Western Electric Select®, a division of Western Electric®, distributes and sells High End products. The first to qualify for WE Select is Gauder Akustik, a speaker manufacturer with a full line based in Renningen, Germany.

Roland Gauder is a physicist using extreme computing power for speaker calculations and design on a strictly mathematical basis that led to many advanced speaker innovations. “The most important speaker parameters are excellent impulse response, wide dispersion, and eliminating frequency overlap at the crossover points which only creates phase problems,” explains Mr. Gauder.

“Music consists of impulses,” he continues, “there are no sine waves in nature! Frequency response only tells part of the story, it’s impulse response that makes a speaker sound good or mediocre. We’ve tried many drivers and diaphragm materials but there’s nothing that compares to ceramic or diamond, the only materials we can say faithfully reproduce music’s impulse demands. Ultra-steep, symmetrical crossovers reduce driver overlap to the absolute minimum for extremely smooth phase response.”

The Arcona series are finished with curved cabinets; the Vescova and Cassiano are curved-cabinet construction and allow sand-loading the sidewalls. The Berlina series features unique rib construction; rather than sidewalls, single ribs are stacked one over the other creating an enclosed volume. Bottom and top covers complete the construction.

Visit them at High End 2017 in Munich, Atrium E105, press and industry meetings in E104.