Ø Audio Frigg 02

by Dawid Grzyb / January 20, 2025

Seven years past debuting their Icon speaker, the Norwegian company Ø Audio refreshed this design and launched two other floorstander models respectively positioned above and below it; Verdande and Frigg 02. I was sent the latter and now it’s time to tell its story. Enjoy!

The good wife

Ø Audio are no strangers to this site. In mid 2020 I had the pleasure of sampling their first commercial speaker set named Icon. I still remember well this large heavy two-way affair. Armed with side-firing ports, a 12” woofer and compression driver inside a large horn, to my ears it followed sonic aesthetics I previously experienced i.e. with Blumenhofer and Reflector Audio speakers. Here I mean big, ballsy, immediate and very much OB-like sound that I deeply enjoy. The thing is, the Icon pulled it from a reasonably compact vented frame and without the breed’s usual downsides. The final words of that review were as follows: “If non-mainstream speakers such as Ø Audio’s first effort strike you as intimidating specialist designs exclusively for niche audience, this one went beyond what its drivers or enclosure initially implied. Its interesting visual execution should be seen primarily as the measure necessary to unlock big-bore direct open-baffle-like experience, but with more reach, oomph, slam and stout control parked atop all that, whereas skilfully incorporated shout-free horns contributed to sound as accessible and coherent as it was enjoyable to listen to.” I think that the first Icon would impress me now as much as it did in 2020.In the context of its €13’000 sticker, fit ‘n’ finish and sound quality, five years ago Icon was a lot of a speaker for the coin. Today its updated version named Icon 12 wants €20’000, so considerably more. Inflation and the increasing manufacturing and material costs don’t make the €7’000 price hike any surprising.  Although I can’t possibly know whether the newcomer Icon sounds better than its predecessor without comparing the two side by side, the odds are that it does. Several years is time long enough to refine any design and make audible progress, but I digress. Today the Ø Audio roster also lists the upper-echelon Verdande horn-loaded two-way priced at €35’000, while the position of a €13’400 speaker in there belongs to Frigg 02, which is our subject this time around. Among its pricier and noticeably larger siblings, it’s only fair to see it as the company’s entry-level design aimed at shoppers with low four figures to spend on a visually conservative speaker set tailored for regular living rooms. Although Frigg 02 fits this profile, I’ll say as early as now that it also offers a lot where it truly matters.If the name Ø Audio doesn’t ring any bells, the company was established in 2016 by Sveinung Djukastein Mala, who’s been building speakers since his teenage years. That’s how he developed fondness for high efficiency and horns, which he wanted to make more domesticated, friendlier and free from their shoutiness. After reviewing his first Icon model I think that he succeeded. Sveinung has also been running his own shop – Mala Audio – in the Norway’s city of Asker. The list of 60+ audio brands distributed by this outlet is generous to say the least and busy with well-established luxurious names; Aavik, Absolare, Ansuz, Børresen, Boulder, Esoteric, Focal, Marten, TechDAS etc. Needless to say, if you’re a speaker maker, having such reference points at your disposal is extremely useful. In my Icon review I wrote that the Ø symbol in the company’s name describes a circle’s diameter and is a vowel in the Norwegian alphabet. However, from this brilliant video we learn how to properly pronounce it and that it also means strength, courtesy of Jonathan Magnus Cook. Several springs back he was one of Sveinung’s customers, who got interested in the Ø Audio project and had some ideas how to scale it up. The two Vikings joined forces and have been running the show together ever since.Ø Audio Frigg 02 had its first public debut in Radisson Blu Sobieski during the local Audio Video Show in late 2024. I visited the company’s room twice and each time it was packed. The gist of all the corridor talks was that this speaker set delivered, which was quite in line with my own observations. Jonathan and Sveinung left the gig with several new dealerships secured, including the one with the local company Szymański Audio. The owner – Bartek – told me that the list of reviewers interested in Frigg 02 was long. To add salt to injury, several pairs were ordered shortly after the show and paying customers come before our audio reporter kind. In my book that was all dandy. Standing in line is a part of the job description, I had my hands busy anyway and the idea of reviewer firsties strikes me as silly. Bartek reached out several weeks later, so sooner than expected. One Frigg 02 pair from his lot was devoted to press and dealer demos. Patience is a virtue, but publishing in English is a leverage. We set a date. Fast forward to early January 2025. A pallet with two large cardboards showed up at my doorstep. The game was afoot.Each twin cardboard housed a speaker inside a cloth bag and in-between two foamy liners that also locked a magnetized grill for it into place. The upper deck stored a box with four footers and eight bolts for them. The process of attaching these to the enclosure below was quick and straightforward. All in all, the packaging scheme was the industry’s simple yet logistics-wise reasonably secure standard. I have my ways of single-handedly managing such shipments, so extracting today’s speakers from their coffins wasn’t too difficult to me. This however clearly is a job for two adults. To get basics out of the way, Frigg 02 weighs 30kg and measures (H x W x D) 98,5 x 21 x 37cm with stock footers installed. The manufacturer declares 90dB sensitivity, 29Hz – 30kHz frequency range and 8Ω nominal impedance with the lowest dip at 3.8Ω. From this data paints the picture of a regularly sized albeit heavy speaker that promises very low reach and easy amp loading. Then again, generous bottom extension achieved from a compact cabinet says otherwise, so we’ll see.Ø Audio Verdande and Icon 12 are horn-loaded two-way designs, but Frigg 02 is a three-way speaker set, so its bass, midrange and treble are handled by their own transducers customized by SEAS for this particular project. Starting from the bottom, a 220mm woofer enjoys a 52mm titanium voice coil former specifically to lower inductance and hand-coated paper cone. The midrange driver features inverted upper surround and proper phase plug, while its titanium former and membrane carried over from the woofer shrunk in diameter respectively to 26/180mm. The tweeter’s TPCD dome unfolds into a Metamodal Spread-tow Carbon-fiber design developed to combat breakup modes, while its patented DXT waveguide was optimized with directivity control in mind, aka even dispersion within its working area. It’s worth noting that SEAS drivers aren’t exactly affordable and tailoring them to one’s individual needs isn’t either, so props to Jonathan and Sveinung for making that effort.The manufacturer doesn’t say much about Frigg 02’s crossover. What we know is that this is a hybrid low-order network built exclusively upon Jantzen’s fancy Z-Cap and Cross-Cap capacitors, Superes resistors and coils from the Iron Core Coil range, all connected in the good ‘ol point-to-point fashion. The enclosure itself is a sandwich MDF cabinet ported on the bottom and internally busy with multiple braces and damping materials, positioned strategically to eliminate standing waves within its structure. This common-sense goal also makes Frigg 02 a racy trapezoidal looker tilted towards the rear and gently narrower near the top, wherein a large opening for the midrange transducer locates and makes a tasty dipole promise to boot. The view is very nice in the flesh, while the overall execution and attention to details is high. The devil is in these after all. It seems that Jonathan and Sveinung know this all too well. The aluminium nameplate on Frigg 02’s back rocks very cool robust binding posts I haven’t seen before, while four steel legs under each speaker further elevate its already sporty aesthetics. I find these touches wholly positive and meaningful. Although that’s a matter of taste, I also think that today’s Scandinavian minimalist will fit many living rooms and please many eyes. As for its name, Norse mythology portrays goddess Frigg as Odin’s wife associated with marriage, prophecy, clairvoyance and motherhood. Turns out that she can also sing when disguised as a speaker set.My setup for the Frigg 02 loaner comprised Innous Statement server/streamer, Lampizator Horizon360 DAC and Trilogy 915R/995R analog set. The two other amps I had at my disposal – FirstWatt F7 and Enleum AMP-23R – were off the table and shortly I’ll explain why. For now let me just say that my brief exposure to Frigg 02 at the local AVS show instantly triggered me to pursue this speaker set. There it was driven by twin Electrocompaniet AW 800 M stereo power amps. When used as mono devices, these beasts do 300/600wpc into 8/4Ω and boast a damping factor of 1000. That’s respectively very high and very high. I’m mentioning this because Ø Audio’s newcomer rated at 90dB and 3.8Ω lowest dip isn’t a formidable load… in theory. In practice however its makers’ decision to use monstrous amplification wasn’t at all random. They knew what they were doing. To produce bass that is big, generously extended on the bottom and clean, a mid-sized woofer inside a compact ported enclosure demands amp control. That’s just the way it is, high damping and current provision are the price to pay. Knowing this, I had a firm notion that in my room Frigg 02 won’t sound as wicked as at the AVS gig. No matter that. The prospect of having lots of fun with this unusually voiced speaker set was on the table anyway.At the AVS, the Frigg 02 sounded immensely powerful, immediate, clean, thunderous, quick, fresh, radiant, spatially large and all in all exceptional given the sub-optimal show conditions. This high-performance MO tailored for spatial and dynamic stunts and overall ease was the benchmark I had to meet in my own listening cave, or at least try. Past unpacking, speaker positioning was the first order of business that was quickly sorted. Bottom-firing ports have their advantages. The Frigg 02 was fairly happy about little space around it, but happier with 1/2m distance to side/front walls respectively. Then bass output was spot on in terms of quantity versus the range above. Just a gentle toe in locked all images into place and almost all was peachy. There was just one tiny kink I had to iron out first.The Frigg 02 connected to my Trilogy monos set in zero-feedback class A bias produced fairly calm, slow, soft and round sound that wasn’t any close to the Ø Audio experience during the local show. At that point this was hardly a surprise. 55wpc and lower two-figure damping are the reason why 995R amps work wonders with purist full-range drives. In the context of their highly efficient kind that enjoys minimal damping and current, Frigg 02 has the exact opposite needs to sound at its best. This explains why the FirstWatt and Enleum weren’t up to the task. Luckily I had just the measure to largely meet today’s demands. When biased into class AB, 995Rs quadruple their output power and lower output-Ω by the same factor. This essentially means that their suspension gets stiffer, cruise mode disengages, turbo kicks in and RPMs go to red. Spot on. The Frigg 02 enjoyed the AB engine far more, to a point where the audible result in my room got significantly closer to the AVS sensation. I wasn’t quite there yet, for that I’d have to incorporate an amp with even lower output impedance, but it was close enough to properly wrap my head around what this speaker set was meant to do and how. On a side note, this is why I think that it would very much enjoy class D amps. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Very high output power and very low output impedance are the topology’s inherent traits after all. I’m not so sure about tubed amps for Frigg 02, so I’ll leave such combinations to other reviewers.Upon going from class A to AB on the 995Rs, some richness, seductiveness and imaging precision are traded in for raw horsepower. This time around  it was worth it. With that kind of support the Frigg 02 revealed itself as extremely gifted on all activities downstairs. Although Ø Audio don’t specify at which sensitivity dip it reaches claimed 29Hz, in my room it dug far deeper than most other floorstanders I’ve guested. Here I mean the guttural rumble that’s primarily sensible behind our chest and also the thunderous base for all above. With such elegantly executed very useful foundation, this report’s Frigg shows the middle finger to any sub assistance and quite frankly shocks given its footprint. More importantly, with sufficient amp control its upper bass, aka the culprit that causes room talk and blur when overdone, is nicely dialed down, so the entire bottom output remains as articulated, feisty, ripped, quick, elastic and effortless as it is packed with heft and color. The full-care package, all in all gorgeous. When listening to i.e. Hans Zimmer’s “Mombasa” covered by 2Cellos, that unmistakable impression of a design armed with significantly larger woofers and higher efficiency was there.The Frigg 02’s effortless authoritative delivery played the enabler for silly good bass as much as impressive imaging. Limited in-room interaction reduced spatial blur and the resulting confusion. That boosted perceived clarity, dynamic span and soundstage size. Today’s subject further elevated these traits via having its midrange driver vented on the back, so that it operated like a dipole transducer. As far as perceived openness and precision are concerned, dipole designs and full-rangers have the clear upper hand over conventional speakers. At first glance the Frigg 02 is one, but the cleverly open twist on its rear allowed it to follow the same highly desirable protocol. If fiendish bass response was one ace up its sleeve, then its unusually executed midrange was the other major asset that paid dividends in aural freshness, liberation and the lot. Those are my two explanations how this floorstander fared so brilliantly on counts which made music big, bold, direct, zesty, caffeinated, electric and alive. As such it didn’t say no to heavy bits on your playlist. Quite the contrary, it thrived on such jobs and did what my Vox monitors won’t ever do without external assistance. On that note, the recently reviewed sound|kaos Vibra 30 footers greatly elevated Frigg 02’s sound quality in my room. I think that this speaker set fully deserves such support. Vibras added some 12mm to its height but otherwise were a perfect mechanical and visual fit.In terms of the tonal balance, the Frigg 02’s potent bass heavily contributed to its grounded and somewhat earthy sound profile, while the frequency ranges above injected copious amounts of sun, shine and air into it. The result was nicely balanced, very listenable, engaging, admirably posh and also groomed for calm music. Although Frigg 02 likes to rock, its arsenal of sonic means worked very well in portraying delicate soothing instrumental and vocal tracks with smoothness, charm and dignity. I haven’t found a single reason to complain. My Vox do more for me as far as enveloping imaging and audible suchness are concerned, and I’m willing to bet that Ø Audio’s Icon 12 and Verdande slap even harder, but that’s not really relevant in the grand scheme. Just like the first Icon before it, this report’s Frigg 02 also did stunts beyond what its frame suggested. Atop that it also packed highly engaging, versatile and well-seasoned personality geared for all kinds of challenges and struck me as positively surprising where it mattered. Let’s wrap.

The first Ø Audio Icon already gave me a firm idea what kind of sound its maker Sveinung Mala enjoys. The company’s new Icon 12 and Verdande also clearly communicate that, so one could assume that the visually more mainstream Frigg 02 doesn’t pursue the family’s core voicing. In many ways it does, however. Sveinung just used non-standard means to make it so, which is the key plot twist this time around. Bass beyond reach of most other similarly sized competitors and dipole virtues pulled from its elegantly modest compact frame make Ø Audio Frigg 02 a major overachiever. This much raw performance effortlessly squeezed from externally inconspicuous speaker set meant for regular living spaces really is impressive. Some may find that puzzling, others unexpected. Either way, the result is highly entertaining and most definitely worth auditioning. All in all, job well done!

Associated Equipment:

Retail prices of reviewed components in EU (incl. VAT):

  • Ø Audio Frigg 02: €13’400/pr

 

Manufacturer: Ø Audio

 

Latest Reviews
Ø Audio Frigg 02
sound|kaos Vibra 68 and Vibra 30
FirstWatt SIT5
Audio Reveal Hercules [UPDATED]
Axxess Power Cable