About 44 miles outside of Munich, just down the River Isar into Lower Bavaria, lies the small town of Landshut. Landshut is known mostly for its medieval architecture and reenactment of the Landshut Wedding. Held every four years, this festival is based on the 1475 celebration of the marriage of a Bavarian duke to the daughter of the king of Poland. It’s a cute, quaint little town in the Bavarian countryside, but it is also home to Göbel High End, a manufacturer of extreme audiophile speakers and cables.
After an hour on the bus from the High End 2024 event site, I was welcomed to Göbel’s headquarters on the outskirts of Landshut, along with 40 or 50 other members of the hi-fi press. We were brought into the front room of the building and . . . well, that’s about it. There was some food and drink provided, but little else. I never expect a company to put on a red-carpet reception—who the hell am I, after all—but there was an explicit mention that there might be a tour of the facilities or at least some sort of presentation about the Göbel gear on display. Not so.
Apparently, I was meant to track down someone who works at Göbel—though it was never made clear exactly who—and ask them about the company and its products. This is not easy to do when there are several dozen others clamoring to do the same. My reason for whining so much is not that I expected the royal treatment. It’s just that my job is to write about this stuff, and I had learned nothing more about the company or its products by the end of this hours-long event. My point is that there was very little value in my visit.
Well, except for one very important thing. I got to hear a couple of Göbel’s systems in its dedicated listening rooms. And when I tell you these speakers sounded awesome, I mean they sounded fucking awesome. I’m not prone to hyperbole, and I rather dislike airy audiophiliac descriptions of sound quality. What I mean is that, while listening to a pair of Göbel’s top-of-the-line Divin Majestic speakers, I heard soundstaging, bass power, timbre, and perhaps most importantly, unrestrained dynamics such that I was effectively tricked into believing that I was hearing a world-class symphony orchestra performing before me.
A family member of mine graduated from the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music a few years ago. During the graduation ceremony, we were treated to a performance in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theater. These Göbel speakers gave me the same aural experience as that performance; I didn’t even need to be anywhere near the sweet spot to get it. Granted, the Göbels are about nine feet tall, weigh hundreds of pounds, and cost probably as much as a down payment on a concert hall like Eastman.
The rest of the system was impressive too, featuring top-shelf components from CH Precision, Wadax, Kronos, Riviera Audio, and FalkenOhr. The cables were all from Göbel, of course. So the gear was impressive, and the beating heart of the system, the Göbel Divin Majestic speakers, left my jaw on the floor. The company’s corporate presentation skills could use some work, though.
Matt Bonaccio
Contributor, SoundStage!
