PRIMARE - The sound and vision of Scandinavia

THE PRIMARE COMPANY

Everything in balance, harmony, and proportion
For over forty years, Primare, based in southern Sweden, has been designing and producing award-winning hi-fi components that bring the Scandinavian attributes of honest integrity and timeless design to a global audience.
Every Primare product reflects a commitment to Scandinavian ideals such as lagom – the sense of true satisfaction that comes from balance and harmony. Not too much. Not too little. Just right.
With a conscious approach that prioritises core values of lasting quality, ease of use and deeply satisfying performance, Primare effortlessly delivers today’s ever-expanding music and visual experiences in all their richness and variety, whether the source is analog or digital, wired or wireless, stored or streamed.

Primare – the sound and vision of Scandinavia.

THE STORY OF PRIMARE

During the early 1980’s, leading Danish industrial designer and passionate audiophile Bo Christensen set out to create a new kind of audio company. Frustrated by the sound quality, aesthetics, and user interface of typical audio gear, he created a team of designers, which included gifted engineer Bent Nielsen, to form a technology group named Primare Systems AB. Their corporate mission was, first and foremost, design components of exceptional sound quality. Secondly, the products must have an elegant appearance, precise proportions and a user-friendly interface. Additionally, it was decided to eschew the industry standard twelve-month product life cycle and instead develop “living products” that could easily evolve as technologies and methodologies changed.
The potent combination of clean Scandinavian design, simple yet elegant circuitry, and straightforward operation created audio components of uncanny originality.

PHILOSOPHY

What Guides Us

Primare is a Scandinavian company, and many of the distinctive characteristics of the brand are rooted in Scandinavian culture – in a particular way of living, and of experiencing music and film. An inherent part of the cultural landscape of Scandinavia is the idea that in all things there should be a sense of proportion and balance, of all elements working cohesively together.

Lagom

Lagom (“laah-goam”) is the Swedish word for this: roughly meaning “just the right amount.” Not too much. Not too little. Everything in perfect balance, harmony, and proportion. Implicit in our definition of lagom is the sense that no aspect of a Primare product, in either appearance or performance, should draw attention to itself – that the music should be the primary experience and the perception of technology at work should disappear.
For thirty years Primare has embodied this holistic design approach. Each and every product is a harmonious blend of technology and functionality, the components having been developed to deliver effortless audio purity and ease of use. The many design and production innovations that enable a Primare component to deliver uniquely harmonious and balanced performance can be illustrated, but there is no measure of its ability to exhilarate and satisfy. That feeling is immeasurable. Ultimately, and true to this idea of lagom, the Primare experience simply feels right.
Lagom – when things simply feel right. You will know it when you see and hear Primare.

Hygge

hygge (“heu-gah”) is a Danish word that is often translated as “cozy.” But the word hygge means so much more, and may be considered the highest expression of living – that deep satisfaction of time well spent, of sharing food, drink, music, and movies with family and friends in the simple celebration of everyday living.
Hygge seems to be a direct response to the harsh and unforgiving, yet spectacular and inspiring, natural world of Scandinavia – where there’s a deep and abiding connection felt for the earth and, particularly, the unique landscape and climate. There, the long, dark winter is not necessarily something to be endured, but rather enjoyed, in part because it allows for the most intense moments of hygge.
Hygge almost invariably involves being around a fire or candle to provide a sense of warmth and well-being. By extension, Primare components are designed with hygge in mind, in a sense to take the role of this flame.
Primare’s goal is to provide performance that allows for a deeply satisfying shared experience of music and film – to heighten the hygge.

Practical Design Approach

Primare practices a practical design approach. Product development is based on sound fundamental principles of thoroughly implemented power supply designs and artfully crafted ultra-short signal paths, so that each individual component and sub circuit operates sympathetically to achieve a cohesive whole.
Primare constantly scans the horizon for new developments, and is often at the forefront of new technologies, having been among the first to embrace streaming and stored digital technologies, as well as class D amplification for true high-end performance. However, product development decisions are never made with marketing in mind – for the purposes of drawing attention. Rather a new feature is implemented or component part used only if a profound performance improvement will be realized.
For this reason, Primare prefers to perfect rather than pioneer; to produce only products that significantly improve upon what was previously available, with fierce devotion to using whatever technology can provide the best experience, and with a steadfast conviction to building products that have the broadest possible long-term use value.