In this review, we will be comparing GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor and LINTON Heritage, two Passive Bookshelf speakers from GoldenEar and Wharfedale. Let's have a brief look at the main features of GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor and Wharfedale LINTON first before getting into our more detailed comparison.
In the following sections, we will get into details in order to better understand how GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor and Wharfedale LINTON compares and hopefully end up with enough arguments to decide which one of these loudspeakers is the better choice for you.
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Drivers
One of the fundamental differences between these two speakers is that GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor is a 2-way design whereas LINTON Heritage is a 3-way speaker. 3-way designs utilize a midrange driver in addition to the tweeter and woofer on 2-way designs. Designing a crossover for a 3-way speaker is a complicated process and generally increases the overall cost of the speaker. GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor features a " Folded Ribbon Tweeter and 1 x 7" Polypropylene Woofer . On the other hand, LINTON Heritage features a 1" woven textile Soft-dome Tweeter , a 5" Midrange and 1 x 8" Woven Kevlar Woofer with a Crossover frequency at 630Hz and 2400Hz.
Frequency Response
GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor has a frequency range of 38-35k Hz whereas LINTON Heritage has a frequency range of 40-20k Hz. With a minimum frequency of 40Hz, the LINTON Heritage can go slightly deeper then the GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor's min frequency of 38Hz.
Below graphs depict how these two speakers compare with the max, min and average values of the Min and Max Frequencies of other speakers under Bookshelf class in our database.
Low Frequency
Bookshelf Speakers
GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor
High Frequency
Bookshelf Speakers
GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor
Impedance and Sensitivity
GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor is a 8 ohms speaker compared to LINTON Heritage which has a nominal impedance of 6 ohms. On the other hand, they have the same sensitivity of 90 dB.
Sensitivity
Bookshelf Speakers
GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor
Power Range
GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor has a power range of 10-250 watts RMS whereas LINTON Heritage has a power range of 25-200 watts.
Input Type and Bi-Amping / Bi-Wiring
GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor features Post type posts and LINTON Heritage has a Post type posts. None of these speakers feature bi-amping/bi-wiring.
GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor's 5-way post terminals
Wharfedale LINTON's Post terminals
Cabinet Type and Port Position
Both GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor and LINTON Heritage have rear firing ports. Rear ported speakers generlly need more room between the backside of the speaker and the wall compared to sealed and front/bottom ported speakers. Placing too close to the walls may cause the bass to sound boomy.
Physical Specs
Size of a speaker can sometimes become an important decision factor due to space constraints or in some cases purely for esthetic reasons. In this section, We are going to compare GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor's and Wharfedale LINTON's external dimensions. GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor has external dimensions of 356.0 x 229.0 x 281.0mm ( 14 x 9 x 11-1/16inch) whereas Wharfedale LINTON has external dimensions of 565.0 x 300.0 x 330.0mm ( 22.2 x 11.8 x 12.9inch) .
Wharfedale LINTON is clearly the larger of the two speakers. Its body is 71mm wider, 209mm taller and 49mm deeper than GoldenEar Aon 3 Bookshelf Monitor.