http://www.goldenear.com/products/aon-seriesAon 2: $800/pr
Aon 3: $1k/pr
Link above has link to Jeff Dorgay and other reviews. IIRC Jeff made no negative comment and bass descended in-room to the 30 Hz range! Wow.
I heard the 2 or 3 at CES prior to release and thought it was the $3k tower playing next to them. I was really fooled.
Many years ago in D. B. Keele's speaker design book he recommended about twice the cone area for passive radiator vs. active driver. Usually this rule of thumb is ignored and PR area is less than Keele recommends, sometimes much less.
Interesting that GE designer Sandy Gross follows the above advice and got the results described by Dorgay. Brian Cheney's last model, the RM50, had greater ratio PR cone area to active than prior models, with audible results.
As Dorgay mentions, Gross has stellar 30 year career in the "designer's chair" at Polk and Def Tech, and it shows in his work. You aren't easily going to beat someone with that much design history hooked up with sate of the art Asian manufacturing. I met Sandy at CES. I asked to hear the smaller Aon rather than the floor stander and he agreed. He seemed indeed seasoned and "cagey" in the best way, not a negative observation at all.
I love Oscar Heil's tweeter. It's quite sad the way the original ESS ripped him off of most of his royalties (no relation to current ESS owner Ricky Caudillo, who seems like a swell person). I met Oscar years ago and lunched with him N. of Silicon Valley many decades ago. A sweet, happy, moderately quiet guy and obviously brilliant.
Please comment if you heard the Aon 2 or 3. Encouraging that Jeff's favorite amp of many aditioned was tubed.
