business trips to India, S'pore and Malaysia. The worst thing I found is that most of those stores did not know how to demo them properly and used associated equipment that was not nearly good enough (they thought $3000 speakers were low to mid line and should be paired with cheap receivers).
One shop would NOT toe them in, they were convinced they should not be, ha ha. But even then, when I finally got them to play the Triton 2s with a good amp and front end CD player (the cables they were using cost more than the T 2s, ha ha) even without being toed in properly and about 6 ft apart, I got a good whiff of how awesome these speakers could sound!!!! They sound better than that in my room and a hundred times better than they did at the India/Singapore dealer's showroom!!!!
God Bless,
Wayne

Hey guys,

I wanted to weigh in on this topic as I have actually recently heard both of these speakers and can talk a little bit about why I chose the GE Triton 2s over the MYTHOs and 8K series powered towers.

1. The tritons sounded tighter and more accurate to me especially in base ranges and very high Hz. I would assume this has mainly to do with their tweeters which DT favors the dome style GE favors the HVRT. Dome tweeters do not sound good to my ears as they are either percing or muddy (at least when they were demonstrated to me. Nautilus tweeters sound great to me but are very fatiguing and painful at higher volumes.

Though DT have similar sound stages at some good price points, in some regards they sacrifice for this by having less clarity. I love how the GE have great sound stages but don't sacrifice the clarity, and they are not fatiguing to my ears. I'm a young man and my job tests my hearing regularly to ensure that I am using my hearing protection on the job... I have near perfect hearing for my age and I think this is partly why I am so sensitive to "bright" sounding highs or boomy base.

2. I love movies with big powerful scores. I played Desolation of Smaug as my test material and was blown away at how effortlessly they can handle such deep resounding base lines without becoming distorted during heavy base scenes. The MYTHOS 2.5k a piece towers came close, but the certain scenes in that movie "Smaug talking or gandalf battling against darkness" shook those towers so hard that it became slightly distorted. They had a Pioneer Elite 9.2 channel driving those things and we didn't have it turned up that loud.

3. I never got to test the GEs in my own home, and currently they are set up about six feet apart catty corner in a room full of tile and windows. They are stuck in a corner on one side and in an epic base trap on the other... I can't think of a worse room to put them in as I sit about five feet from them... But you know what? They sound beautiful there, I have them toed in and I am driving them with an Onkyo 838. Not even a recommended model by my fellow enthusiasts... But it's the best sound anyone in my family has ever heard, and I have Polk lovers tearing up over music and scenes they've never seen before.

4. I am definitely biased now because I own a 5.1 system, and this is the only system other than a BOSE that I have ever owned. I could just be hearing a placebo affect... But I doubt it, because these are things other people have heard and agree with me on. The system has a large sound stage but some how managed to remain tight enough to be flexible in its placement. If I had to just buy one of these systems I wouldn't hesitate to choose the Tritons again for anyone simple because I have heard them in three different locations and each of them sounded excellent.

Great review comments Tetrall, Agreed, Agreed, Agreed!!!!
I have a friend with an audio store over here that sells DT and I was all set to audition the Mythos when she got them back in stock. Those were the speakers I was really looking for when I heard about, and then got to audition the GoldenEars. Shoot, I liked the Aons more than all the other speakers I got to audition, but the Triton towers were just what I was looking for.
Well said, I like what you wrote Tetrall,
thanks, God Bless,
Wayne

Thanks for all the information guys. I did talk to the "tech" people at Polk, such as it is now. I told them the drivers I got 2+ years ago were junk, would pop if pushed much at all, and if this was fixed...LOL Now of course there stock answer was yes, they should work fine now. But surprising, the first answer out of there mouth was, if your looking for the "SDA" sound, the only thing that may come close is the Bi-polar DT speakers. I wasted the money and they are sending me an SDA replacement driver. These drivers are of course made in China, they didn't get them close to right 2+ years ago (could be 3), so I doubt they bothered to fix it. But I will wait the few days, then see.

The Strange part, is they went right to the DT Bi-polar stuff, which for me would end up to be the DF BP-8080, from Polk people..that sounds strange, or they know, to come close to SDA sound, this is were you go.

The old Polk SDA 1C speakers I have, I would say there a warm speaker compared to tower stuff. The DT Bi-polar stuff... don't know.
I would guess the GE tweeter is warmer and better. The fact that the Polk techs, brought this up..I did not. It was kind of like, well if the driver does NOT work... you need to go to the DT stuff, to get close to the old Polk SDA.... makes me think, I was not to far off.
This is not end all be all stuff here.. just strange.
I don't know that the bi-polar stuff from DT can match the old SDA sound at all. It's a complete different way of doing things.
But I will wait the few days see what the driver does.

The Plus with the DT stuff.. again, I can buy these.... have them sent to my house, and I get 30 days to try them out. If I don't like them... they get sent back, and I get my money back. NOT so much on the GE stuff. Just to let you know.

Can totally understand your desire to hear before you buy. Do you happen to have a Best Buy with a Magnolias in it?

The reason I ask is because they carry DT speakers and Martin Logan and B&W. These all have a little something that you can listen with and help you decide. It's not the same as a home demo but I couldn't do one for similar reasons to your own.

Martin Logan speakers have ribbon tweeters in them, you could go and listen to the DTs and see how you like the sound stage and base, then listen to Martin Logan to hear what a ribbon tweeter sounds like... Also, their ribbon tweeter is not quite as sweet and has a smaller sound stage. (On the small tweeter model, not the larger "giant tweeter panel" things they have been putting out.)

If you like to hear the difference, try putting in a movie with a lot of bullets, guns, breaking glass... A car chase scene is great material.

This is part of what I did to figure out if I liked ribbon or dome tweeters, and it helped me decide that I wanted the larger sound stage as well. None of these speakers available can produce the same tightness of base that the GEs produce (IMHO) so I can't help you there but it's a start to be able to decide if you like the ribbon or the dome tweeter better.