Oliver Göbel, Founder, CEO and Head Developer of the premium loudspeaker and cable manufacturer Göbel High End located in Alling, near Munich, is motivated by the power of his convictions. He adopts a no-holds-barred approach to pursuing his dream of developing and manufacturing the world’s best loudspeakers and cables. He grew up in a family of musicians, piano, violin, guitar, accordion, trumpet, … were always naturally played every day. Later as a very young teenager he already got infected by the Hifi virus and ever since then he was tinkering with developing and building loudspeakers in order to get the perfect sound. He got trained to be a communication electronics technician and then later he made his master in telecommunications electronics. He spent a long time working for the global corporation Siemens as a loudspeaker and electro acoustic developer. For many people this would have been a dream job, but it didn’t fulfill this Bavarian who has super sensitive ears and a relentless thirst for invention as there just wasn’t enough passion for acoustic perfection involved in the development of mass-production technology at Siemens. So, he took the plunge, and after seven years of development, he had finished the decisive further development of the so-called bend-stiff bending wave driver, which is still to this day the hallmark and beating heart of all Göbel High End loudspeakers and founded the loudspeaker manufacturer Göbel High End in 2003.
The fledgling company’s very first product in 2004 was the bending wave loudspeaker series called Detaille, which consisted of the bending wave emitter Detaille S, which was capable of covering a frequency range from 150 to 28,500 hertz, and a perfectly adapted subwoofer for the low-frequency section. Additionally in 2004 Göbel High End unveiled their first cable line Lacorde, which was also used inside of the Detaille loudspeakers. The Detaille series and Lacorde series really captured the heart of any audio fan who was lucky enough to ever get to listen to the curious and unique loudspeakers and cables: even the ears of high-end enthusiasts were rarely graced with such a sound, which was unbelievably natural on account of the exceptionally fine detail and outstanding impulse response of the Göbel bending wave driver. It’s no wonder that the Detaille series and Lacorde series was a success, including from a commercial perspective.
In 2005 the patent for the Göbel bending wave technology was granted and Oliver Göbel built up an in-house sales structure for his products. The next venture was the wall-mountable loudspeaker series Modul, which was just as well received as the Detaille series.
Oliver Göbel has bagged several awards over the years, including the development grant for pioneering technology as part of the Bavarian Program to Support Technology-oriented Start-ups (BayTOU). Because of market demands Oliver Göbel additionally founded a second company – Göbel Audio GmbH – in 2008 , which still exists today, as an OEM partner for other mostly major companies: this is also how the new edition of the legendary omnidirectional spherical loudspeaker Audiorama was developed for Grundig in Alling. The OEM business primarily served to bring about the economic consolidation of Göbel Audio. “But what we additionally learned through the OEM business for big companies is quality control… truly meticulous quality control. And of course that fully benefits all our own products too.
These days, no product leaves our premises without being subjected to a rigorous set of routine tests and checks at all stages of the manufacturing process and a painstakingly thorough final inspection.“ During all that time Oliver Göbel was developing on his master reference über loudspeaker and cable series, which could be unveiled in 2012 as the Epoque loudspeaker series and Lacorde Statement cable series. These impressive audio sculptures and cables represent the crème de la crème irrespective of the costs involved. Of course, the models available in the Epoque series (three loudspeakers, two subwoofers and an impressive controller) are only produced out of highest sophisticated components mostly produced exclusively for Göbel High End and completely made in Germany. The beating heart of the Epoque series, is of course still the patented bending stiff bending wave driver in his highest evolution level as the “Carbon Excellence” bending wave driver and is fully manufactured in-house.
Above all, our goal is to really bring music alive! That is, and always was the passion behind all our efforts, researches, technologies, … to manufacture real statement products which bring the ultimate real music experience!
And there is only one way to identify a benchmark loudspeaker or a benchmark cable – by listening!