Triangle 40th Anniversary Comète Review: Warm, Refined and Built in France

Introduction

Triangle has been building speakers with a recognisable house character for four decades, and the 40th Anniversary Comète is the company’s way of marking the milestone. It is one of two heavily revised Esprit models released for the occasion, alongside the Antal floor stander.

At £1,499 in the UK, this two-way stand mount sits £500 above the standard Comète. The extra spend covers French assembly, individual testing in Triangle’s anechoic chamber and a listening session in the company’s auditorium, plus a set of genuinely new drivers, a reworked crossover and real wood finishes that feel a step above the usual veneer at this price.

The result is a speaker that leans into the warm, rich and engaging side of the Triangle sound while staying refined rather than bright.

Who This Speaker Is For

The 40th Anniversary Comète is for listeners who want a full-bodied, involving presentation rather than a strictly neutral one. Its lower mid-range is warm and generous, its upper mid-range gives vocals and lead instruments a sense of vitality, and it never tips into harshness. If you like the idea of a speaker that romanticises the music slightly without becoming dull, this is squarely aimed at you.

It is also a strong match for rooms that are acoustically lively or minimally furnished. The horn-loaded tweeter keeps the top end under control, and the speaker works well at low listening levels, which makes it a good companion for late-night sessions. Anyone chasing the most revealing speaker at this price should look elsewhere.

Equally important, this is an undemanding speaker to own. It is not fussy about placement, it is easy to drive with a minimum impedance of 4.2 ohms, and it holds together at volumes that will not disturb the rest of the house.

Design, Drivers and Build

The Comète is a compact two-way stand mount, measuring 324 by 200 by 400 millimetres (12.75 by 7.9 by 15.75 inches) and weighing 8.8 kilograms (19.4 pounds) per cabinet. Two real wood finishes are offered: a gloss Santos rosewood and a more understated blonde sycamore. Both feel premium compared with the standard wood veneers used by many rivals.

The most striking element is the horn-loaded tweeter, a TZ2520MG unit with a composite dome made from rose gold anodised magnesium. Triangle specifies higher efficiency, lower distortion and better directivity than the titanium tweeter used on the standard model. Below it sits a 165 millimetre (6.5 inch) mid-woofer with a cone made from 100 percent cellulose paper and no surface treatment, in pursuit of a more natural sound with less coloration. The cone’s new profile is intended to improve frequency response and linearity, which in practice means deeper low-frequency reach and less filtering needed in the crossover.

The crossover itself has been reworked with better quality parts, including air core inductors, metallised capacitors and ceramic resistors. The mid-woofer runs a second order filter and the tweeter a fourth order filter, with the two crossing over at 4 kHz. Twin ports are mounted on the front baffle, and around the back there is a rose gold anodised aluminium plaque and a single pair of five-way binding posts that are a clear step up from cheap plastic terminals.

Main Strengths

Bass is judged well for a stand mount at this price. There is a solid mid-bass punch that gets feet moving, but it is not overcooked, so busier passages keep enough definition to hold attention. Sensitivity is rated at 90 dB and the official -3 dB point is around 47 Hz. In practice the speaker appears to reach at least that far, and a little further with room gain. Listeners who mainly play electronic music, pipe organ recordings or film soundtracks will still want to add a subwoofer, but most others will find nothing to criticise.

The mid-range is where the 40th Anniversary Comète makes its case. It is warm and full-bodied without sounding thick, and it stays open enough that individual instruments remain easy to tell apart. Nothing sounds compressed, though this is not the most revealing speaker at its price: leading edges, micro details and decays are softened enough to give the presentation a fluid feel. A lift in the upper mid-range lends vocals and lead instruments vitality and a stronger sense of intimacy, which is exactly the quality many listeners look for in a horn-loaded design.

Among horn-loaded speakers, this is the most refined example yet, and that appears to come down to how expressive the tweeter is. Clarity and airiness at the very top are not class leading, but they are far from poor. The soundstage is reasonably wide with a little front-to-back layering, though depth is modest, and the imaging is a touch vague around the centre.

How It Compares

Positioning matters here, because Triangle’s own Genèse Trio sits at a similar price. The 40th Anniversary Comète gives up the Trio’s curved cabinetry and semi-baffle tweeter assembly, but gains more modern drivers and better crossover parts, and the two do not sound alike. The Trio comes across as the more heavy-handed and coloured of the pair, with more boosted bass and a more prominent horn coloration through the mid-range, while the 40th Anniversary Comète is the more refined and better balanced speaker overall. That reading comes from an impression rather than a fresh side-by-side session.

Against the Amphion Argon One, another similarly priced stand mount, the 40th Anniversary Comète is the less revealing speaker but the more open and less compressed one through the mid-range, helped by its larger cabinet. Against the ProAc Response One SC, a much older design that still operates at a clearly higher level, it is outclassed on cleanliness, openness and naturalness, although that is not a price-appropriate comparison. It is a useful reminder of how much headroom exists above this price point.

Things to Consider Before Buying

Detail retrieval is the main trade-off. The 40th Anniversary Comète softens leading edges and decays, which is what makes it so easy to listen to for long stretches, but it also means you hear less of what is buried in a recording than you would from the more revealing alternatives at this price.

Imaging is a little vague, especially in the centre of the stage. Instruments can be located, but they are not pinned down with real precision, and the modest soundstage depth reinforces that impression. The prominence in the upper mid-range also pushes vocals and lead instruments slightly forward of the rest of the mix.

Anyone who wants a tell-it-like-it-is presentation, with every last detail laid out, will be better served elsewhere. Bass-heavy genres and home cinema setups will also want subwoofer support.

None of this is a fault so much as a deliberate set of priorities. The speaker is built to be enjoyed rather than dissected, and that is precisely why it is so easy to live with in an ordinary room.

Setup and Amplifier Pairing

The 40th Anniversary Comète is straightforward to set up and unfussy about positioning, which is typical of narrow dispersion designs done well. Because it is not hot at the top and performs well at low volumes, it copes better than most with acoustically lively minimalist rooms.

Two placement notes are worth following. The speaker has a decent amount of mid-bass punch, so pulling it away from the wall behind it helps retain definition; around one metre, measured from the front of the cabinet, worked well. And because stereo imaging is not its strongest suit, spreading the speakers slightly wider and applying a generous amount of toe-in, so they point past your ears rather than directly at them, improves focus and extracts more information from the tweeter.

With a minimum impedance of 4.2 ohms, the speaker is fairly easy to drive. A compact entry-level integrated amplifier can make a decent job of it, but it will not have the refinement or the mid-range body to do the speaker justice. A neutral, natural and detailed amplifier with a touch of romanticism is a much better match. A high-end integrated costing roughly double the amplifier and speakers combined is overkill, although it does an excellent job of getting out of the way and adds scale, dynamics and grip. A valve integrated amplifier with uprated tubes produced the fullest, richest sound of the combinations tried, and turned out to be the favourite pairing.

Buying Advice

At £1,499, the 40th Anniversary Comète is a very fine speaker for the money. Its warm, engaging personality is not a marketing line: it is the core of the design, and it makes long listening sessions effortless.

If your priority is maximum resolution and the most neutral balance available at this price, the Amphion Argon One is the more revealing alternative. If you would rather trade some of that detail for romance and engagement, the 40th Anniversary Comète is the better choice.

It is also worth weighing the standard Comète, which costs £500 less. The premium here buys French assembly, individual testing and listening, new drivers, a reworked crossover and the real wood finishes. For buyers who value build quality and a specific voicing, that is a reasonable trade.

Conclusion

The Triangle 40th Anniversary Comète delivers exactly what it promises: a warm, refined stand mount that is engaging without ever becoming bright. It is not the most transparent speaker at its price and its imaging is only average, but in every other respect it does the job asked of it. For listeners who want a speaker that prioritises musical enjoyment over forensic analysis, it comes highly recommended.