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Calling the Gobel High End Divin Monarque a ‘floorstanding loudspeaker’ is a bit like calling Dubai’s Burj Khalifa a ‘high-rise tower’. In both cases, the term is technically correct, but it leaves a lot out. The Monarque is the latest in Gobel High End’s flagship Divin line-up, standing between the top Majestic and the Noblesse.
The term ‘flagship’ has shifted from its naval origins. It once meant ‘the lead ship in a naval fleet’, but now it’s used to mean a single ‘premier’ product. But just as a blue-water navy has more than one fleet, which means more than one flagship, Gobel High End too, has more than one flagship; the Divin Monarque is the fleet’s latest commander.
Large to substantial
Gobel High End produces Divin flagships across multiple sizes, with the Monarque fitting snugly into the ‘large to substantial’ listening space. If you need something larger, the Majestic is ideal for the more ‘palatial’ listening rooms. But if you aren’t in the market for something to accompany the signing of treaties, the Divin Monarque remains a heck of a lot of loudspeaker.
This is no wallflower; the Gobel High End Divin Monarque makes its presence felt. It’s not a modular device; it is a one-piece loudspeaker, standing almost 2m tall and 84cm deep, and weighing in at 380kg each. This is a physically imposing loudspeaker that needs substantial breathing space, painstaking installation, and carefully selected upstream components. Everything about the loudspeaker makes a statement. and that statement is ‘wealth’ and ‘taste’ … and not in the ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ way.
Cost no object
Continuing the cost-no-object approach, the standard cabinet finish is piano gloss and gold. And while for some ‘piano gloss’ is a spray finish, here this is carefully lacquered by people who have been applying lacquer to grand pianos for generations. This is no easy task; the Divin Monarque has challenging angles that differ from the flat panels and curved lines of a concert grand. And the gold … well, that’s 24ct gold leaf, painstakingly applied to the loudspeaker surrounds. Other finishes are available at extra cost. but aesthetically speaking, this works in the same way a Steinway does. And just as putting a grand piano in your living room says a lot about both your love of music and – let’s not shy away from it – your wealth, the Gobel Divin Monarque makes the same statements.
This is nice, but meaningless if the loudspeaker didn’t match up to the finish. But. fortunately, it’s just as clever on the inside. The Monarque is a three-way, vertical D’Appolito-style design: two 15-inch carbon/paper woofers flank a vertically arranged pair of 8-inch glass-fibre/paper midrange units, and a central AMT tweeter loaded by a waveguide. The drivers’ size and layout suggest a design intended to combine substantial output and bass reach with controlled, consistent integration through the midrange and treble.
More than the elevator
That ‘elevator pitch’ cuts out a lot of what makes the Divin Monarque so special. While there are many AMT high-frequency units in high-end, few feature a massive waveguide based on a tractrix profile or a custom-tuned and machined rear chamber. While you can use these curves with the horn-loaded waveguides of conventional dome tweeters, creating the same shape with a large planar tweeter is impressive. Even more so when you realise the whole thing is milled from solid aluminium, thereby eliminating any potential resonances.
The Monarque is built around its twin eight-inch carbon/ paper cone midrange drivers, a unique design that leverages the company’s ‘bending wave’ technology and is common across the entire Divin line. Each driver and the crossover have their own dedicated enclosure, with the crossover components in the audio equivalent of solitary confinement, mounted on isolation mounts. The large, enclosed volume helps explain the Monarque’s ability to deliver low-frequency bandwidth without relying on an overblown or excessively heavy bass character.
