It was the year 1984. At that time loudspeakers had to be gigantic and technically complicated. This was when SA introduced its first loudspeaker, and the press was amazed and wrote: ”This loudspeaker sets new standards”. But this loudspeaker was not like the others. It was a compact speaker with big sound. A loudspeaker that was created in fascination of excellent sound – and not just technology. A loudspeaker that showed a new way.

It was Ole Witthøft, who founded System Audio A/S back in 1984. For a long time he had been looking for some really good loudspeakers and as a musician he knew how music should sound. Ole explains: ”There were no loudspeakers that could reproduce the music in a live way. Most of them sounded boring. If you do not hear the details of the sound or sense the feeling because the reproduction is too poor, then you will never experience how exciting music can be. I wondered why the loudspeakers were competing about the best technical specifications when it is the sound that matters”. Therefore he decided to build his own loudspeakers. Within a few years the demand for Ole Witthøft’s loudspeakers increased and in 1984 System Audio A/S was a reality. Today Ole Witthøft is head of the R/D department and constantly working to ensure that SA loudspeakers will keep on showing new ways.

SA loudspeakers are sold almost worldwide. Our customers are people that love excellent sound for music and movies, but also recording studios, TV stations and musicians of all ages. Ole Witthøft explains: ”We do not only make loudspeakers for experts, everybody is able to appreciate good sound. Our aim is to make the difference so big that anyone can hear it.”

We will not contribute to the confusion that loudspeakers are just about technology. To SA it is clear that true quality comes from the sound and the loudspeakers ability to function as a piece of furniture.

When meeting the audio industry, the mega-stores will tell you that you should expect for your loudspeakers (in plastic) to be included for free in your music system and the price for such a system corresponds to the price for a pair of good shoes. Others will tell you that you should listen to the music on your computer because that is “good enough”. Some will tell you that a loudspeaker is about design because you can't hear the difference anyway. You will be recommended to read hi-fi magazines where the ”journalists” magnify their personal ideas into truth. They will tell you that sound is a very complicated thing and in order to understand the subject, you have to read a hi-fi magazine. Some will tell you that loudspeakers cost yearly pay and require that you re-arrange your living room or your house. Almost everybody will tell you that you must be interested in technology because this is where the real difference in loudspeakers is to be found. SA does not agree to any of those attitudes. Our company that has no roots within the audio industry. We do not want to contribute to the confusion. We rather want to contribute to understanding.

We know that all people have the ability of appreciating good sound. This is a human quality. Small children enjoy good music before they can read and write! You only need to listen to an orchestra for very few seconds before you can judge whether the musicians are in good shape today or whether the spirit is missing. Music follows us through all of our lives, intensifies and emphasises feelings and keeps memories. Music is understood and used by all people and can describe meanings and feelings where words alone are not enough. And if you have tried just once to watch a movie without sound, you know that the sound is at least half of a movie experience.

It is wrong to think that design is just a way of “wrapping” a product. It is not that simple. SA sees the design as the ability of the product to function in the real world. When we realise that it is the acoustics in most living rooms that is the biggest hindrance to obtain good sound, it is the design in our loudspeakers that makes them less sensitive to the acoustics of the living room than conventional speakers. It is an electro-acoustic design, but it is still design. If we were not interested in electro-acoustic design, we would just expect you to change your living room when you buy loudspeakers. It is also design when we think of the way the loudspeaker co-operates with the amplifier, and makes the loudspeaker a so-called “easy load”. SA does not produce amplifiers so who could accuse us if we said that it is the amplifier producers’ responsibility to adjust their products to our loudspeakers? Because we do not want to require that you buy a new hi-fi system, when you buy new loudspeakers. Design is to think of how the product functions in the best possible way. And SA sees it as a task that includes all the technical disciplines at the same time as form and colours. This makes our idea of design incontrovertible and universal as you cannot discuss whether a loudspeaker should function in the acoustics of a room, because it must. Or if the loudspeaker has to co-operate with an amplifier, because it must. You cannot either talk about whether a loudspeaker sounds better, when it is placed visibly in the living room or as a central piece of furniture, because it does. This is the task: to make the loudspeaker beautiful enough to deserve a placement among the other furniture. In other words you cannot help designing a product, but you can make it difficult for the product to function in the real world, and this is poor design. Design is a language. It is not spoken by those who do not have anything on their minds