Gold or Classic Phantom

[itgeek77]

Happy New Year everyone! I'm new to this forum and wanna seek for your opinion on one thing - Long story short, I've decided to buy one phantom now and will go for the 2nd 1-2 years later when my new house is ready so my end goal is to have two phantom for stereo sound, however my struggle is whether I should buy gold or classic phantom. I know the spec differences between these two speakers but from your POV does price difference well justify the spec or sound quality differences? FYI, I listen to a lot of pop and electronic music but seldom classic music. To me, money matters but not a NO factor, I could spend more money on buying gold phantoms but if sound quality of gold / classic phantom for pop / electronic music is not much different, I'll go with more value for money option to buy classic phantom. Many thanks for your advice in advance!

[Snoopy8]

Welcome to the forum...

Given a limited budget, I am suggesting something different; a pair Reactor 900s.  Yes, a pair of Reactors because a pair of Phantoms is much better than a single lonely one. To me, they are the value for money option.

I have compared a pair of Golds with a pair of Rector 900s.  The Golds have a bit wider sound stage, a bit more detail with better mids and high end. It was my preference because I had a pair of Golds.  BUT putting aside the comparison, and listening to the Reactor 900s by themselves, I could most definitely live with them, very clean and had details that a lot of systems cannot match.  Excellent sound for such small boxes.

However, if you still want the Premier range, go for a single Gold rather than a single Classic.  I prefer the Gold sound to the Classic.  Most importantly, get the second one as quickly as possible...

[Tommiji]

I started with 2 Phantom Silver and upgraded to 2 Phantom Gold. I'm totally happy with that choice because in my opinion the Silvers were lacking the highs. I love the Golds for a much more refined sound. I don't know how the Classic are, but I assume that they are similar to the Silvers. In the store I listened not long ago also to a pair of Reactor 900 in comparison to a pair of Golds and I must say that I liked the Reactors a lot. The mids are not as refined as with the Golds, but if you listen not too loud, it's a very good alternative. If you move to a house and you can crank up the volume, I would definitely go for the Golds. If I were asked today what to buy I would go definitely for a pair of speakers. I would take the following speakers into consideration and then go with what sounds and looks best for me and my use case: Devialet Reactor900, Genelec 8330 with sub, KEF LS50 Wireless II with sub, Devialet Gold, Genelec 8341 w/o sub. The Genelecs are aimed for professionals. Hence they do not support the convenience of direct audio streaming.

[Rma]

@itgeek77

I did buy a Phantom Premier Gold 2 years ago, and liked it but ended up listening to it every now and then, still having sonos in other rooms. Then I bought a second one... and I am listening to it non stop since then... I just can’t stop, rediscovering my music collection, added vinyls to the picture. Adding one gives a totally new dimension, 4 times more of music pleasure, and I am not an audiophile. I am just saying that adding the 2d one completely changed the game.

Therefore even if can’t advise on the reactor 900 but off the top of my head I think that the suggestion of 2 high end reactor makes more sense than just one Premier...

On classic vs gold, what I found was that the classic is a good very loud small speaker. It fills the room, but when you do some active listening, you tend to low down the volume, it becomes just loud.
With the gold it’s much more comfortable to actively listen to music, you hear more details, the highs are much clearer, you feel like the artist is in the room. For parties, the claims I would do the trick. For listening to music I’d say the gold is a no brained.

So to your question on value for money, to my non audiophile ears, I’d say the classic is a bit overpriced, i would go for 2 sonos play 5 instead. But a pair of gold is great value for money.

I hope it’s helping a bit.