The Wizard of Ås

Below is the raw transcript of an interview with Thorbjørn Sigberg, nicknamed The Wizard of Ås. The questions are a mix of what we thought would be interesting, and some questions sent in by existing Sigberg Audio owners. We hope you find it both interesting and entertaining!

Before we start, just so I know, what do you hope to get out of this interview?

I don't know, I guess I hope people will realize I'm awesome and funny, and go buy our speakers?

Yees, I'm not sure that's how it works, but let's go with that. Okay, first question! 

Hit me!

What on earth does "The Wizard of Ås" mean?

The original, Norwegian term was "Trollmannen fra Ås", which literally means "The Wizard of Ås". It is a play of words on the movie title "The Wizard of Oz", and was coined by early Sigberg Audio fans here in Norway.

I have a dedicated listening room in the basement of my house in a town called Ås. In the early days, fans and potential buyers who came there to listen to both finished speakers and prototypes were amazed by how good it sounded. They started referring to me as The Wizard of Ås, and it sort of stuck. It is very humbling of course. I will try to not let it get to my head. Who am I kidding, it already did! 

And who is The Wizard of Ås? Tell us about your background and how many cats you have. Wizards always have cats, right?

Haha. I actually have two cats, and also a huge dog, who hates the cats. So that's a problem. Anyway, I also live with a wife and two sons. We live (surprise, surprise) in Ås, a small university town south of Oslo, Norway. Twenty minutes from the legendary Seas loudspeaker factory.

My background is originally in IT and product development. It's this background that has given me a startup mindset, enabling me to build and commercialize high quality products fast and iteratively. That, combined with a life long passion for both music and hifi. And a combined attitude of "I've never done this before, so I'm sure I'll do great" and "If you can do it, I can do it better". Those are both important when starting a business. 

What is the secret sauce or hidden magic? How are you able to make such awesome speakers?

That is a good question I sometimes ask myself as well. How can my speakers be better than those from the large, established manufacturers? It's an interesting question that I don't think has a simple answer. I guess I have a talent for voicing speakers, and a lucky mix of competencies. I think many brands have a focus that is a bit too narrow, missing the big picture. Some know more about building beautiful cabinets than they do about science and sound design. Others are so deeply focused on science and engineering that they forget that in the end it's about making music sound great. 

I also have friends and colleagues in the business who have helped in many ways. I would not be where I am today without their support. Helping sort good ideas from bad, as well as provide both technical and commercial advice. And of course the relentless support from my wife. She made me say that - haha, no seriously, support from your family is always very important!

Do you think your development process and approach is different from other manufacturers? 

I don't know the details of how others do their development, so that's hard to say. I focus 100% on making speakers that can play the widest possible set of music genres, and make it sound the best it can possibly sound. I'm also a sucker for huge soundstage and three dimensional sound, so I strive for that in all our systems.

Achieving that great sound can't be done by just listening, and it can't be done by just measuring either. You have to do both. I also do rapid, iterative development that quickly moves us towards a great sounding speaker that can be made into a product. Sometimes an idea doesn't work out, and then I'll happily change the product significantly from the original idea.

Sigberg Audio speakers are relatively expensive. Is that a deliberate decision?

I don't work against a goal for cost or margins. I design and develop the speaker I want to make, and then the price is a result rather than the goal. That prevents me from making lots of compromises during the design phase. Our speakers are expensive, but not compared to the competition or compared to what you get for the price.

The price is almost a problem, in the sense that people who already have even more expensive speakers don't consider Sigberg Audio as an alternative. They absolutely should.

Made in Norway, what does that mean? Do you do all manufacturing here in Norway?

Our speakers are designed, developed, tested and assembled in Norway. But we do not do component manufacturing. Some manufacturers take pride in doing everything themselves, that's awesome. That is not the right strategy for us. There are already fantastic specialists out there, why not utilize them? So we source components from other high quality manufacturers, most of them located in Europe.

We outsource cabinet production to one of the best cabinet manufacturers in Europe. We use OEM drivers from some of the best driver manufacturers in the world (Scan-Speak, Sica and Wavecor). We purchase amplifiers from one of the best amplifier manufacturer in the world (Hypex). 

You said you have a passion for music and hifi, how did that start?

I started playing the violin at the age of two, and then..haha, no, I am not sure exactly. My parents enjoyed music and had a hifi system, but they were not musicians or anything like that. I think my main passion for hifi originated from my uncle who worked with electronics and was a DIY audio enthusiast. Our Manta speakers are named in his honor (read more about that in our story about the Manta). I've had a hifi system of my own since I was 8-10 years old (a classic receiver and loudspeakers from Norwegian Tandberg), and had countless speakers and components since then. 

Music is a lifelong passion, I'm not sure how that came to be either. I just think it's amazing how music has the ability to take us back in time. To the best summer of your life, or perhaps a winter of broken hearts. Whenever I hear a particular song from my teens or some other special time in my life, it evokes a memory or sometimes just a feeling. It's also crazy how there are endless combinations and ways of arranging music, and endless genres and styles. It's a neverending journey of exploration and amazement. Music is just awesome!

You make awesome speakers. What is the definition of an awesome speaker? What is important in a speaker in your opinion?

That's another good and difficult question. I think it is important that a speaker has good capacity in the low end, so that it is full range or very close to full range in that regard. I also think it's important to have great dynamic capacity. A surprising number of high end speakers are horrible in this aspect.

I don't expect our customers to play super loud all the time, but many find it fun to crank the volume to 11 from time to time. Either to impress their friends, throw a party or just enjoy their favorite tracks. And that should be a fun and enjoyable experience. Some speakers fall apart at louder levels, and is messy and even painful to listen to. Not Sigberg Audio.

Great dynamic capacity rewards you with low distortion at moderate levels as well, making the sound feel effortless and true to life. So it's not only a benefit when playing loud.

I know you also think speakers should be easy to set up, and work for "normal" music, not just fancy hifi recordings?

That's absolutely right. A good speaker shouldn't be too picky about what you play. Of course a poor recording will be revealed as such through a really good speaker, but it shouldn't be harsh or difficult to listen to. A slightly warm tonality helps if you listen to older recordings. So to be able to easily adjust the tonality of the system is also beneficial. 

Finally I love a huge and immersive soundstage, where sound comes from everwhere in the room rather than from the speakers. This is a property of the speakers, but the room also plays a large part. So to get the full benefit of this property you need a decent listening space. But our speakers are designed to sound good out of the box, without having to be an expert, and without having a dedicated listening space. If you room is suboptimal, if you have to place the speakers close to the wall, that's perfectly fine! We're also happy to support customers after their purchase to get everything dialed in properly.

If you do have an awesome room, and if you do have the competence to utilize the advanced on board EQ, it will of course be even better. But you don't have to do that. You'd think you need a degree to set up an advanced active speaker, but it is as easy as with a traditional passive speaker, and sounds even better! 

Since you mention the room, what does your personal listening space look like? What do you do to get that massive soundstage?

I have a dedicated listening room of about 20m^2 with moderate acoustic treatments on the walls, and also covering the ceiling above the entire listening space. The floor is also carpeted. The decay in the room is around 200-250ms. The speakers and listening position is roughly an equal triangle. Since this room is sometimes used to demonstrate our systems, I have all our products including a couple of prototypes available in this room, and cycle through them quite frequently. Usually I have dual subwoofers active. This room sounds really good!

I guess many are wondering why you have chosen to go the route of speaker systems designed to be paired with subwoofers rather than traditional, full range speakers?

I've had systems with subwoofers for as long as I can remember. To me, standalone speakers can never compete with a properly integrated system with subwoofers. But even if you have subwoofers, performance is left on the table when the speakers are designed to be played without them. This approach of designing speakers for subwoofers from the ground up just makes sense. It means better performance in the entire frequency range, better dynamics and a more effortless sound. 

That's certainly a pretty unique approach. So with that in mind, which brands do you think is the main competition?

I don't want to name any specific brands, but I would say other young, contemporary brands making active speakers are likely to be considered as alternatives by potential customers. Possibly some of the more engineering based passive speaker manufacturers as well. 

Our speakers are the best, obviously, so it should be an easy choice!

Perhaps we should edit that answer and add "haha, just joking", so you come across as a bit more humble?

Nah, that's fine. It's not bragging if it's true, right?

Hm, I'm not sure about that..

Whatever! Are we done then?

Uh, yes, I think it's best we wrap it up. Thank you for your time!

You're welcome! And to anyone who reads this, while we can jest and joke here, know that we are dead serious about our speakers and subwoofers.

Thank you for reading this and for your interest in our products. Contact us if you have any additional questions beyond what we've touched upon in this interview! 

 

See Also:

The Sigberg Audio approach and The Sigberg Audio Story