What's unique about the brand
What reviewers are saying
We read all the reviews. Here's what reviewers feel most strongly about:
- Göbel's speaker designs are heavily informed by Oliver Göbel's deep expertise in bending-wave transducer technology, applying his knowledge of flexible diaphragm behavior to reduce mechanical artifacts and acoustic distortion even in their non-bending-wave designs.
- They employ a symmetrical arrangement of bass reflex ports and internal enclosure designs to ensure a balanced air load on the woofer cone, preventing membrane wobble and increasing bass precision.
- The brand often integrates a modified Mundorf Air Motion Transformer (AMT) tweeter, customizing it with proprietary horn profiles and damping structures to seamlessly integrate with other drivers and achieve desired sonic characteristics.
Our favorite reviewer quotes:
- "In fact, I must conclude that the Divin Noblesse is, through the midrange and treble, the highest-resolution dynamic loudspeaker that I've heard in my listening room—its presentation of detail and palpability approach that of electrostats and Magneplanars." (https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/gobel-high-end-divin-noblesse-loudspeaker-and-divin-sovereign-subwoofer)
- "The same substance that imbues Michael Kiwanuka's kick drum with such solid impact applies right up the range, whether it's cello, a pianist's right hand, violin or bells. There's no wispiness or thinness at the top, no pared-away or etched quality to the midrange -- just a sense of body and rightness, irrespective of frequency." (https://www.theaudiobeat.com/equipment/gobeldivinnoblesse.htm)
Our interview with the brand
What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?
What's your approach to customer support?
What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?
What other products pair best with yours?
Products
Lineup comparison
We think it's helpful to understand how their products compare. To learn more about each, scroll to the section above to click through to individual product pages.
Divin Marquis
- Positioning: The entry-level model in the Divin series, designed for small high-efficiency loudspeakers.
- Description: Offers a compact design with a unique 8-inch midrange driver using Göbel's patented bending wave technology, providing natural sound reproduction. Compared to the larger Divin models, it features a single 12-inch bass driver, making it ideal for smaller rooms or setups where space is a concern.
Divin Noblesse
- Positioning: A mid-sized high-efficiency loudspeaker in the Divin series, offering a balance between size and performance.
- Description: Features dual 12-inch bass drivers and advanced AMT tweeter technology, ensuring a seamless sound experience. It provides a more robust bass response than the Marquis.
Divin Majestic
- Positioning: The flagship model of the Divin series, representing the pinnacle of high-efficiency loudspeaker design.
- Description: Features groundbreaking technology with two 18-inch bass drivers and a sophisticated wave guide for its AMT tweeter. It surpasses the Noblesse and Marquis in both size and sound output.
Epoque Aeon Reference
- Positioning: The top model in the Epoque series, setting a benchmark for high-end loudspeakers.
- Description: Uses a Carbon Excellence Aeon bending wave driver, offering a wide frequency range and exceptional sound coherence. Its multiple 7-inch bass drivers provide a more refined bass response compared to the Baforce.
Used
Göbel High End
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Featured products
About the brand
Our interview with the brand
What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?
What's your approach to customer support?
What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?
What other products pair best with yours?
Featured products
About the brand
Our interview with the brand
What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?
What's your approach to customer support?
What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?
What other products pair best with yours?
Featured products
About the brand
Our interview with the brand
What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?
What's your approach to customer support?
What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?
What other products pair best with yours?
About the brand
The Grand Reference loudspeakers embody and advance the groundbreaking principles initially introduced in IO Design’s Naked speaker concept, pushing technological boundaries and utilizing the highest-quality materials available. Unlike traditional boxed or dipole speaker systems—which inherently produce distortions, compression, and energy loss—IO Design's approach achieves extraordinarily low distortion, minimal interference, and an even distribution of energy across the entire audio spectrum.
The core objective of IO Design is to replicate the immersive energy and emotional impact of a live musical performance within a home environment. Their speakers generate authentic acoustic presence, faithfully capturing dynamics, micro-dynamics, and harmonic nuances, thereby bridging the gap between live sound and home audio reproduction.
IO Design’s meticulous engineering ensures consistent sound pressure at any listening position, maintaining purity, clarity, and naturalness of sound without compromising dynamics or detail. The result is a truly immersive and emotionally compelling listening experience, distinctly superior to conventional speaker designs.
Our interview with the brand
What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?
The concept itself, we are the first and (as of today the only ones) able to produce huge bass and devastating energy in the room with a dipole/baffleless architecture. Design is a factor, crossover another pillar, vibration control and many other points. Every mm2 in the speaker is discussed to the bone always for improvements. Our aim is a formula 1 car no other point than performance, design and crafting.
What's your approach to customer support?
We have distributors and dealers in some countries already and we are evaluating new ones. Being IO Design dealer/distributor is a mission because you are not selling normal hi-end loudspeakers but truly F1 devices. The network will hopefully grow, in the meanwhile, where we don't have dealers, we manage the customers directly or, even better, we ask the Customer to put his dealer in contact with us to make him safe and easy.
If a Customer needs setup advise, we follow up analyzing also the acoustics if needed. Should any tech issue happen, we would support the dealer with parts and repair advise or we would ship back the units for check and fixing.
What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?
It depends from system to system and ambient to ambient. We always choose the more extreme quality tracks to show the true potential of the speakers because it's way above the current competition. Usually we prefer tracks where bass is very evident because it is a strong point (even if it might seem counter intuitive for a baffleless design). Also high transients, because the energy the speakers pushes in the room is much higher than anything else on the market.
What other products pair best with yours?
Any high quality amplification works, digital, tubes, solid state. The important is that the amp has control and current, watts are not so important, even 40-60 can do but the quality of the amp need to be xcellent to get profit of the shocking realism of IO Design speakers. Ypsilon Electronics is well tested for instance. Tubes also perform well, however they are usually a bit more euphonic on bass and they have more distortion; this is a pity because IO Design speakers are so clean and distortion free... In normal boxed speakers you don't notice, because those speakers are themselves distorting music with the box compressions...
Featured products
About the brand
Our interview with the brand
What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?
Marten uses high quality drivers that are custom to our models often in exotic materials like diamond, beryllium, ceramics and aluminium. Marten is one of very fiev manufactures that is implementing first order crossover filters. This we do in all models in the Mingus and Coltrane range.
What's your approach to customer support?
Initially customers are advised to contact the dealer they bought their speakers from, when support is needed, if they have bought speakers second hand it's recommended to to contact the appointed distributor. Of course customers are also welcome to contact Marten directly via our info email and get support that way. We value customer support highly and help our dealers and distributors to take care of customers if something has happened. Customers should never ever hesitate to contact us or our partners.
What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?
We have many but here are three of our test tracks, St James Infirmary (live edition) Angela Brown, Someday you'll be sorry Harry Connick Jr, V. Panis angelicus (Soprano) Ensemble vocal de Lausanne.
What other products pair best with yours?
We do a lot of testing and development on brands like Halcro, Audiaflight, MSB and CH-precision. But we also know that customers use Gryphon, Goldmund, Soulution and Esoteric among many other brands in their home systems.
Featured products
About the brand
Our interview with the brand
What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?
What's your approach to customer support?
What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?
What other products pair best with yours?
