Even in the construction of the housing, Oliver Göbel attaches great importance to the prevention of unwanted resonances. For the base, where the crossover is housed, and the woofer chambers, he chose a composite strip material composed of paper and resin known in the mechanical engineering field. It is similar to the well known Pertinax, but made with a much higher quality epoxy resin. This material with a thickness of 20 mm can only be machined with diamond cutters. The 15 mm thick baffle, as well as the top of the speaker where the bending wave driver is mounted, is made of solid aluminum. The top element of the speaker is made from a 60 kilogram massive aluminum block – “Money was no object” when it came to the production cost in the development of the Epoque Series: It was only important to show what is sonically possible with the patented Göbel bending wave technology. During the nearly three years of development time for technology and design, the merely self-imposed restriction: In the total strive for perfection, the speaker must be living room friendly and not take up too much space. You can see at first glance that this was 100% accomplished with the Fine, and the placement of second bass module array above the bending wave driver looks like an interesting technical sculpture, not like a clumsy speaker – of course given the appropriate ceiling height.

Back to the internal qualities: Of the six aluminum bass diaphragms on the front and back, only two are driven by a voice coil. Two diaphragms per woofer enclosure are only moved by the backward radiated energy from the active driver. The woofers manufactured in China have a long voice coil on a fiberglass former, moving in a short magnetic gap with a large linear stroke. The drivers are specially optimized for use in the Epoque Fine and Reference: the spider, surround and the diaphragm are manufactured according to Göbel’s specifications. Good contacts and the successful cooperation between the Göbel Audio GmbH and the manufacturer really paid off here. In the Reference, four 32-ohm woofers work in parallel and in the Fine there are two 16-ohm versions. In the rather complex crossover - three tuned circuits are required just for linearization of the bending wave driver - only components from Mundorf are employed. But even the vacuum impregnated zero ohm coils are baked at Göbel with epoxy resin. The crossover separates the woofer from the bending wave driver with a steepness of twelve decibels. A smooth crossover is provided by a further “overlapping” area as well as the exact spatial positioning of each driver to another. Speaker feet by Finite Elements and WBT nextgen terminals complete the very positive overall picture.