Opinion 1

This time, there is no need to introduce the tested speakers to anyone for two simple reasons: first of all the company has a very rich portfolio, with many interesting products, and secondly, there is a very heavy polarization within the potential customers regarding their sound signature; something the manufacturer gained during his long presence on the loudspeaker scene. Is this second thing a burden? Absolutely not, as an old audio truth states, that there is no way to please everybody, and a company sound does translate into recognizability. But why am I spending so much time in this introduction talking about the, quite artificially created, “controversy”? A very profound one, also very basic, as recently, with the Gauder Akustik Darc series being presented, the owner of the brand, Roland Gauder, started to look at the audio word in a much less “adventurous” way – at least in my opinion. What do I mean with that? Nothing out of the ordinary. You might say the owner got a better hearing device, or jokes aside, got someone, who understands the broader public better, to fine-tune the speakers. And what was the result of that? The first speaker, which we tested next to the Arcona and Berlina series, was the Darc 100, which turned out to offer a much more friendly world of colorful and vivid music. But as you know one swallow does not make spring, so to see if this was an one-off thing or a new trend, we decided to take another go at this speaker series, and after some negotiations with the Katowice based distributor RCM we finally got the Darc 140 in our listening room, the bigger, and more majestic, sisters of the previously tested 100.

When describing the construction of speakers from a series higher than the Arcona, many elements turn out to be similar. This is always a cabinet made from bolted together profiles, which run from the MDF fascia towards the back in a rounded way. Those ribs are separated with plastic molds. The only difference between for example the Berlina series and the currently tested Darc series, is the material those profiles are made of. In the Berlinas it is MDF, while in the Darc those are made from Aluminum. This difference significantly diminishes the resonances of the cabinets, but also increases the weight of the speakers. The remaining components, and with that I mean the transducers – now painted black – come from the German Accuton, which are used in the loudspeakers of this brand since its birth. Those are the general similarities, as when you look closer, like on our photos, the tested Darc 140 differ from previous models created by R. Gauder in how those drivers were applied. The cabinet is subdivided in three sections. A centrally placed midrange-treble one, with a diamond tweeter, and two bass sections above and below. Interestingly, both bass sections are ported, but the bass-reflex tunnels are not interconnected; each section has a separate port mounted vertically, one venting down to the floor, the other one to the top. The quite high cabinets are placed on stable plinths, mounted on adjustable spikes. Those plinths contain double wire terminals, but also three additional sockets, which can be connected with wire jumpers allowing to adjust bass and treble in three steps: -1.5, 0 and +1.5dB. A nice touch of the manufacturer to help set the speakers fully upright is the inclusion of a spirit level on the plinth. Of course this is not really the task of the buyer to set the speakers up in the listening room, as the complete setup by the distributor is guaranteed when you buy them.

So what can I tell you about the tested speakers? Of course besides the fact, that they are going in a slightly different direction, than the previous models, as they follow the path set by the Darc 100, which we described some time ago, and have a more toned down sound. Of course, as expected from extreme High-End speakers, it is difficult to find any shortcomings in them. You can always find something, a small thing that will bring them down a peg, but I did not have such a hard time finding any kind of burning point, in terms of absolute quality of the reproduced sound, since a long while. I really tried to find something, for example some kind of adherence to the inheritance of strong, uncompromised sound, but based on the month of listening, using electronics I know inside out, I could not really put my hands on anything. Even more, I cannot get over the brilliant sound reproduction of the tested speakers. Additionally, the 140 are very universal in terms of cabling. The representatives of the distributor placed the speakers in the room, then I have placed them in the optimal spot and finally connected to my electronics as is. The only additonal actions I performed were to move the jumpers to position ‘0’, which was optimal in my room, and to use bi-wiring for the speakers, as this was recommended by the distributor. I made the latter using cheap Furutech cables. Why am I mentioning this? This very short process of finding the best sound is characteristic of outstanding products. When something is good, then it sound good from the very beginning. When something only pretends to be good, then we need to find something to help that product out, as would be bad to let it fail. In this case the effort needed was minimal, what only confirmed the truth I mentioned, that good things do not require a lot to show their assets. But ok, enough of the praise. Let us come to the real deal, where I will attempt to show you, how those two towers really sounded.

The first thing that got me, was the sheer ease of sounding. There was no forceful trying to prove, that they are the world champions at everything, but a presentation of strong, and at the same time very low reaching bass, especially given the size of the drivers. And at that, the bass was not obtrusive at all. This was not like kicking your opponent, something that seems to be popular currently amongst loudspeaker manufacturers, even from the highest tier, and usually results in the session bassist to play first fiddle, so to speak, even in quiet passages. Bass appeared when it was recorded on the track, and only to the extent intended by the sound engineer. It did not flow close to the ground, it did not try to fulfill our desire of having our guts massaged by its abundance, what usually does not really suit the played material. It was quick, strong and low-reaching. Of course in very difficult moments, which I served them abundantly during the test, sometimes I could hear the limits of the physical size of the drivers – I did not get such a mass of air I would from a 12 or 15” membrane, but I assure you, being able to get such an informative, low, hard and vivid bass without any signs of losing control using small drivers, is really a feat. Furthermore, you can adjust the speed, contour and amount of this part of the sound spectrum with the jumper cable. However I did not do that, as I wanted to keep the whole test in one sound standard. And finally one more thing – this limitation resulted in the bass sounding slightly different, but absolutely did not degrade the sound in any way. So this is a classic compromise moment, where you get something in exchange for something else; and here we see, how it can be done very well.
The next item would be the midrange. In the opinion of many malcontents in speakers from Gauder it was created by ringing porcelain, thus you should not even look for vivid and juicy human voice, or nicely sounding woodwind instrument, like the saxophone. Because you will not find it. Yet, they were proven wrong. Even better, you could phenomenally discern their smallest timbre nuances. Without hissing, without excessive sibilants, or any unpleasant ringing, there is only smoothness, brilliant roundness and energy, which is present there only with the best speakers. There is also appropriate information, essential for truthful reproducing of all kinds of show-offs on instruments operating in this range, including human voices. I might not believe myself, in what I am writing here, if not for the many witnesses who could confirm, that I have not lost my mind, even with the pandemic, but I am writing the truth.
Finally the treble. But not because they are the weakest, their spot is here just because we started looking at the sound spectrum from the bottom. It was another, very positive surprise. But this statement would not be enough. I feel implied to state, that treble is the crème de la crème of those speakers. The diamond Accuton sung like a nightingale. Not too strong, not too soft, but just plain vivid, when needed noble, with different pieces melodic, and never, absolutely never, it failed in its phenomenality. It was at the same time shiny, full of vitality and transparency, and juicy and warm, even sometimes intimately laid back. It tuned itself perfectly to the rest of the sound spectrum regardless of the kind of music I was listening to. And I listened to all genres of music at all possible volume levels. And with the jumpers placed on zero! I do not know, how this diamond speaker did it, but it did, and always turned out triumphant without giving a sweat.

After so many words of praise it is hard for me to add something sensible. But to put some substance behind those praises, I will mention some of the most interesting listening sessions, beginning with the phenomenal silver disc from a label, that issues music tape, 2XHD Fusion. Yes, it is a sampler. But not in the sense of upping the recordings in such a way, that it causes all listeners to have that “wow” effect, as they have that already as standard in their recording process. This is a sampler, that shows off their catalog, which is quite diverse, for such a small label. Lots of jazz, classical and ancient music, and all of that recorded using the legendary Nagra reel to reel tape recorder. So what is so extraordinary about those recordings? Well, I chose this disc for only one reason. Knowing, that our tested speakers come from a manufacturer, whose offerings often polarize their customers, and tend to go into extra competitive sound, I thought, that using purely analog recorded material, that was only mastered to a CD for marketing purposes, I would be losing that certain “something” reserved only for the analog aura. Yet nothing like that happened. The music was palpable in a way synonymous with analog tape, so I started to wonder, if the speakers are really made with ceramic membranes and come from the stated manufacturer.
But this was just the beginning, as I wanted to look closer at the abilities of the speakers of reaching hellish depths of bass on the third piece, where there is an organ employing a 16Hz pipe used as accompaniment for the diva singing in the church. And I got some truly seismic murmurs, shown splendidly – tight, appropriately hard and kept under full control. Of course, using a bigger membrane I would probably get an unconstrained mass of low frequency sound. But surprisingly, that what the Gauder Darc 140 offered, was on par with the best speakers I hosted in my listening room, what shows, that their smaller diaphragms are able to come closer to the musical truth than many larger ones, especially as managing those frequencies is not easy at all. This is unbelievable, but absolutely real.
Another test was to showcase the saxophone. It is prominently featured in the tenth piece. It is playing there at full breath and in a small room, what the German speakers reproduced brilliantly, placing it exactly there. The vibrating reed created a very distinctive sound, as the “wooden” soundwaves need to go through a mostly metal instrument. It was also clear what was behind the musician – the walls and ceiling, limiting the breath of the sound, something quite typical for small jazz clubs. So also in this recording the breath of the instrument was limited, but this translated into a very personal involvement in the musical event.
As the musical coda to this test I chose the rough ride in the form of the second Metallica gig with a classical orchestra, titled “S&M2”. This allowed me to check if the nice analog sounding will not get into averaging of typically digital recordings, and if the setup of the bass drivers – two on top and two more on the bottom of the speakers – will not be too weak for the need of immediate and strong hits. To my, very positive, surprise in both cases, there was nothing like that present. But there was a lot of dynamics, energy, speed and, importantly, a lot of information. But why am I talking about this when talking about earth shattering bass? I am not sure, if everybody knows, that even amongst the most intimidating rumble, good speakers can show the membranes of the drums making it, or pinpointing the electronic vibrations behind them. Those were no pools of unidentified magma, but packets of waves, which make the sound interesting. Here the loudspeakers were able to present everything properly. The attack, mass, energy and low frequencies – everything tigers, or in this case rockmen, like most. And I am not only thinking about the drummer, but the whole band, as the bass was aided by colorful midrange, which supported all the guitar riffs, but also often the contrabass and vocal parts. So the power was there. No sign of shortness of breath, but just full blown fire, all such kind of music requires.

Finally the time has come to pull everything I said before into a digestible whole. As you can see from the paragraphs above, the loudspeakers are really surprising in each and every aspect, and that regardless of the part of the sound spectrum we are looking at – is it the bass, midrange or treble. But how surprising they were you might ask? Let me put it this way – based on my years of struggle with different products from this price range, I would be hard pressed to find a pair of speakers, which would be able to beat them in absolute terms. I would even say, it would be hard to find ones that could match them. Or if I would be making a very rough ranking of speakers for myself, those modestly looking, as they are narrow, high and with small drivers, speakers would make it at least to the top three. And if you know me at least a bit, you will understand, this is significant. Because on one hand, they are capable to prove themselves in the very difficult repertoire of ancient music, which calls upon the emotions of a romantic soul, and on the other, they have the punch to manage rock with ease. And all of this without any tinkering, because like I mentioned, I only used bi-wiring and set the setup jumpers to zero. And exactly this ease of adaptation and genre universality makes the room the Gauder Akustik Darc 140 are placed in, their only limiting factor. But when you have a decent listening room, then you should listen to them, as they will master all musical genres with at least a good result. They are really worth your while.

Jacek Pazio

Opinion 2

In our backstage discussions and our reviews many times questions came up about, not so much the problematic gain of quality in High-End, as this is mostly undisputable, but more about the amount of money related to it. During those discussions there were comparisons to the queen of motorsport – Formula 1 – where the fight for hundreds and thousands parts of seconds takes months and millions, or even dozens of millions, counted in hard currencies, and with that I do not mean Indian Rupees. Additionally, on our audiophile field, there is another controversial point, about positioning of the products not only by quality, materials and advance know-how, but also with the price. What is interesting, the purchase of a horrendously expensive boat, apartment, car or even a watch sporadically leads to ostracism, or even hate coming from other people, for unknown reason spending a hefty sum on stereo gear does awaken some truly radical emotions.
If you are wondering, what this pseudo-sociologically-economical introduction should mean, then I hastily explain, that it serves to make the ground for the speakers we are testing today, the Gauder Akustik Darc 140. You might ask, what is controversial about those? Seemingly nothing, this is just a model placed in the company portfolio a level above the 100, manufactured by a company, which has a fully earned and matured reputation and is associated with a truly engineers approach to design of their products, and not with controversial theories from the edge of audio-voodoo and ideas sucked out of a not always very clean thumb. But as life shows, appearances can be deceiving, and although nothing in the 140 points to that now, they can, but do not have to, change your opinion on some of the topics I touched before.

Already at first glance you can see, that the Darc 140 is a model, that does not really fit a statistical owner of a two bedroom flat. 190cm height and 100kg weight make a selection of potential buyers upfront. And this is just the introduction to further things related to the constructions coming from the watchful eyes of Dr. Roland Gauder. You need to keep in mind, that similar to their other siblings, the 140 will not be satisfied with any amplification, also the cubature of the room you are going to place them in, should not be treated with Scottish thriftiness. But before we venture out how to implement those speakers in your system, let me briefly talk about their looks, as well as a few details hidden from plain sight.
Nobody should be surprised, that aluminum ribs were used for the cabinet of a representative of the Darc series, located in the company catalog just one notch below the flagship Berlinas. Those ribs are separated with dampening shims, and if that would not be enough, the inside of the cabinet is like a labyrinth of aluminum reinforcements shaped like honeycombs. Those three-way, surprisingly slender and soaring speakers are based around six Accuton drivers, which is already a kind of tradition with this manufacturer. This time there are four porcelain bass drivers, one, also ceramic, midrange speaker, all of which are tinted black, while the tweeter comes in two versions – one is ceramic, while the other version has a diamond diaphragm, and this upgraded version of the Gauder arrived in our listening room. In terms of design the tested speakers are greatly inspired by the Berlina RC-11, so in the center we have a closed chamber for the midrange and tweeter, while on both extremities, top and bottom, we have the bass sections, with two bass drivers in each of them. The bass chambers are vented, and we can adjust their output using spikes on the aluminum plinth, which also improves the speaker’s stability.
Regarding technical data, we should already be used to the legendary briefness of Dr. Gauder. We can easily find the impedance of 4 Ohm in the company materials, also the slope of the cross-over being 60 dB/octave is not a mystery, but when we start to ask the manufacturer about the efficiency of the speakers, then either we get an awkward silence, or a courtesy response … “sufficient”. And at this point I would like to suggest you something, and rule out any chance of success when using a not very well designed amplifier. And please do not misunderstand me and perceive me as a kind of audiophile pessimist, but really, the result of such a mismarriage can be very frustrating and tragic, like during one of the editions of the Munich High End show, where the monoblocks, coming from more renowned German amplification manufacturers, attached to the Berlina RC11 died after about 15 minutes of playing. Could that be just a coincidence? I do not think so.

So let us move to the point, to how the 140 sound. But let us start from the beginning, from the first impression; the thing you can make only once. And with that I do not mean the impressions gained during the January unboxing, as those were actually a bit recursive. To get to this beginning we need to dig a little deeper, we have to have a retrospection reaching as far as the last Audio Video Show in Warsaw, where the Katowice based RCM prepared a triple premiere – of the super-integrated Vitus Audio SIA-030, the RCM made ultra High-End phono stage BigPhono and the tested 140. I am returning to this presentation on purpose, as even in the not so optimal hotel/exhibition room, that system had surprising freedom of playing. However taking into account the multitude of variables that influenced that performance, I postponed any kind of conclusions to an undefined future. And this future is happening now.
The Gauder Darc 140 sound in a surprisingly coherent way, and at the same time absolutely inadequate to their size … “stand mount speaker wise”. And I am not talking about any limits of scale or the extension of the frequency response, but the ability of pinpointing sources and disappearing from the stage, which stand mount speakers usually master. And this is also what the 140 do. Frankly speaking, I met something like that only with the Raidho, which are regarded as the unreachable master in this aspect, but I absolutely did not expect that to happen with the Gauder. Yet moving from one disc to another, I caught myself more and more often, that instead of approaching the tested speakers with appropriate criticism, after a few played pieces I started to enjoy the reproduced material, and did not try to nitpick. Maybe my insubordination resulted from the fact, that I used music I not only know, but also like very much, but I would not imagine a situation, when I would torture myself with sounds, I would not enjoy, but were coming from a reference recording or would be coming from a device signed by a very renowned person. I am sorry, but I like to treat the whole Hi-Fi/High-End game as a kind of escape from the grey reality, a hobby, something that should bring joy at its heart. And that was the case here. Our disc on duty “Ariel Ramirez: Misa Criolla / Navidad Nuestra” with the maestro performance of Mercedes Sosa sounded truly brilliant. The aged soloist was nicely cut out from the choir placed behind her, but she was not a completely separated being, you could fantastically hear her interactions with the rest of the performers. Additionally the 140 reproduced the height of the recording room with ease, and what is also very important, also the localization of the individual performers, not only in the horizontal plane – so they not only tell how far those sources are from the listener, but also in the vertical plane. If you would be searching for another way of showing where people stand, and how high they are, I would recommend a disc you might not have thought of – “The Three Tenors – The Best of the 3 Tenors”, were you can also easily discern the differences in the force of emission. I would also claim, that when you are not addicted to the moving pictures served by the flat screen on your wall, with the 140 you might resign of owning a TV at all, as the 140 will show you all kinds of stage performances in 4K, 5D and whatever you want. Am I exaggerating? Not at all, as you just need to wait for an orchestral tutti to experience for yourself, that the German “Two Towers” have a lot to offer on the bottom end, and that you do not need to worry about their control of those registers. Of course I am writing about this from the perspective of listening to them using the Gryphon Mephisto, but like I already mentioned, with top Vitus integrated amp the effect was also very satisfying. Can we go further with the bass reproduction? Yes, you can approach this aspect differently, this is shown each time by our Dynaudio Consequence speakers, where the volume of the bass foundation is a tad bigger, but the German columns had an advantage in terms of timing and differentiation.
As the midrange-treble section is kind of separated from the rest, I should write a few separate sentences about the part of the spectrum it reproduces. I will start perversely with a negation: the Accuton speakers do not have any issues with timbre or emotions, they do not play too technical. Trying to be most diplomatic I would just propose to all people, who cannot implement them properly in their products, to start using less demanding drivers, which do not require as much knowledge or cost less. And all of you, who prefer to listen to music instead of urban legends, I would like to invite to listen to what Dr. Gauder was able to get from the “non-musical” Accuton. It is juicy, caramel sweet and at the same time incredibly quick and linear. We get incredible communicativeness, not being exposed to a close-up stage, which is not to everybody’s liking. It is similar with the treble, although I did not fear it would be different, because I have not heard a badly tuned diamond tweeter, at least not from Gauder, and such driver is placed in the tested speakers. But to not keep things to cozy, instead of an „aroused lady”, as one of my colleagues tends to say, in the likes of Roberta Mameli, I reached for “Shapeshifting” of Joe Satriani, a disc, which would immediately show us any shortcomings of the Darc. Especially because Joe is not sparing his beautiful, chromed Ibanez (JS30th), extracting sounds from it, which would confuse any flying around bat. And everything was top notch with the 140. With appropriate drive, but without offensive aggressiveness and granulation. Of course, when a riff was to sound rough, it did, but only when this was a desired effect, intentionally recorded as such, and not as a result of the tweeter being incapable of reproducing things properly.

This time, instead of the usual summary, I have an advice for You. After you listen to the Darc, but not a random one, but at least a few hours long, preferably a few days long, in your own listening room, I recommend to not to listen to any other speakers for a day or two. Because, and I say this with real sorrow, there are not many loudspeakers on the market, to which you can switch from the Gauder Darc 140, and the change will not hurt.

Marcin Olszewski

System used in this test:
– CD transport: CEC TL 0 3.0
– DAC: dCS Vivaldi DAC 2.0
– Reference clock: Mutec REF 10
– Reclocker: Mutec MC-3+USB
– Shunyata Research Sigma CLOCK
– Shunyata Sigma NR
– Preamplifier: Robert Koda Takumi K-15
– Power amplifier: Gryphon Audio Mephisto Stereo
– Loudspeakers: Dynaudio Consequence Ultimate Edition
– Speaker Cables: Tellurium Q Silver Diamond
– IC RCA: Hijri „Million”, Vermouth Audio Reference
– IC XLR: Tellurium Q Silver Diamond
– Digital IC: Harmonix HS 102
– Power cables: Harmonix X-DC 350M2R Improved Version, Furutech NanoFlux NCF Furutech DPS-4 + FI-E50 NCF(R)/ FI-50(R), Hijiri Nagomi; Vermouth Audio Reference Power Cord
– 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: 90 000€, 99 000€ (Diamond ver.)

Specifications
Construction: 3-way floorstanding loudspeaker with extended bass-reflex system
Impedance: 4 Ω
Power Handling: 820 W
Dimensions (H x W x D): 190 x 22 x 35 cm
Weight: 100 kg