Friedrich Schaefer - Founder of ASR Audio

Friedrich was born in November 1956 in Herborn in Germany, where ASR is still based. Herborn is a small town with just 20,000 people and is located a few hours north of Frankfurt. It has luscious forests, nice old buildings and a very old castle.

Friedrich went to school and high school in Herborn and was always much more interested in natural science than in soccer or other sports. The other students called him "the Professor" as his science experimentation started early and even made pocket money teaching other children in the area.

Photography was an early interest and at a young age Friedrich won accolades in a German youth experiment contest for making a machine that developed colour pictures. After school he choose not to pursue photography but Economics instead. To pay his way through university, Friedrich started designing loupspeakers and audio equipment when not studying - and so the story began!

An old school colleague with a knack for sales, Michael Rompf was reacquainted with Friedrich in 1980 and they made a company together - ASR (Audio Shaefer and Rompf) - Friedrich the designer and Michael the
salesman. In 1982 ASR had a good review in Stereoplay magazine with a large speaker and also began to design a pre amplifier called the "Basis" that year.

Soon the thought was to make a matching amplifier to the huge Basis prototype with its two power units. So Friedrich constructed a main amplifier with a volume control and high level inputs without any pre amplifier - the Emitter was born!

ASR started to find retailers to sell the Emitter in all of its variations and by 1985 they achieved raving reviews in Stereoplay. From then on, success starting rolling in and by 1988 ASR moved into a larger building of 350 square meters.

In 1990 a completely new design for the Emitter was launched whilst keeping the same beautiful and simple aesthetics. 1994 saw Michael leave the company for a love that became too strong to resist - Miss Harley Davidson! Success continued through the 1990's and Friedrich was able to pay off debts and even afford to buy a nice car.

By 2000 Friedrich again stepped up the size of the building to 2000 square meters - where ASR is now based. It was previously a military storage building with lots of rooms and is surrounded by peaceful woodlands. Each room has views to the woods and contains only one or two workers as Friedrich's philosophy is that, to design and create the very finest hand made audio, both he and his workers require a harmonious environment.

Today Friedrich has great interest in ecology and wishes to invest in solar and wind energy in the future. He listens to smooth pop and Jazz and hobbies include swimming, hiking, riding and watching the odd movie.

Friedrich has a very positive outlook for the ASR product range saying: "I wish to make even better sounding technical equipment in the future, and am happy that the ASR Products have found so my customers all over the world that enjoy music with them. Many of them had become my friends and they tell me how fun they have listening Music with ASR products – that had been designed to enrich the peoples life with Music."