Marten was founded by Leif Mårten Olofsson in Sweden in 1998, but the story goes back further. In the early 1900’s, Leif’s grandfather Josef Olofsson built violins using Stradivarius as a benchmark. An instrument that was played by Mårten Larsson, his maternal grandfather.
In the 70’s, Leif made his first speakers in the family home. A hobby which he was keenly interested in from an early age.
From the first speaker Mingus, the product range has grown in to Five series, a recording studio and a record label. The company was born out of passion and has grown steadily, gaining success and respect ever since.
Marten is still a family business today, run by Leif and his brothers, Jörgen and Lars Olofsson.
On the West coast of Sweden our team work with care and attention, whether it's constructing cabinets, assembling speakers or producing music in our recording studio, we draw on a wealth of experience. The saying goes that "Many hands make light work", but it's not a numbers game for us—our people are skilled, knowledgeable and hard-working.
In the interactive video below, we take you behind-the-scenes of our production and studio.
Behind-the-scenes
Behind-the-scenes
Behind-the-scenes
Behind-the-scenes
When Leif started making speakers, he wanted to hear something that didn’t exist. He wanted to hear music as it was in real life.
Sound in our natural environment isn’t coloured; Leif wanted to make a speaker that accurately reproduced the truth and beauty of natural sound. That dream turned a hobby in to a business.
It’s still a strong part of the Marten ethos and steers product design and development.
Our love of music leads the design of Marten speakers – we want to deliver music as it was recorded.
In the Summer of 2014, we created our own recording studio and brought live music to our offices in Gothenburg. With reference model Coltrane Supreme 2 in mind, we designed a dual microphone studio.
The studio was the cornerstone in the development of our flagship speaker, Coltrane Supreme 2. It was the first speaker to use Cell drivers combined with a first order crossover: a new direction for our design strategy, made possible by our studio.
MARTEN STUDIO
360°
We produce high fidelity recordings on our record label, Marten Recordings. Working with talented artists such as Rhythm Art Duo, Matti Ollikainen and Duo Granmo Berg we can get closer to the music.
Our first recording album, Supreme Sessions, helped us narrow the gap between live music and the home listening experience. It gave us the perfect feedback loop.
All albums are recorded in our state-of-the-art, dual microphone studio in Sweden.