Dancing with Göbel’s Divin Majestic/Sovereign system
By Roy Gregory
I’ve never been a fan of reviews based on manufacturer visits – what the late, great Paul Messenger referred to as Awaydays (channeling the spirit of cheap tickets on British Rail). But for all that, not all Awaydays are created equal – and not all of them are avoidable. For some products, a report (as opposed to a review) based on a site visit really is the only alternative. They’re just too big, too heavy and too downright demanding to fit into the conventional review process. Göbel’s massive, €600,000/pr. Divin Majestic speakers are a case in point. Let’s assume that you have the space to accommodate a pair of very large box speakers measuring 226cms (or almost seven-and-a-half feet) tall. With an all up weight of 530kgs (or a shade short of 1,200 pounds) each, the logistical challenges are little short of monumental. Each speaker arrives as three separate cabinet elements, which you might think helps – except that you’ve got to stack them. That means lifting the 210kg mid/treble enclosure onto the bottom bass cabinet, before placing the upper bass cabinet (a mere 160kgs) on top of that – with the mating surface around five feet off of the ground. Ohh – and you have to accomplish that without damaging the flawless, real piano lacquer finish. Repeat that operation and then you have to find a home for the six, large flight cases and the far from small accessory box. And that’s before you un-box and stack the six Sovereign sub-woofers (€35,000 each) and store their flight cases too.
The heavy lifting is only the first stage of the exercise. You also need to have a suitable system to hand, preferably with four channels of amplification to bi-amp the main speakers, plus enough cables to feed the resulting system – all from the same source. Organising such an exercise might be possible, but it would involve both massive effort and disruption, let alone serious cost. Under the circumstances, it’s not hard to understand why the attractions of a ‘manufacturer visit’ start to outweigh the improbability of ever achieving a home loan. You just need to keep in mind that the two things are not the same, most obviously because you can’t even begin to isolate a single component in an alien system and environment. Awaydays are experiential reports: This is what I heard on this day, under these circumstances. Anybody drawing detailed, comparative conclusions as a result is deluding themselves as well as misleading their readers.
Having said that, not all Awaydays present the same challenges. I’ve never had the Divin Majestic at home – but I have spent time with it in three different locations, including the Göbel factory listening room. I’ve spent less time with the Sovereign subs – and crucially, I’ve never set them up – but that will be rectified soon as they are due for review shortly. So the subjects of the visit are at least somewhat familiar. But what really helps things along is the rest of the system and the room. Source is a full Wadax ‘Level 8’ Reference system, feeding CH Precision 10 Series electronics – all of which I do know, inside out. Add to that proper attention paid to detailed set-up, coherent cables and supports, a room in which I’ve previously spent considerable time and a side-dish of Vitus Masterpiece electronics as a point of comparison and this particular visit already has something of a head-start.
That system in detail:
Wadax Reference Transport/Akasa Optical cable, Reference PSU and Akasa DC cable
