GoldenEar Subwoofer Overview

This is an overview of two subwoofers from our friends at GoldenEar. Since their founding around 2010, GoldenEar has won an extraordinary number of awards for their speakers from all over the world. They seem to have a knack for making speakers and subwoofers that always sound far better than you would expect for their price range. Even their Triton Reference speaker, which is by no means inexpensive at just under $10k a pair, still gets put into the same category as speakers costing 10 times its price or more!

When we heard GoldenEar was going to be updating the ForceField 3 and 4 for maximum performance, we were really excited to learn about these and get our hands on some early samples to test them out. The new models are the ForceField 30 and ForceField 40 Subwoofers.

The older models have been out for several years and during that time, GoldenEar released a much higher performance series of subwoofers called their SuperSub series. As you might guess, the new Forcefield 30 and 40 benefited from their learnings on the SuperSub models.

GoldenEar designs all of their products across two facilities in Canada and California. We really like their design philosophy as they use a combination of both science and art to come up with the final version.

They have their own anechoic chamber, which allows them to take very precise measurements, which in our opinion, really do matter in speaker design. In addition to that, they do real-world listening tests to make sure their scientific findings agree with what their team hears. The final icing on the cake though is they do not do their designs in a vacuum.

They will always obtain models from the brands they consider to be the main competitors in the category they are trying to develop and do both blind listening tests and measurements on those as well. This combination of art, science, and scoping out the competition is one big reason they have been able to consistently produce so many award-winning products, including mammoth subwoofers, over the years.

Subwoofer Design & Build Quality

The first thing that stuck out to us about the new design of the ForceField subwoofer models was how GoldenEar shaped them to match the cool curved top you see on their Triton tower speaker models. And this is not just a design aspect added for only a cool look, but the entire subwoofer cabinet top is curved to help reduce acoustic reflections inside the cabinet.

The subwoofer grill is also updated from a stretchy black cloth to a perforated metal grill with a much-improved design. The grill's aesthetics from the front almost look like the sub is grinning at you with an evil grin saying “wait till you hear me”. The external cabinet finish is upgraded to a multilayer satin finish that just looks and feels fantastic. It does show fingerprints but is easy to clean with a microfiber cloth. There is no question, that these new models just look much better sitting in your room than the older ones. The build quality is like all GoldenEar products - quite good.

These are also both very compact, allowing you to fit a high-performance subwoofer into a pretty small space. The ForceField 30 is about 11” wide, 16” deep, and roughly 12” tall, while the 40 is about 13” wide, 18” deep, and 15” tall.

GoldenEar had a lot of design goals they wanted to achieve with the new ForceField subwoofer models. They wanted these new subs to have the slam needed for dynamic special effects, yet they also had to sound musical for use in two-channel stereo systems. The bass needed to reach down deep enough so that you could feel it, but at the same time be quick and agile so you could hear the harmonics of a string bass instrument. Doing all of this at the price points they were shooting for was a pretty hard thing to achieve and took some serious engineering.

Subwoofer Features & Technology

Starting with the cabinets, the Forcefield 30 subwoofer uses a cabinet that is slightly over 1” thick while the Forcefield 40 sub’s cabinet is 1.3” thick. These are 33% and 37% thicker than the cabinets on the earlier models. When you couple this with the new curved top design they were able to eliminate distortion, reduce cabinet vibrations, and get a more efficient energy transfer.

The subwoofer sits on 4 very large rubber isolation feet. If you prefer spikes, these do come off and have a standard ¼” 20-thread pattern. The subs do not come with a spike kit but GoldenEar said they could supply spikes for these on request.

The power amplifier for the new subs got some big upgrades as well and was based on the amps in their award-winning SuperSub X and SuperSub XXL models. You get 1,000 watts in the ForceField 30 and 1,200 in the ForceField 40. They have moved to Analog Devices for DSP which uses a 56-bit DSP chip for the EQ. They created a new EQ circuit which gave them both a flatter frequency response and more low-end extension. These digital amps also use a MOSFET output stage. There is something interesting to point out we noticed in our testing of the subs. We were trying to quickly hear things with the sub on or off and one time simply pulled the power cord to turn it off. The music was pretty loud at this point but the sub continued to play for several seconds even with no power, which speaks volumes to the current reserve the amp has.

These new amps drive an 8” woofer in the 30 and 10” version in the 40. Both woofers are a long-throw design with a very stiff fiber cone. The magnet assembly on these is just massive when you see one out of the box! GoldenEar is known for their Quadratic Planar Infrasonic Radiators which are used in both subs to augment the deep bass. These are flat passive drivers they use instead of an open bass port. Many consider the ultimate subwoofer cabinet to be a transmission line enclosure that internally looks like a folded maze the sound travels through to exit at a slotted port.

The only catch is, that these types of enclosures are huge. Their Quadratic Planar Radiator mimics the transmission line design but yields better transient performance. This allows them to add some downward pressure and get deeper bass than they could achieve with a sealed box and the one active woofer. It also gives you more flexibility in where you can put the subs in a room. The ForceField 30 has a 9” by 11” version and the 40 gets an 11 '' by 13” one.

There are two connections on the rear of the subs labeled Left/LFE and Right. Just above these is a little switch where you choose LFE or Left/Right. If you select LFE, you would plug your LFE out from your home theater system into the LFE input, which bypasses the internal crossover. If you select Left/Right, the crossover, which starts at 40Hz and goes up to 150Hz, is engaged. We do wish there was some kind of phase control on the rear of the subwoofer.

Typically, if you are using LFE you can handle this aspect with the delay for the sub on your home theater system, but if you were using the subwoofer in a 2 channel system you would have no way to adjust phase, which means you would need to position the sub very close in line to your main speakers for best performance.

Subwoofer Performance

We did most of our testing on the Forcefield 40 and the biggest thing we noticed was how fast this subwoofer is. It can certainly reach down fairly deep for home theater special effects, but there are many subwoofers on the market that can accomplish that feat. What is hard to do is being able to produce the deep special effects while also being able to sound musical.

We even tried it on a really fast pair of speakers that have been notorious for not being able to find a subwoofer that blended well and it did as good or better as any we have tested.

You can actually hear the tonality of an upright bass and the visceral slam of a kick drum.

One of our favorite tracks for testing speed is on the Holly Cole Trio album, Don’t Smoke In Bed. The track “Everyday Will Be Like A Holiday” starts out with some solo upright bass. If the subwoofer is going to call attention to itself as being too slow, you will definitely hear it on that passage. About halfway in, you get the bass and drum kit going together as another great test. The Forcefield 40 really showed its speed and great tonality during these passages.

The GoldenEar Forcefield 30 subwoofer is actually even faster, but does not reach down quite as deep as the 40.

So, for most systems, with the 40 being fairly small, we think it’s the best choice, although two Forcefield 30 subwoofers might be really interesting.

Overall Recommendation + Review

If you simply want a subwoofer that rumbles for explosions or to just constantly feel pressure from booming bass, the new Forcefield Subwoofers are probably not for you.

However, if you want a sub that can let you hear bass tonality and that can keep up with even the fastest speakers while also giving you the ability to hear a bomber fly over, these are a great choice.

With these two new subwoofers, GoldenEar has once again provided us with some very high-value products.

If you are thinking about building or upgrading your home theater, be sure to check out our free 3D home theater designer where you can design your system, see lots of videos of complete installations like this one, and browse our inspiration gallery and how-to videos.

At Audio Advice, we've been designing and installing high-performance home theaters & smart home systems for customers across the country for decades. In fact, we've delivered more custom theaters than anyone in the Southeast! We are now offering Home Theater Design no matter where you live in the United States. If you are interested in a custom home theater or upgrading your current system, give us a call at 888.899.8776, chat with us, or stop by one of our award-winning showrooms. We can't wait to help you build your ultimate home theater!