The Göbel Monarque Loudspeaker
By Roy Gregory
On my recent visit to Göbel to enjoy their flagship Divin Majestic speakers in their large listening room (with an equally ‘large’ system driving them) I got to see their latest model, a product that is already in production with pre-aorders in advance of its official launch in Vienna.
Where the monstrous but magnificent Divin Majestic might be too much speaker for many people and many rooms, Göbel’s latest offering promises majestic performance – in every sense – in a somewhat more affordable and easier to accommodate package. The new model is called the Monarque and, at €469,000/pr. it sits between the established Divin Noblesse (at €269,000/pr.) and the mighty flagship at €600,000/pr. You can judge its relative scale, compared to the familiar Noblesse model in the picture of the two standing side by side. With its faceted, hourglass cabinet, symmetrical driver array and flawless piano-lacquer finish, the Monarque is unmistakably a Divin series speaker, but is it a big Noblesse or a smaller Majestic?
When it comes to the complete speaker, what you see here is the production prototype, until recently still employed on fine-tuning the crossover components. The cabinet is unfinished, revealing the multi-material construction, although final production units will feature Göbel’s normal, flawless piano lacueur. Along with the individual parts awaiting assembly, it gives a clear idea of just how precisely the speakers fit and are finished.
Look closely and it soon becomes apparent that the new model is more akin to its bigger brother, using the same composite cabinet construction, mating precision machined and angled, aluminium baffles to a complex, multi-chamber cabinet built from constrained layer, melamine resin panels and offering the same 21Hz -3dB bandwidth. Indeed, the horn-loaded AMT tweeter and paired 8” mid drivers are identical to the Majestic’s. The bass drivers are 15” rather than the 18” units used in the flagship, meaning that the Monarque gives away 2dB in terms of sensitivity, still delivering an outstanding 96dB/1W/1m.
What the new speaker takes from the Noblesse is its one-piece cabinet structure, making it a whole lot easier to handle and install (stacking the three, massive cabinet elements that make up the Majestic is a logistical and practical nightmare). Each driver still occupies its own mechanically and acoustically optimised enclosure and still enjoys a completely independent aluminium baffle, a construction designed to minimise intermodulation distortion. The bi-wirable/bi-ampable crossover is impedance compensated to present a flat 4Ω load.
Put all those numbers and details together and you’ve got one potent package, capable of extracting maximum performance from matching electronics. You’ve also got what is arguably the most attractively proportioned Divin speaker to date. Filling the hole in its existing line up pitches Göbel’s latest offering head-to-head with the likes of Wilson’s XVX and other, substantial boxes or panels. Consider this spec, these figures and factor in past experience with other Divin models and the Monarque looks comfortably equipped to compete.
