Hiquphon 20mm - 3/4 inch soft dome tweeter type OW I, OW II, OW3, OW4, the new OW3 and OW4 and more. Designed and produced in Denmark since 1983.

Oskar Wrønding and loudspeakers, the beginning....a brief historical survey.

In 1983 Oskar Wrønding resigned from Scan-Speak after 10 years employment.
Those 10 years showed out to be to mutual benefit for both Scan-Speak and for Oskar, who now had evolved into a highly skilled acoustical engineer with a valuable expert knowledge for design and production of loudspeaker drive units.
And even more important: Oskar had now gained a unique reputation of uncompromising search for the highest technical quality possible and with his very high personal credibility "Oskar Wrønding" (OW) has become a well known loudspeaker and business brand ever since.

Before that.....
In 1973 Oskar Wrønding, had just finished his military service and were looking for a job within his basic education as an electronic engineer. Scan-Speak were hiring engineers, and Oskar saw the add, applied and was right away appointed as a production quality engineer.
At that time Scan-Speak had about 200 employees! An exiting company, fast growing. Engineers from SEAS in Norway were hired to develop a new series of loudspeaker units. New patents (SD and Hexagonal voice coil) were introduced and all in all it seemed a very interesting company at the time.
Oskar soon after became involved in production planning and making of speaker elements and quality control in the years 1973 -1976.

Since 1977 Oskar Wrønding was appointed head of all product design, development, production and finally technical manager of Scan Speak during the years 1977-1983. In 1977 Scan-Speak was more or less down coursed by serious money problems. If not Oskar had accepted to take the full technical responsibility for design and production in 1977, Scan-Speak would probably have disappeared at that time.
Luckily things went well again from 1977 and in 1978 Oskar designed a new factory in Pandrup which became the home of Scan-Speak during 1978 - 1987 when it was burned down by a former employee who disagreed with the leader ship at that time.
Sadly. It was such a nice building.

In the last couple of years with Scan-Speak, Oskar's working conditions became more limited and difficult when a fast increasing disagreement with the financial owner of Scan-Speak made a break inevitable.

Oskar Wrønding, being a non-compromising engineer focused on best design and best product found himself being increasingly often urged by the owner to compromise on quality as the owner wanted more (cheap) products made in Taiwan to generate higher profit. At that time this meant a clear deterioration to quality. And they should still be sold as "made in Denmark"! Oskar did not approve that and would not use his good reputation for that purpose.

Like audio enthusiasts have appreciated for years now (although lately again being nervous as Scan-Speak is not in Denmark anymore and like most other brands are now more or less produced in China without the close and dedicated danish team involved anymore), Scan-Speak later became a successful company when they were taken under the economic wings of VIFA now with a new crowd of skilled technicians, now again (at least for many years thereafter) producing all products in Denmark....now, what did I say? :-)

Loudspeaker drive units for DIY made in Denmark
....a brief historical survey....

Within audio circles Denmark during decades was know for its many loudspeaker factories (especially loudspeaker drive units) designing and producing high quality and at the same time high quantity during generations.
Speaker brands like Peerless, VIFA (SEAS in Norway - still going strong - was started by employees from Videbæk Højttaler Fabrik - VIFA) and the newer (1972- ) Scan-Speak are no longer Danish companies (the new owners are American based Thymphany while this is written) - they may not be tomorrow, as things change fast) and most of their product are made in China, which of course is quite ok and most certainly is very economically wise, but to many DIY speaker enthusiasts it means that they are now "just another speaker company".

Today maybe only two independent small companies Audio Technology and Hiquphon are still active in Denmark producing high quality loudspeaker drive units available for DIY enthusiasts. There are a few other manufacturers but they are either not Danish owned and/or they produce drive units for their own speaker production or OEM for third party manufacturers only.
Not for the DIY communities or small scale upcoming designers.

Hiquphon lead by Oskar Wrønding and Audio Technology lead by Per Skaaning are not related in any way. We have a mutual respect for each others professional dedication to music reproduction and may recommend each others products as being a good mix in most loudspeaker designs.

There is nothing wrong with quantity as such, but very often quantity and big money governed by highly efficient business people will out-compete and renounce the idea of good old high quality when they take over.

This may be good for the big majority of audio users not asking for the superior quality as they often will be able to buy their speakers at a lower price. But not always …. sometimes higher profit is the only obvious change.

Unfortunately for those who can hear a difference and can't live with the second best this means that they must look careful around to find what can fill their needs.

We have seen it again and again. In Denmark we used to have quite a number of dedicated factories only a few years ago.

Now most of them are closed in Denmark, vanished with fast efficient business people who focus on money before dedication to quality and history. Therefore the dedicated, passionate, innovative designs of high quality acoustical Danish designed speaker products seem to disappear. What a waist as so many good people during so many years have build up a fantastic base of knowledge in this profession. Now this knowledge will be forgotten and in many ways have to be invented all over again in a new part of the world, but only as long as it is profitable.

So, in 1983 Hiquphon was founded by Oskar Wrønding (OW).

Since our start in 1983, when Hiquphon was founded by Oskar Wrønding (OW), the main goal has been to develop, produce and sell worldwide the ultimate musical 20mm (3/4") dome tweeter, targeted the High End home/domestic Hi-Fi market….to music with love…

Today, more than 100,000 hard working tweeters later, spreading musical pleasure over the world, we can proudly say that "mission is accomplished".

DIY Car Audio communities have discovered our soft dome tweeters too. Beginning in Asia years ago Car Fi enthusiasts have discussed and recommended to each other by word of mouth the Hiquphon tweeters great performance. Today quite a number of tweeters have been installed in cars worldwide.

Since 1998 we have been known for our closely matched tweeter pairs, which adds a very important extra value to loudspeakers. Because of that and because of their low distortion and very broad banded and linear characteristics, several music recording studios are now using our tweeters. These studio guys very much appreciate the closely matched, reliable and well defined tweeters as they are so easy to implement. They also appreciate our ability to quickly produce a perfect clone should a tweeter be destroyed by accident. We can produce an exact copy based on the data that we keep filed for every single unit we sell. This is part of our standard policy for the OW tweeter series. So they can maintain the sound picture they are used to.

Hiquphon has ever since the start back in 1983 been fully owned by Oskar Wrønding (OW).
Our company facilty is situated in the same very fine old farmhouse that OW rebuild and converted to accommodate Hiquphon as well as his private household. You will find us just about a mile north from Pandrup city, a small town in North West Jutland, a good part of Denmark with rich nature and close to the North Seas big waters and its very broad sand beach. The nearby Blokhus is visited by just about a million people during the year. We live 6 km from that beach.

We live about 6 km from the North Sea (the open waters between Denmark and Great Britain) and thus within minutes we can reach the big waters and enjoy a fresh walk at the beach listening to the roaring waves and watch the screaming seagulls gracefully challenge the wind.

Mr. Oskar Wrønding, with now more than 30 years of experience in sound reproduction, is personally responsible and involved in all research, development, production, quality control, sales and administration. Always designing for better musicality and producing without compromise in quality.

Ever since our start in 1983 and many years ahead Hiquphon supplied thousands of tweeters to legendary Linn Products, UK. Speakers like Isobarik, Kan, Sara and Nexus became new homes for Hiquphon developed and produced tweeters like D20-LP-1 and D20-LP-2. Even today, 24 years later, we still supply these legendary tweeters to Linn. A remarkable lifetime for loudspeaker elements in a market where changing design just to look different is very common!

Since 1984 also US based Fried Products Corporation headed by legendary Irving M. Fried ("Bud" among friends) took large numbers of our tweeters (our D2094-9008-FS ... etc) . Techniko in Germany distributed our dome tweeters to many small high end brands in Germany, Pawel Acoustic (and Ensemble) who started to have our gold models back in late 1990`th.

Today we supply dome tweeters to many small dedicated High End speaker manufacturers in almost every corner of this planet, the Asian market now growing fast overtaking the position of United States and the European countries both being stable high valued interesting markets during now many years.

Hiquphon, the tweeters: Why consider using them? Is it safe?

Well, I guess our motto explains why: to music with love...

The love of good music is the driving force behind our success and our most important tools are Mr. Wrønding' s long experience and high dedication to perfection.

Every single unit is tested twice with a full range analog sine sweep while listening for any irregularities and once in an automatic test setup sweeping full range to check for response and impedance acceptance and at the same time verify and save to file all tested units before they leave Hiquphon. For that purpose we use computerized equipment from Audio Precision (AP) and Brüel & Kjaer (B&K).

Test curves of every single unit are filed in a database and can be recovered at any time and used to make a copy of any specific unit if for instance a customer for some reason has destroyed a tweeter.

Since our start in 1983 we have produced more than 100,000 dome tweeters. Only few of these have ever returned to Hiquphon as faulty. And just about always examination show that they have suffered from heavy overload, resulting in a fried or melted voice coil. The percentage of errors caused by Hiquphon is extremely low. Lower than 0,05%.

Among our customers you will find very reputable manufacturers of fine High End equipment. A great number of small and medium sized dedicated High End manufacturers all over the world use our excellent tweeters.

More than 99% of our production is exported, and we supply from 2 units per order/shipment and up! DIY customers are also very welcome in our "shop". Also a few agents outside Denmark will be ready to serve you. See the "How to buy" section.

If perfect reliable quality is your preference - Hiquphon is an excellent choice! Our prices correspond to the high quality but are in fact most reasonable - and precision of delivery is like the rest almost perfect. Of course...
to music with love...