Opinion 1

You can say what you want, but in my opinion there is no other brand splitting our environment as our today’s hero. Of course, there are a few manufacturers, who can operate with a similarly brilliant marketing, preferring highly recognizable distinctness, but let us not be mistaken, the combination of the words Gauder and Accuton can divide us more than sport or politics. Why? The tuning of the rigid, ceramic speakers with steep, 50-60 dB/octave, filters used by the company cuts off the lovers of harder sounds from the eulogists of vivid sounds like a samurai sword. Result? The brand does not take any prisoners, it induces only two states – either you love it or hate it. I know that, as I tested it myself many times. But based on all those reviews, including the last two and the current one – I am talking about the tests of the Darc-100 and Darc-140 – I have an interesting information to share. Well, the characteristics I mentioned above, the expressive, and thus not easy to accept, characteristics of Gauder Akustik loudspeakers evolve since about two years. What does this mean? Please do not be afraid. The introduction is not the right paragraph to put all my cards on the table. For now I can only reveal my king of spades – I hope you do know, that spade is the card color reigning supreme, as well as the flagship from Gauder Akustik, the model Berlina RC-11 Black Edition, provided to us by the Katowice based RCM in a gigantic logistic effort. Yes, yes, we have in our listening room the top of the tops of loudspeakers available on the Polish market. What came out of that? Is this the proverbial rabbit we are chasing? And finally – was the sound worth the amount of money the manufacturer is asking for those speakers? If you are interested in the responses to those questions, please be invited to continue reading, the maybe overly lengthy, text below.

The paragraph about the construction of the speakers, due to the sparse information available on the manufacturer’s web page, will be quite short. The things I can tell for sure, is that in the construction bend rungs were used, bolted together and painted black with a piano lacquer. Those are wider in the front and run together to the back. But this is not all, as you can see on the photographs, the tested model has two bass sections, positioned above and below the mid-treble section located in the middle. R. Gauder wanted to avoid any deteriorating influence of the vibration generated by the four 22cm woofers on the midrange and treble, so he went for a proprietary solution. First of all, both bass modules are connected with polished aluminum columns. Secondly – the top part of the bottom bass section is used as a soft support for the mid-treble section. Competition usually places similar sets of drivers in one cabinet, but according to RG this is a shortcut, and should never be used in extreme High End. This much about the cabinets. Let us move on following the interesting bits of information. The first one is the set of drivers used for this four-way speaker – for many, including myself, an obvious thing yet very important thing. In the tested speakers, in the newest version called Black Edition, we have two re-designed diamond speakers – one for the treble and upper midrange, one ceramic for the lower midrange and – here comes a novelty – four aluminum woofers – yes, yes, instead of ceramic low frequency drivers we have aluminum Accutons here. The second novelty is the change of tuning – instead of 50 dB/octave we have 60 dB/octave. The third change is the impedance of the speakers being 4 Ohms. Unfortunately there is no information disclosed about sensitivity disclosed. It is … sufficient. And that is all we can get. Finally, I need to mention the optional plinth supplied with the speakers, called Big Foot, placed on adjustable spikes and the weight – which comes to a significant 212 kg for each of them (over 300 kg in the transport trunks). Fortunately the distributor promises to install them at their destination, so you will not need to carry them around yourself.

So how did I perceive the sound of the heroes of this test? Let me put it this way. The Gauder Akustik Berlina RC-11 Black Edition showed, that bigger means more from the first note they played. But in this case this “more” meant something else than you are used to think when reading this statement, as it was something I did not count on, even in my wildest dreams. Of course, in some obscure corner of my soul, I have cultivated the expectation of similar sound, but when I moved through my room most of the top speakers offered in Poland, using my electronics to drive them, this kind of sound looked like an utopia. In many cases things seemed to be all right, but there was always a “but”. It did not degrade my view on the given set of speakers, but forcing me to find a way to resolve it. Yet those monstrous, 200kg speakers, satisfied all of my expectations. I will even say more – even those expectations, that were a bit exaggerated, but built based on previous experience. What expectations you will ask? They could sound trivial. A strong, controlled, and most importantly, highly resolved lower end; a saturated, pulsating with energy, yet as informative as the bass, midrange and a non-obtrusive treble, presenting the full spectrum of information against not a black background, but a void, and all that presented with ease using the full range of volume. This is seemingly something that many speakers can do, but in this case „seemingly” is the key word. What do I mean with that? I will not describe the elementary characteristics here, as on this price level many of you might be offended with telling the obvious, but I will refer to two sets of speakers, which touched my emotions deeply, and which are a kind of phenomena on their price shelves, while one being double the price of the other. I know this is painful, but we are operating in the range of quality extremes, where the prices becomes almost irrelevant. If you can afford it, they you buy it. If not – they you are just happy you could witness something interesting.
First my own speakers, the Dynaudio Consequence Ultimate Edition. They are phenomenal. Incredible timbre, attack, resolution, speed and energy, accompanied by an outstanding creation of the world of the reproduced music, not only in 3D, but also in terms of swing and precision of the presented sound stage. Nothing else than to sit down and enjoy any genre of music for hours. Practically there is no repertoire, that would pose any challenge to them. If something is to hit me badly, it does, punishing my ears with a cacophony of notes. If some formation invites me to a concert in a church, I move there and then immediately. And when the transport spins a disc of one my beloved, intimately singing vocalists, then, based on the recording choices, she either sits on my lap, or juggles my emotions from afar. So it could seem I am dealing here with an absolute perfection. But I mentioned earlier, that many years of experience showed, that listening to music has another important aspect. Which one? I mean the last point of the thing I mentioned – unconstrained presentation. Be assured, the Dynaudio do that very well, but you should not be mistaken, when confronted with larger speakers, they sometimes give the ground to the competition.
A certain step forward were the speakers I almost considered – unfortunately due to the fact, that their bass section needed to be fed with low level signal, they were not universal enough – the Gryphon Trident II. Of course I mean a step in the direction of ease of presentation, without any shortness of breath at high volumes and without issues of reproducing the energy of the sounds at less pronounced levels. Translating it into common language – while listening at high volumes, the Danish speakers reproduce sound without any issues. They spit it out. There are no limits, you can feel they break no sweat. This is so seductive, that once you hear it, then for many, including me, the world will never be the same. And it does not matter, that the earlier mentioned Dynaudio have a higher resolution of the lower registers – the Gryphon, while perceived as having a phenomenal punch, have a slight tendency to equalize them, but it is important, that music presents the calmness, reserved only for big speakers. But I am not talking about calmness, like in everything being averaged in the sound, but about creating sound without a trace of fight against physics. And I assure you, this is audible at every volume level. But there is one caveat – to fully understand, what I am talking about, you must have had a chance to witness that. Without this experience, our discussion is like talking about UFOs. Anyway, summarizing the description of those speakers, let me put things in the following way: the experienced jump to absolute freedom results in the fact, that the Gryphon are more convincing as a whole, as bigger can more, despite the fact, that the Dynaudio reproduce the lower registers in a slightly more interesting way.
But let us finally move to the Gauder; this test is somewhat different than usual, as I wanted to show you, where you can find the phenomenon of the tested speakers. So where is it? I do not know how, but those monsters, despite being similar to the Gryphon in size, combine the strengths of both the speakers I described a moment ago. How on earth can you combine something that is already brilliant and add something to it? This extra thing could be described as deepening of the assets of both predecessors. On one hand the German speakers follow the path set by the bigger Scandinavians – the sound is unconstrained and has appropriate presence, while on the other, they offer the resolution of the bass similar to the Dynaudio. Looking at this situation from current perspective, I would say, that compared to the Gauder, the Dynaudio reproduce the energy of the bass brilliantly, for their price, but still lack a tiny bit there, while the Trident II, while not being far away from the quality of the Consequence, do lower the amount of information provided. The effect is, that the tested speakers not only allow us to hear the music, but also to feel it, like a pulse of a toddler. And additionally, the force of this pulse depends on the instruments reproduced at the given moment. Without enlarging of the smaller ones or making the larger small. You need no effort to hear the slightest touches to the instruments, swallowing of the saliva of the vocalist, or the aura of the recording. But you do not only get the energy used to create a sound, but also the effect of it, coming from the size of the instrument. I usually present this based on the reaction of the membrane of the big kettle, when touched by the stick. Of course I would be lying, when I would tell you, that the compared speakers are unable to replicate this feature. They can, but not in such a real way, so differentiated in terms of energy and resolution. But how is this possible? Maybe I am wrong, but in my opinion this is the result of how clean the information is presented. The diamond tweeter and upper midrange driver, ceramic lower midrange and aluminum woofers make the sound being reproduced like hanging in a void. However I need to make one remark. Such a great result of presenting the sound without a trace of harshness, and compared to the other speakers, with a light distancing, however brilliantly balanced in terms of available information, is coming from the decision of the manufacturer, to tune the speakers different than before. Already when I reviewed the Darc 140 I did notice, that Roland Gauder changed his approach, and resigned from the very hard sound edges, which were sometimes a bit too strong for some listeners, in favour of sound fluency. It still had all the information, but much more accessible for many music lovers. But is this still the Gauder sound school? Absolutely yes, because the difference is only cosmetic, but still noticeable.

I do not know, how you will read this text. For many of you, this might be something like “I was enchanted by your story” rather than a report from a listening session. But if you learned to know me, through the years of reading my stories, then you would know, that if something really shakes me, then the way of putting words to paper is only secondary. In such cases, the ability to show the emotions I have felt, becomes key. In this case, those were emotions, which I never expected to have in relation to any product coming from this company, despite knowing Roland Gauder personally. This was like a thunderstrike from clear heavens. However thanks to my seven years of dealing with very expensive components, I know how to discern their sonic abilities, and I am in no way under the influence of their price. This is the reason that I used other speakers, exceptional in their price levels, and therefore fulfilling my requirements ideally, for comparison, something I am not doing often. But at the same time I confirmed, that moving to a better sound quality level has its drawbacks in the form of significant price increases. There are many reasons for that, but in this case, based on my reaction to the final sound quality of those speakers, I think, it is mainly the cost of production and phenomenal implementation of the years of experience that contribute to it, and not the now trendy positioning of the brand by attaching a high price tag to a product. As we now arrived to the pricing – responding to one of the questions posed in the beginning, I can answer clearly, that the price asked for the newest Berlina RC-11 is absolutely justified. Does this mean we have finally caught the escaping bunny? I honestly do not know, as citing “Star Wars” – “There is always a bigger fish”. But for now, for today, I swear – and I promised not to do that – for me those loudspeakers are this ever escaping bunny. Please do not ask what it means. Just tell me, where I can get a good price for my internal organs.

Jacek Pazio

Opinion 2

I think nobody needs a reminder, on how fast time flies. And I am not talking about how much of it we lose, but just about it flowing like a river. The kids are growing older, the world shrinks, and only we stay the same, although we do not have the same strength as some time ago, as after four of five hours of sleep we wake up realizing, we would need double that time to regenerate, while earlier even a short nap was completely sufficient. “Earlier” seems to be the key word here. Earlier, a word which evolved from a few weeks or months ago to the synonym of years or even decades. If you now start to counter me, then please, tell me when – more or less – the Gauder Akustik Berlina RC11, Roland Gauders flagships, appeared on the market. But do it spontaneously, without cheating. Was it not so long ago? Of course. Because what is nine (!!!) years compared to eternity. Just a wink of an eye. But seriously, since 2012 things changed in the world, also in the technological aspects. This made it obvious and logical, that something that was the top of the top then, can now be done better. And if it can, then it should be done so, and we arrive at the hero of our test – the refreshed version of the Gauder Akustik Berlina RC11 called Black Edition.

While the original models were introduced to our market with a unique marketing, were together with the speakers (if the buyer did not bargain too much) you received a splinter new BMW series 1 sponsored by the Katowice based Polish distributor RCM, the current version is not promoted in such a way. But you should not be surprised by that, because it would be difficult to repeat the same feat with similar results, and in addition, Gauder Akustik has a solid position for years, and Dr. Roland Gauder, the man behind the brand, does not need to proof anything to anyone. But let us get back to the topic. As you can see, the 11 became much more serious visually. The reason for that is the change of the drivers – ceramic, white woofers and midrange drivers to aluminum woofers and ceramic lower midrange drivers with now black membranes, ordered at Accuton to proprietary specifications. Less obvious, because those are not immediately apparent, are the changes to the diamond 20mm tweeters and 50mm midrange drivers. Still we have here modular, composed of three individual pieces, four-way, big floorstanders, with a lyre-like cross-section, with the midrange-treble part placed between two woofer sections on top and bottom. The chassis made from rungs covered with piano varnish also had a kind of “perestroika”, encompassing, amongst other things, a change of damping of the treble-midrange section and 35kg heavy aluminum feet, which can be optionally upgraded with LED MusicLight system or VU meter, adjustable from a dedicated smartphone app “Gauder Akustik App” (available from early 2022). The new Accuton drivers, as well as changes to the Mundorf capacitors mandated a modification of the cross-overs, which kept the 60dB/octave slopes, but now have filters with changed characteristics.
On the narrow back plate, close to the plinths, the manufacturer found space for the double wire terminals, a nod for bi-amping or bi-wiring enthusiasts, the WBT 0703 NextGen, and a “central” allowing small, 1.5dB, adjustments to the treble and bass. Regarding the technicalities, you could say that Dr.Gauder turned out to be very talkative, as instead the classic statement of “acceptable impedance and sufficient sensitivity” there is now information, that the speakers have a 4 Ohm impedance load visible for the amplifier trying to power them properly. Furthermore the bass sections, the top and the bottom ones, are vented, while the treble-midrange section is placed in a closed cabinet.

We could say, that we approached the final encounter with the top Gauder speakers slowly, in small steps, as we have listened to them during a listening session in the Polish Radio (on the occasion of the re-edition of “The Wall” Pink Floyd on 28 Feb 2012 in the Agnieszka Osiecka studio) – then still under the Isophon brand, during the Munich shows and presentation done as part of the opening of the new RCM showroom. But all this listening was like licking Candy through a glass window, or skating on a frozen lake without knowing what happens a few inches below. Fortunately, thanks to a serious logistic endeavour (please refer to our unboxing series) of the Katowice based distributor we have the honour, as this is how we should refer to the opportunity of hosting the 11. And this is not pure courtesy, mutual sympathy or any other, non-substantive thing, but hard fact. However you look at them, those are the flagship speakers, so the situation is similar to our previous encounters with Avantgarde Acoustic Trio Luxury Edition 26, the “holy trinity” od Dynaudio (Evidence Master, Consequence Ultimate Edition and Confidence 60), Gryphon Audio Trident II (we must forget about Kodo unless we progress to a palace or residence with appropriately large rooms) or Trenner & Friedl Duke, the only difference being, that they cost about twice as much. People say that money does not sound, but when we cross the magical border of one million zlotys, you see for yourself, that the expectations rise to levels achieved by the New Shepard Blue Origin rocket, which approached the Karman line with William Shatner (aka Captain Kirk from the original series of Star Trek), our approach changes too. Of course this whole ado does not mean we will be listening worshipping the speakers and being completely enchanted, but in contrary – all constraints of the most exaggerated sonic expectancies are being put away, so this becomes a kind of duel, where full contact sports are just child’s play.
And you know what? It turned out to be a very short tournament, because the 11 win through KO in the first seconds. Just like that. Music starts, first notes appear and you get a knock on your head and lights go out. And once we come back to our senses, it turns out, we are now in a completely new, better reality. Are those the mythical Elysian Fields? Or Valhalla reserved for the fallen warriors? It does not matter at all, as things get divine. When the realism of “Black Market Enlightenment” Antimatter was up to par with live performance, as experienced from Mick Moss, who supported the Polish band Riverside during the last, jubilee tour, then you know something is going on. True, true – the same palpability, dynamics and absorption of sounds not only by your ears, but by the whole body. Interestingly, this physicality of the sound was permanent, it did not appear only at concert-like volume levels, but also with much more acceptable, civilized amounts of decibels generated by the Gauder speakers. I will not say, that we did never experience this before, because we did, but only a few times, and only with the system prepared for the Munich High End show by Silbatone Acoustics with restored Western Electric cinema tube speakers. Taking a picture with long shutter time (from a tripod) in there was a miracle, as due to the acoustic pressure and vibration it was almost impossible. Mick’s vocals was strong, deep and so realistic, that you was thinking about asking him, after each piece, if he maybe would like to clear his throat with some distilled fluid from Islay, or other parts of Scotland or Ireland. Well, the live experience… Starting with the cameral „Live and Unplugged at the Tennessee Theatre” by 10 Years, then with a bit more electrified “Almost Unplugged” by Europe and finishing with the epic “Pulse” by Pink Floyd, I could never catch the Gauder on any attempt of leaving aside any second or third plane detail, any simplification of the reproduction of the planes, or any issue with positioning of the virtual sound sources in the vertical plane, something vital for proper holography. And here I need to compliment the German speakers again, as despite their sheer size, the sound sources were created with their real sizes, without any artificial enlargement, often found with their competitors. Bigger can do more, but without exaggeration, as playing “Same Girl” by Youn Sun Nah we expect a fragile Korean singer, and not 180cm tall Floor Jansen. And the other way round – turning on „Decades: Live in Buenos Aires” by Nighwish I would be completely surprised when the voice of the vocalist would not be an octave, but 20-30cm lower.
Can we go stronger and heavier? Absolutely. I add the „Submission For Liberty” from the Australian band 4ARM to the playlist, and then their neighbours from New Zealand, Alien Weaponry with their newest material “Tangaroa”. Yes, I absolutely know that neither the repertoire, or its recording quality are worthy of our tested speakers. But when we made the assumption, that there is no place here for any compromise, then besides some easy listening, pampered in every detail, I could not forgo some extra fiery stuff. And what was the effect? On one hand expected, but on the other surprising, in a way. I mean, that while flattening, bordering with two-dimensionality, was undisputed, the energy load was not softened at all, so the fiery riffs, supported by ecstatic blasts, whipped our tired senses with incredible fierceness. Things got so far, that Jacek started joking, that I am choosing albums that sound bad always and everywhere, so that I can finally say, that the Gauder also gave up on them. Nothing like, as the 11 did something, you could think was impossible. In their unrivalled realism they reached a point, where the bad recording quality and garage like granularity were amplified and instead of degrading and detaching the played material from the master, allowed to feel the climate of the session, filled with shouting and ruckling guitars. Is it a miracle? Not really, as this is just a lot of great engineering work, through which, we get a truly transparent sound, brilliant and true, and not always conform with our taste or the ideas of the creators.
I left electronics for dessert, but with my intrinsic malice, not something from the mainstream, but an album, very difficult to classify, “Dreamer” by Susumu Yakota, which is only seemingly oscillating around widely understood ambient. While you can see “Animiam of the Airy” as such, then “Double Spot Image”  places us in the middle of a procession, with the church bells all around, and “Quiet Room” serves us truly oriental-transcendent mystery on the verge of trance and being high. The experience of space turned out to be absolutely brilliant, and the two meter hight towers disappeared like small bookshelf speakers, something, when we are talking about top notch floorstanders, happened only in case of the sleek Raidho TD 4.8. In short – a complete entanglement and a merry-go-round of very different tastes, colors and smells, enriched with difficult to foresee instruments, what usually does not bode well for the coherence of the sound. Yet the Berlina found itself great in this whole jumble, keeping their calm and serving us another exquisite course of fusion cuisine.

Are the Gauder Akustik Berlin RC11 Black Edition the best speakers in the world? I have completely no idea. I do not have that knowledge – it would need to be based on listening to a gigantic amount of speakers in controlled environment, what I could not imagine. But for here and now, based on my around 25 years of audiophile experience, I can fully claim, that to date, I have not heard such brilliant speakers. They offer the breath of the Avantgarde Acoustic Trio Luxury Edition 26, the freedom of the Gryphon Audio Trident II and the refinement of the Dynaudio Consequence Ultimate Edition, all of those at the same time. An audiophile cumulation of everything that was the best and combining this into an unachievable master – the embodiment of absolute ideal. Would I change anything in them? Nothing. Would I recommend them to everybody? Probably not, unless all of you have unlimited amount of time you can dedicate to our hobby and … you have very strong floors, as many urgent things become not so urgent anymore, and the Gauder weigh about a quarter of a metric ton each, covering only about half a square meter of space, so houses built in the skeleton technology can have issues with that. I will remain quiet on the financial aspects, but I would wish everybody, myself included, that we could take into consideration being able to purchase the top Gauder speakers at all.

Marcin Olszewski

System used in this test:
Source:
– transport: CEC TL 0 3.0
– streamer: Melco N1A/2EX + switch Silent Angel Bonn N8
– DAC: dCS Vivaldi DAC 2.0
– Master clock: Mutec REF 10 SE-120
– reclocker: Mutec MC-3+USB
– Shunyata Research Omega Clock
– Shunyata Sigma V2 NR
– Preamplifier: Robert Koda Takumi K-15
– Power amplifier: Gryphon Audio Mephisto Stereo
– Loudspeakers: Dynaudio Consequence Ultimate Edition, Gryphon Trident II
– Speaker Cables: Tellurium Q Silver Diamond
– IC RCA: Hijiri Million „Kiwami”, Vermouth Audio Reference
– IC XLR: Tellurium Q Silver Diamond, Hijiri Milion „Kiwami”
– Digital IC: Hijiri HDG-X Milion
– Power cables: Hijiri Takumi Maestro, Furutech NanoFlux NCF, Furutech DPS-4.1 + FI-E50 NCF(R)/ FI-50(R), Hijiri Nagomi, Vermouth Audio Reference Power Cord, Acrolink 8N-PC8100 Performante
– Table: SOLID BASE VI
– Accessories: Harmonix TU 505EX MK II, Stillpoints ULTRA SS, Stillpoints ULTRA MINI, antivibration platform by SOLID TECH, Harmonix AC Enacom Improved for 100-240V, Harmonix Room Tuning Mini Disk RFA-80i
– Power distribution board: POWER BASE HIGH END
– Acoustic treatments by Artnovion
Analog stage:
Drive: SME 30/2
Arm: SME V
Cartridge: MIYAJIMA MADAKE
Step-up: Thrax Trajan
Phonostage: RCM THERIAA

Polish distributor: RCM
Manufacturer: Gauder Akustik
Price:
Berlina RC 11 Black Edition: 219 998 €
Big Foot: 17 000 €
MusicLight: 3 400 €
VU meter: 3 400 €

Specifications
Construction: 4-way reference system with separated cabinets
Impedance: 4Ω
Power Handling: 970W
Applied drivers:
Woofers: 4 x 222 mm aluminum
Mid-woofer: 1 x 173 mm ceramic
Midrange : 1 x 50 mm diamond
Tweeter: 1 x 20 mm diamond
Crossover frequency: 150 / 1000 / 6000 Hz
Dimensions (H x W x D): 202 x 34 x 72 cm
Weight: 230 kg