By GoldenEar Technologies was founded in 2010 by industry legend Sandy Gross, Don Givogue, and Bob Johnson. The company quickly became known for their Triton series of speakers, which integrated powered subwoofers into the main cabinet, a design hallmark of Gross from his days at Definitive Technology, but it was expanded on by the design team at GoldenEar. In recent years, the company has changed hands a couple of times from the original ownership group, first transitioning to The Quest Group (known for AudioQuest cables) in 2020, and then purchased by PML Sound International (Paradigm, MartinLogan, Anthem) in 2025. The brand seems to be thriving now under its new ownership, which has been met with the approval of most audiophiles and AV enthusiasts.
The GoldenEar SuperSub X (buy at Crutchfield), that we are discussing here was first released in 2016 (under the original ownership) and is approximately a 13-inch cube that features four drivers, which the company calls an “inertially-balanced driver array.” How this works is, they have two eight-inch ultra-long-throw active drivers that are horizontally opposed, and a pair of vertically opposed planar “back-wave-driven” radiators. Those are all driven by a 1,400-watt Class-D amplifier. This is a unique subwoofer for those reasons. as we often see either a single woofer or occasionally a pair of woofers that are vertically opposed, but this is the first configuration like this I have seen. Let us take a look to see if this subwoofer is worth you taking a closer look.
What Makes the GoldenEar SuperSub X Subwoofer So Special?
- 1,400 watts of Class-D power can make for a lot of low-frequency energy. In my testing with the SuperSub X, the volume the subwoofer was putting out was hard to miss. It was able to easily scale with the power from my Anthem STR power amplifier (read the review).
- The Golden Ear SuperSub X subwoofer is completely manual in terms of set-up. While some people love apps, there is certainly a crowd that conversely hates them. I can see the allure of sitting down and just enjoying the listening experience without feeling the need to pick up my phone or tablet to adjust settings on my subwoofer. You can adjust the volume from the back and the crossover, and that is it. After some initial tinkering, it is set it and forget it.
- There are no attachable grilles on the GoldenEar SuperSub X. After reviewing a few comparable subwoofers recently, I quickly found that any grille that is magnetically attached is bound to get knocked off by something, so not having to frequently pick them up and put them back on is a nice feature.
- The GoldenEar SuperSub X subwoofer is light in context to the subwoofer world. One of the best things about Class-D amplification is that they allow for compact and lighter (40-pound) designs. With the GoldenEar SuperSub X, you get both features. The subwoofer is relatively easy to move around to get it into just the right position, and it is small enough that you can fit it almost anywhere. GoldenEar even suggests that you can place it inside of a cabinet if you wish. I am not sure that I would go there, but it is an interesting concept to consider.
Why Should You Care About the GoldenEar SuperSub X Subwoofer?
In a world where subwoofers are increasingly being packed with more and more fancy technology, it is refreshing to have one that is so simple. I don’t need to worry about running an EQ or room correction software, I just need to find the best placement for the subwoofer, configure a couple of settings and I’m ready to go. That isn’t even to mention how big of a boom you are getting from a relatively small box. 1,400 watts of power, in the array that GoldenEar has designed, is also going to catch the attention of those who enjoy having a subwoofer in their set-up.
Some Things You Might Not Like About the GoldenEar SuperSub X Subwoofer
• The GoldenEar SuperSub X doesn’t have room correction, which means you might need to do a little of the old sub crawl in terms of set-up. I would be surprised if there was anyone who truly loves the process of finding just the right position for a subwoofer. This is why you see the room correction software being packed into new subwoofers. If you already know the right spot (i.e., this isn’t your first subwoofer rodeo), then I expect you are really just doing some small adjustments.
• The GoldenEar SuperSubX subwoofer doesn’t come with different feet. The feet on the subwoofer are not easily replaceable, so if you are someone who has carpet in your listening space and you wanted to place the subwoofer on spikes, you are likely to need to look for an aftermarket solution. A few of us on staff are testing some absorbative feet and, for those who live near other people, who need to protect flooring and/or who might find a performance bump, this is a seemingly viable and relatively low-cost add-on to your subwoofer ownership experience.
Listening to the GoldenEar SuperSub X Subwoofer
I tested the GoldenEar SuperSub X subwoofer with my reference system, which is made up of an SPL Elector preamplifier and the Anthem MCA 225 Gen 2 amplifier, a Bluesound Node (2024) streamer as a source, paired with Paradigm Founder 80F speakers. With the SPL elector being an analog preamplifier, I used the line-out from it, and then the Paradigm subwoofer app to handle all crossover and all the configuration of the subwoofer. I used the Paradigm Defiance S12 subwoofer (read my review) as a comparison for the SuperSub X. These two subwoofers are competitively priced, but have very different design philosophies.
One of my go-to tracks for subwoofers has become the Alexisonfire track titled “This Could Be Anywhere in the World” (Qobuz 44.1 kHz) from their 2006 album titled Crisis. What always draws me to this track is that it has a distinctive synth note that creates the low sweep effect for a subwoofer that you don’t often get from tracks in the rock genre, as this type of deep bass is far more typical of reggaeton and other electronic tracks. With the GoldenEar SuperSub X in the signal chain, you couldn’t miss the bass sweep that comes at the start of the track but is also found in each of the verses of the track. What I would say, though, is that, while the depth of the bass was just as deep as the Defiance S12, the SuperSub X didn’t seem to hold the note as long.
The next track that I used to test the SuperSub X Subwoofer was The Prodigy’s “Breathe” from their 1996 studio album The Fat of the Land (Qobuz 44.1 kHz). This track always brings me back to my teenage years, when it was released and EDM was quite the musical phenomenon. The Prodigy’s sound at that time was very new and fresh at the time, and everyone seemed to know of them, whether they liked the music or not. This track really stood out to me with the GoldenEar SuperSub X. There is a bass sound that persists throughout the track that, with other subwoofers such as the Defiance S12, seems to me more like looped distorted bass synth. However, with the SuperSub X, the sound was much closer to that of the low rumble of a car engine, which really changed the feel of the track overall for the positive.
The final track I chose was “One More Time” from Daft Punk (Qobuz 44.1 kHz). Daft Punk likely needs no introduction to people who love bass. This Parisian musical duo has been making music since the early 1990s and are one of the acts that really helped bring electronic music into the pop mainstream. I like using this track for its bouncy bass line that challenges the subwoofer to stay tight, as it will need to recover quickly to pick up the next note. In my testing, the GoldenEar SuperSub X had no issues with this track. It showed itself to be able to handle the recovery (which I expected, given its driver array). Each bass note was presented clearly and made this funky track really enjoyable. I couldn’t perceive any distinctive difference between the SuperSub X and the Defiance S12 on this track.
Will the GoldenEar SuperSub X Subwoofer Hold Its Value?
I would expect that, with the unique design of the SuperSub X and the value of the brand, this subwoofer should hold its value relatively well. It is also aided by being relatively light, so it is among the few subwoofers that people will see out that can be shipped for a relatively low cost – at least for a subwoofer. The GoldenEar SuperSub X Subwoofer has a time-tested design that was very well-marketed under the original ownership and will be under the umbrella of Paradigm. This helps keep the brand equity high, thus raising the resale value. Also, it is a simple, powerful subwoofer for not too much money. That helps resale over time, too.
What is the Competition for GoldenEar SuperSub X Subwoofer?
When I think about subwoofers, one of the first brands that comes to mind is REL. The REL T/9x ($1,700 buy at Crutchfield) has some of the same design ideas as the SuperSub X, as it features an active driver and a passive radiator. The biggest difference comes with the power, as the T/9x uses what REL calls Class-A/N. The other thing that makes the T/9x distinctive is the Neutrik Speakon connection, which is available, while the GoldenEar SuperSub X features the traditional LFE and unbalanced analog input connections. Jerry Del Colliano reviewed the REL T/9x subwoofer (read the review) and emphasized how much fun it was to listen to music with the T/9x in his system, so it is going to be worth consideration.
Another competitor to the GoldenEar subwoofer is the SVS SB-3000 R/Evolution ($1,399 buy at Crutchfield). SVS should always be considered when you are thinking about subwoofers. They recently released a new subwoofer similar to the SB-3000 that Mike Prager reviewed (read the review), which features a 13-inch driver, but SVS has increasing the amplification power from 800 to 1,200 watts and, quite notably, they have added their new “Auto EQ” technology, which allows you to use the microphone on your smartphone to do room correction. That’s some slick new technology in play, which is not like REL and GoldenEar, which are more simple and old-school designs.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the excellent the Paradigm Defiance S12 ($1,499 buy at Crutchfield). Paradigm has packed this subwoofer full of technology, and it comes at the same price point as the GoldenEar. While the two subwoofers share a parent company, their design philosophies couldn’t be further apart. The Defiance S12 has a traditional single large woofer, but it has ARC room correction and plenty of input options, including a line-level input.
Final Thoughts on the GoldenEar SuperSub X Subwoofer …
In my time with the GoldenEar SuperSub X (buy at Crutchfield), I found myself impressed with the value proposition that the subwoofer presents, coming at a reasonable price. As a person who has room correction already in my system via my Anthem STR stereo preamp (read the review) and/or a BlueSound Node Streamer (read the review), I was happy to have a set-it-and-forget-it-style subwoofer that wasn’t going to require my continued attention, and the flexibility that it affords me with being able to place it almost anywhere in my listening space and get great performance makes it easy for me to recommend to anyone who is shopping in this price range and isn’t looking for all kinds of bells and whistles – just tight, powerful bass at a very fair price.
