GoldenEar T44 Hybrid Tower Speaker Overview

The new GoldenEar T44 ($4,900–$5,300/pair, depending on finish) is the first new speaker to emerge from GoldenEar since the company was acquired by PML Sound International, the parent company of Paradigm, Anthem, and MartinLogan. But this smaller sibling to the existing T66 tower speaker was largely developed under the auspices of The Quest Group, before the sale took place. (See our article Parent Company PML of Paradigm, MartinLogan Buys GoldenEar From Audioquest.) First teased at last year’s CEDIA Expo, and then formally unveiled at AXPONA 2025, the T44 is a compact tower carrying on GoldenEar’s established formula for hybrid passive/powered towers. It combines an AMT tweeter and 4.5-inch midrange driver with an integrated powered bass section, making for a sleek and slim tower with an unexpected amount of punch. It was officially launched into the market at the Audio Advice Live 2025 show in Raleigh and is currently shipping. Gene and crew got to experience first listen to the T44s and walked away impressed enough to line up a review with James Larson in the coming months so stay tuned for that!

Since the company’s founding by industry veteran Sandy Gross in 2010, GoldenEar’s hybrid towers have promised full-range performance with a minimal footprint — no separate subwoofers required. As the smallest speaker of its type in GoldenEar’s lineup, the T44 is aimed at audiophiles who live in apartments, condos, and other smaller spaces where rooms are tight and practicality is paramount. Despite their small size (the T44 is just over 40 inches tall, and only 7 ½ inches wide), these speakers promise to deliver the same wide-open soundstage, holographic imaging, and effortless dynamics that have become hallmarks of the brand. Compared to the Triton towers of yesteryear, the T44 and T66 speakers offer improved aesthetics and overall build quality — albeit at somewhat higher prices — with the same in-house engineering and proprietary driver technology.

With the T44, we set out to reimagine what’s possible in a smaller form factor. Don’t let its size fool you — the T44 is a powerhouse in disguise. From richly textured detail to bold, room-filling dynamics, it delivers the kind of sonic performance you’d expect from speakers twice its size and price. Tailored to blend beautifully into any space, the T44 ensures the only thing that stands out is the sound.

— Zoltan Balla, VP of Marketing at PML Sound International

Nearly all of GoldenEar’s speakers are built around a custom High-Velocity Folded Ribbon (HVFR) tweeter, the company’s take on the classic Air Motion Transformer (AMT) design. (It’s no coincidence that companies like GoldenEar, MartinLogan, and Monitor Audio jumped at the chance to incorporate AMTs when they did; the patents surrounding Oskar Heil’s original AMT design expired in the mid-2000s.) Unlike a dome tweeter, AMT tweeters use a folded diaphragm that moves air by squeezing it, rather than pushing it forward. GoldenEar says that its High-Gauss HVFR tweeter produces silky-smooth highs with ultra-fast transient response for a smoother, yet more extended top end with loads of detail without fatigue-inducing harshness. Speaking from personal experience, it’s one of the best tweeters out there. The midrange frequencies are handled by a single 4 ½-inch driver with a cast basket, an improved yoke assembly to minimize distortion, and GoldenEar’s Multi-Vaned Phase Plug for excellent off-axis response. While the AMT tweeter gets most of the attention, this midrange driver is at the heart of GoldenEar’s signature sound, according to the company. It reportedly delivers the nuances of music and dialogue with realism, clarity, and natural tonality.

The midrange and tweeter drivers described above are both passive, taking the signal provided by your power amplifier and splitting it up in the typical fashion with a passive crossover circuit. But the bass frequencies are passed on to the T44’s internal 56-bit, DSP-controlled amplifier, which drives a single 5x9-inch Long-Throw Quadratic Bass Driver. This racetrack-shaped woofer is treated to 250 watts RMS (500 watts peak) of power, and is supported by a pair of passive radiators acoustically coupled to the woofer to extend low-frequency response and improve low-frequency impact with minimal distortion. This arrangement promises tighter, more controlled bass that extends deeper than you’d expect from a compact floorstander — theoretically eliminating the need for an external subwoofer. Of course, even when paired with very bass-capable speakers, external subs can have benefits because the user can place them for optimal response within the room. Nevertheless, GoldenEar’s hybrid towers do deliver on their promises when it comes to bass performance, in my experience anyway. As the smallest of GoldenEar’s current lineup of hybrid tower speakers, the T44 isn’t going to deliver bass to truly subterranean depths. (The much larger Triton Reference speaker, launched back in 2017, definitely does deliver truly full-range performance, and I would imagine that it’s only a matter of time before we see larger models coming from GoldenEar under PML Sound ownership.) But I would expect tight, musical bass with very respectable extension for such a small speaker. The specs indicate in-room bass down to about 32 Hz, with the speaker down 6 dB at 29 Hz (anechoic).

This hybrid approach isn’t unique to GoldenEar — brands like Definitive Technology, Paradigm, Vandersteen, and YG all have current products that incorporate powered woofers — but there are several reasons why GoldenEar has embraced this kind of design. Apart from bass performance, another benefit of incorporating a powered woofer is that such a design relieves your own amps from the burden of moving the woofer. This increases the speaker’s overall sensitivity and allows for the use of a wider range of amplifiers. The T44’s spec sheet indicates a sensitivity of 89 dB anechoic, and 92 dB in-room. At CES 2011, when I first heard the original GoldenEar Technology Triton 2, Sandy Gross said that he powered the Tritons at home with a low-powered tube amp, with great results. For those in the home theater crowd, this reasonably high sensitivity means that the T44 speakers should perform pretty well with any good mid-level AVR. Though I’d definitely recommend something rated to drive 4Ω loads, the T44 should not require a huge amount of power to come to life.

By integrating a powered bass section, the T44 eases the workload on your amplifier, which means greater clarity, control, and headroom for the midrange and highs. It’s an incredibly efficient design that pairs exceptionally well even with lower-powered components like tube amps or compact integrated systems, without sacrificing any of the full-range performance GoldenEar is known for.

— Chris Volk, GoldenEar’s Regional Sales Manager

Like the taller T66, the T44 features a slim, curved cabinet design that reportedly reduces unwanted coloration while minimizing the speaker’s visual impact on the room. Also like the T66, the T44 is offered in high-gloss Piano Black ($4,900/pair) and Santa Barbara Red ($5,300/pair) finishes, delivering a level of aesthetic appeal that is a definite step up from the Triton towers from GoldenEar’s first generation of products. Another improvement over these predecessors, from both a visual and mechanical perspective, is the T44’s full-footprint cast aluminum base, which provides stability and durability. Supplied with adjustable outrigger spikes for carpet and pads for hard floors, the aluminum base can be adjusted without lifting the speaker, and in my opinion looks an awful lot better than the rounded MDF bases found on older GoldenEar speakers.

How Does the T44 Compare to the T66?

The T44 and the T66 share a great deal of engineering and design, with the main differences being their size and overall output capability. For those who have been GoldenEar fans from the beginning, the T66 is about the same size as the original Triton 2, and the T44 is comparable to the smaller Triton 3. Both the T66 and T44 have the same footprint, but the T44 is about 8 inches shorter, and so it has a smaller cabinet volume. The drivers are the same, but the T44 just has fewer of them. In the T66, the passive portion of the speaker uses a pair of the midrange drivers in an MTM configuration; the T44 uses just one midrange driver. The T66 uses a pair of the 5x9-inch Long-Throw Quadratic Bass Drivers, while the T44 uses just one. Those dual woofers require more juice from the T66’s built-in amp, which delivers 500 watts, 1000 watts peak — double what the T44’s amp provides. The T44’s passive radiators are smaller than those on the T66, which makes sense because the T44 only has one powered woofer. Finally, there’s the difference in price. The T44 costs $4,900 or $5,300 per pair, depending on finish. The T66 retails for $6,900 per pair in black, and $7,200 per pair in red. As of the time of writing, however, the T66 is on sale for $5,800 per pair in black, and $6,000 per pair in red, narrowing the distance between the two models to well under a thousand bucks. I would expect that those considering both models will be swayed more by room size and aesthetic preferences than by budgetary concerns. Definitely catch our Youtube Short for Gene's quick listening impressions of the T44 and stay tuned for our formal review with measurements from James Larson in the coming months.

More information: GoldenEar T44

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