I just got back from on minutes of Gold vs Silver auditioning. I started with the Gold 200 vs. Silver 500. Started with wanting to focus on the tweeter and mids so used Nils Lofgren Keith Don’t Go as it is an amazing acoustic recording. I played it several times on each speaker. With this track the guitar stings on the Gold 200 we’re just a bit smoother and life like. The Silver was a tad harsher/bright. If you were not A/B ing them you would never notice. The mids were great and other than the slighter harsher nights the Silvers held their own once you moved down range from the strings. Tried a little Blue Man Group How To Be A Meagstar and this is where the 200 felt a little flat. After a while I then moved on to Hans Zimmer (a FLAC rip of the Live in Prague) BD. I focus on the Interstellar and Inception tracks. Since these tracks have a good mix of instrument and rang this is where the Silvers actually took a bit of a lead. The Gold 200 was less robust in the lows, clearly driver size matters, even if in theory the Gold woofer is a better quality driver. The 200 had lows, just seems the entire low to mod end felt a little flat which dragged the overall sound (to me) come across a little laid back. That comparison drove me to bring the Gold 300 into the mix since the Silver and Gold have equal size drivers.
Same tracks and as expected on the Nils Lofgren tracks no different than the Gold 200 since it is not low range tracks. But when I moved back to Hans Zimmer the Gold 300 lows were really good, full bodied and dug deep. Clearly the extra 20+ pounds in the cabinet build and better woofer starred to pay off. The Silver was no slouch, but the Gold just seems to dig deeper and full. The Silver actually seems a tad cleaner, but I assume that was because it was not digging as deep. Don’t get me wrong the Silver when room loaded and with a sub there would likely be no difference. The Silvers overall came across a bit more dynamic and lively with the Gold 300 being a tad laid back and neutral compared to the Silvers. When you look at the fact that the Gold 300 is about 3X the Silver 500 it is the prime example of the point of diminishing returns where 3X price increase to me maybe gets you 20-30% improvement.
This dealer clearly knows how to try and land a sale, as we were getting speakers set up he took me over to show me a pair of “demo” Gold 300 they have the the boxes with for $5500 for the pair vs. normal $9500. It was tempting but, I am still not sure.