Напольная акустика — Gauder Akustik DARC 240 MK II

The DARC 240 MK II is the bass-column model of the aluminium DARC MK II series from Gauder Akustik, the Renningen company near Stuttgart. Its defining idea is a stack of four woofers in a slim tower, which Gauder chose because a single large bass unit tends to drive the resonant modes of a domestic living room unevenly, while four smaller cones spread along the height excite the space more evenly. Above the woofers sits a conventional upper section, so the DARC 240 stays a three-way design rather than moving to the diamond midrange modules used in the costlier DARC towers. A pair costs EUR 99,998 at German list price.

Key specs that matter

Gauder calls the DARC 240 MK II a three-way quadruple bass reflex loudspeaker. Nominal impedance is 4 ohm and the published power handling is 1,250 W. The tower measures 196 cm in height, 30 cm in width and 45 cm in depth, and each unit weighs 138 kg. The black XPulse drivers are hand-selected, and the woofer-midrange uses the mass-optimised XPulse sandwich cone. Treble comes from an ultralight beryllium dome as standard. Finishes are brushed aluminium or powder coat in black, white, silver or anthracite, while the damping ribs sandwiched between the metal layers come in black, white, silver or gold. Gauder quotes no efficiency or bandwidth for this model.

Engineering and use context

Inside, the enclosure is split into three chambers, two of them vented and one sealed. The walls are formed from solid aluminium ribs with damping layers packed between them, which stops vibration from travelling through the metal and removes the ringing that a plain aluminium box would add. The symmetrical crossover carries Mundorf parts and works with slopes of 60 dB per octave, and Time Delay Control holds back the tweeter feed. Gauder puts the electrical lag created by crossover inductors at about 2 ms, against only 0.1 ms caused by the physical offset of the drivers, so the circuit corrects the larger of the two errors. The beryllium tweeter can later be swapped for a diamond dome without changing the crossover. Clearwater cable runs inside, and a Big Foot base carries spikes that are adjusted from above.

Pairing

That low nominal load, shared by the woofer stack, asks for a transistor power amplifier able to deliver generous current. The Bass Extension jumper shapes the low end - with it inserted the bass reaches about an octave deeper, but impedance falls between 25 Hz and 35 Hz, so pulling it raises the load and lets a lower-powered valve amplifier cope. WBT NextGen bi-wiring posts allow two amplifier channels per side.

Alternatives

The Gauder Akustik DARC 500 MK II keeps the four-woofer column but moves to a four-way layout with a ceramic and diamond midrange and treble unit.