
Here is the highly interesting story of HANOWA/Solton Acoustics or the brands, which is just too impressive not to show.
(1972) FOUNDATION

Founding of the SOLTON Music company by Josef Sperl and establishment of the administration and production facility in Pocking Germany, focusing on the manufacture of guitar and bass tube amplifiers and loudspeaker cabinets.
(1975) INTERNATIONAL BREAKTHROUGH
The major international breakthrough came with the development and production of the first two-piece, easy-to-transport rotor cabinets manufactured in Europe by SOLTON.
(1975/2) FATS DOMINO & SOLTON

1975 – 1976 Fats Domino toured Europe with complete SOLTON audio equipment.
Meanwhile, SOLTON audio equipment is also the first choice for Bata Illic, Vico Torriani, HeidiBrühl, Ireen Sheer, Les Clochards, Ambros Seelos, Contis, and other world-famous singers and bands.
(1975/6) HANOWA & SOLTON
In 1975, HANOWA entered into a strategic collaboration with SOLTON.
(1976) BILL HALEY

Bill Haley (King of Rock’s Roll) went on a European tour with complete SOLTON equipment.
(1979) ORGAN BUSINESS
SOLTON enters the organ business in collaboration with CRB Italy.
(1981) Frankfurt Music Fair

SOLTON exhibits for the first time at the Frankfurt Pro audio Exhibition and attracts many visitors.
(1981/2) KETRON

Founding a sister company in Italy (Ketron) and starting of development of state-of-the-art keyboard technology.
(1983) PIANO PRODUCTION
Start of SOLTON piano production in Kronach Germany and establishment of the piano brand Klug & Sperl.
Pianos of the Klug & Sperl brand are still on the market.
(1987) COOPERATION WITH TESLA
Expansion of the production of amplifiers in cooperation with TESLA (Czech Republic) Presentation at the Frankfurt Fair of intelligent processor systems for PA systems.
(1989) HANOWA introduces the C-series
C2, C5
(1991) HANOWA A-280 Audio Equalizer

Hanowa launches the A-280 audio equalizer, sales reach 500,000 units.
(1992) PIANO COLLABORATION
Piano cooperation with Petrof and IFM (Czech Republic).
(1994) SOLTON KEYBOARDS

Introduction of the most successful SOLTON keyboards MS 50 – MS 60 one of the best-selling keyboards in the world.
(2006) FOCUSING ON “HIGH CLASS” PA
Restructuring of the company focusing on the production of SOLTON “High Class” PA equipment from entertainers to large events and installations.
(2015) TM speakers brand of SOLTON

ZTM Speakers, a professional high-end audio brand of SOLTON located in Bavaria, Germany.
The product range includes high-end installation speakers, monitors, professional vocal, stereo, and multi-channel speaker series.
(2016) HANOWA SOLAR SYSTEM SERIES (customizations are possible)

HANOWA launches the Solar System series, which includes the models GEMINI, MERCURY, and others.
(2017) HANOWA HIFI Exhibition
In April 2017, HANOWA participated in the Shanghai International High-End HIFI Exhibition with its home theater products.
HANOWA Wire was initially introduced in limited quantities.
(2017) ZTM Speakers exhibition

ZTM Speakers participated in the 26th Beijing Sound and Light Exhibition in Beijing, China
(2019) HANOWA – HIGH-END MUNICH 2019

(2020) ZTM Speakers 2020 flagship series
ZTM Speakers launches its flagship series IW with a completely new design
Models include: IW18 / IW28
(2021) HANOWA PERFORMER Series

In response to customer demand, HANOWA PROFESSIONAL has introduced the Performer Series.
(2021/6) HANOWA CABLE

HANOWA cables launched in the Signature Series category include power cables, balanced cables, RCA cables, and speaker cables.
HANOWA
Josef Sperl, the co-founder of the HANOWA brand, has made many outstanding achievements under his sleeve in the field of music performance and the development and manufacture of musical instruments and loudspeakers. Hanowa products are the favorite of many famous bands and use them to perform live performances.

Since its establishment, Hanowa has manufactured many kinds of musical instruments and audio equipment with different partners in different periods according to the market demand, and the products are sold all over the world.

The first generation of HANOWA Cable was launched on a limited scale in 2016 and officially pitched in 2021.
The perplexing theories of audio cables have existed in the industry for many years, but in recent years the impact of the cable on the transmission, thus affecting sound quality become more and more significant. In the long history of sound development, the cable is a deep, and mysterious subject. What we all know regarding the sonic propensities may only be the factors of material, connector, soldering, insulation and shock absorption, and so on.

HANOWA technical team has found that the composition of a wire and a pair of twisted wires is an equivalent circuit. When a parameter in a circuit changes, there are one or more relative changes. For example, the change of capacitive reactance and inductive reactance leads to the change of pure impedance and thus to a variety of different parameters.
The research and development of the HANOWA cable aim to overcome the bottleneck that the traditional two-channel system on the level where is difficult to overcome the drawbacks.

The resistance and capacity of the frequency bandwidth are the basis for the production of a high-quality cable. When selecting materials, wire diameter is an important factor. The selection of high purity, large wire diameter, low crystallization, low resistance, and 6N single crystal copper with silver content is of great assistance in achieving the perfect value of resistance and capacitance and offering overall 30% performance boost in performance compared to 5N.

The lower the capacitance between the two wires, the cleaner the sound performance. HANOWA uses high-density polyethylene and Teflon to make the insulating jacket path, which can effectively reduce the capacitance to about 90PF per meter.

Further experiments at HANOWA have shown that isolating external electromagnetic interference and avoiding interference with the surrounding cable can greatly improve the overall quality of sound transmission.
HANOWA uses super Class 6 data cable to resist internal and external interference, including static, electromagnetic, RF, vibration, and so on. Each core has multi-layer shielding to improve the overall performance.

HANOWA’s customized high-end cable products consist of three categories: Power cables, balanced/unbalanced signal cables, and general audio cables. The first launch is a super high-end Signature Series. The connectors, cable grommets, and other key parts of the series are sourced from VIABLUE Germany.
The meticulous spirit of Made in Germany can be felt at every turn of HANOWA manufacturing.
Cable structure
- 6N single crystal copper conductor
- HDPE insulation
- Teflon insulation
- Metal shield
- Anti-static damping layer
- Anti-static isolation net
- Metal shield
- Anti-static damping layer
- Anti-static and vibration isolation net
- Vibration guide module
- Anti-vibration leather layer
Cable features
- Handmade in Germany,
- 6N single crystal copper with silver contained
- Super low capacitance
- Support large-scale stage performance
- Precise detail transmission
Reference Table Resistance of single crystal copper conductor VS Capacitance between cores

HANOWA Cable Gdms Data Table
 |
wt: weight | ppm: parts per million | Purity:Cu=99.9972%, Cu+Ag=99.9986% |
Operational
As with any high-priced merchandise, the very first impression begins with the first encounter, the packaging.
I have been doing this for a very long time, but honestly a manufacturer very rarely packages their “beloved” goods properly, let alone doing the cables alone properly.
The weight of the HANOWA shipping box really surprised me and I had to check the label twice to see if these are the cables that arrive.
When I opened the box, it quickly became clear. These were definitely not the typical packaged and manufactured cables.
I can not tell you how many times I asked the manufacturers if there was a mistake in the packaging and execution of their extremely expensive products packed in poor packaging along with pure quality control and assembly. And the answers I got in addition when asking if that’s how they envisioned to present their inventions…
At the current prices of the products and cables, I just can not “buy” the so often overused cliché of marketing blurb speaking of investing everything in the materials, performance, sonic qualities and so on.
If we want to get more people excited about our beloved industry, quality must start with the unboxing, extend to the quality of manufacturing, and end with proper sonic performance.
Even the younger generation has very high expectations set by Apple and other electronic luxury brands. And once you have made a bad first impression, there’s no going back.
So hats off to HANOWA, who pleasantly surprised not only with their first encounter and high-quality packaging, but also with the sonic potency of their cables, as you can read on.
HANOWA’s cables are made with great care and the dedication to the manufacturing process can be felt at every turn.
The Music
This section does not miss a single one of the products examined. As always, only some of the reference titles and albums used during the evaluation are listed here, but this selection points out the unique virtues of HANOWA cables.
While
Prokofiev: “Peter and the Wolf” / Saint-Saëns: “Carnival of the Animals” – Beatrice Lillie, Animals of the London Zoo and London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Skitch Henderson (Speakers Corner) could be considered purely educational, it does provide a nice insight into the relationship between vocals and orchestra.
Beatrice Lillie tells the story of “Peter and the Wolf” and the orchestra follows the narrative. It was interesting to observe how the two HANOWA cables handled the juxtaposition of Lillie and the orchestra.
Rarely is there such a reference material with a clear distinction of human voice, singular orchestra instruments and orchestra switching back and fort, and the HANOWA cables handled the sweep of the orchestra in the absence of sonic collisions where it felt like it was rickety too quickly.
With both voice and orchestra, “Peter and the Wolf” never sounded like a post-composed affair, but a complete musical event with adherence to details properly controlled (through a large number of focal points) while constantly flowing in all directions.
This spectacular all-analog album with excellent dynamics was recorded in February 1960 at Kingsway Hall in London by Kenneth E. Wilkinson and produced by John Culshaw.

Next up was “The Queen Alone” – Carla Thomas & Band (Speakers Corner), where the sonic challenge is a bit different. Another all-analog recorded album, it’s interesting because it’s not exactly easy to blend and reproduce Thomas’ voice with the rest of the band without losing the solid focus of the voice and while still keeping the rest of the instruments clearly pin-pointed.
This quickly became apparent in the leading tones and snappiness of the drums. Especially with the snare drum, which can sound like a washed-out beat too quickly, without the needed “bite”.
The HANOWA cables, whether alone or together (with the power cord feeding TIDAL Prisma preamplifier/phono), allowed Thomas to blend with the band without losing the rudimentary aspects or affecting the tempo of the music.
The HANOWA cables were able to effortlessly nail the physical characteristics of the performers and the instruments, but surprisingly in the absence of up-down fluctuations that can make The Queen Alone sound confusing and entropic. Oppositely HANOWA cables kept the elusive nature intact.
Too many cables can vitiate the sheer resounding and dynamics, throwing the unstimulated sonic scope that unfurls into chaos.
In contrast, HANOWA cables were designed from the ground up not to dismantle the music, but to focus attention and lucid awareness.
This 1958 studio recording features R&B star accompanied by an all-star band that captures a variety of legendary blues songs on tape.
Playing Who Is Who, the big names in the band (Nat Pierce, Buck Clayton, Paul Quinichette, Urbie Green, Jimmy Cleveland) should delight lovers of traditional big-band swing not only with their performance but also with their great- sounding playing.
The HANOWA cables held the timbre, tone and color in place, leaving the transient tenacious, never dismantled.
During the listening sessions, the HANOWA cables proved that they could handle a wide variety of musical styles with ease and had the necessary musical potency.
It was 1958 when a passably successful R&B singer entered the recording studio with an all-star band to tape a dozen songs from the global repertoire of a legendary blues vocalist.
The Conclusion
The cable business has boomed literarily in the last decade. More and more audiophiles and music lovers are discovering the benefits of high-end audio cables and are willing to spend their hard-earned money to achieve some measure of sonic advancement on the road to ultimate acoustic nirvana.
I have really done an enormous amount of cable testing over the years. I have often been asked why I still do cable tests and why so many of them.
The variety of cable designs provides a wide pool of options for matching cables to the high-end audio system in question. There is simply no black and white, plug and play solution when it comes to cabling. There are so many unknowns, from impedance matching.
I always focus on the positive features and virtues in my reviews. As written in the Mono & Stere disclaimer, I reserve the right not to review the product if it does not perform as advertised or if it is defective. That’s the freedom I value, and long-time readers know what it means when something is not published.
As in the two-dimensional world of antiquity, audio cables can all too often create a three-dimensional checkerboard pattern that pales in comparison to what needs to be reproduced, and often gets lost in translation.
HANOWA cables are characterized by a very special sonic preciousness. They decode a multitude of layers with sovereignty and invariably present music and acoustic nodes from their own appreciatively potent orbit.
Music reproduction never sounded finite, nor was it lacking in the cementing of delicate details. In addition to music enjoyment, the HANOWA sparks an attentive abundance of diverse sonic qualities from the get-go. I can not say that about many cables, regardless of their price. Many high-end audio cables at all levels fail to present the required musical fundaments in harmonic wholeness.
Often the high-end audio cables force a two-dimensional affair instead of reproducing the full holographic, three-dimensional, illusory atmospheric range.
HANOWA cables are among those that defy the laws of probability and offer an interesting balance of detail and harmonicity.
HANOWA cables not only go beyond the expected sonic field, but allow the flow of music to act at a very high level.
With cables, we are still often, if not usually, dealing with a superficial understanding of the context, which leads to underestimating the power musical reproduction.
On the contrary, HANOWA paints the complex sound canvas with the necessary richness of tone color variety and with the richness of necessary details.

Price
- Analog Audio Cable 2M:EURO 6,900.00/PR
- AC Power Cord 1.8M: EURO 6,500.00/PC
SOLTON Acoustic GmbH & Co. KG
Oberer Mühlweg 6 | 94060 Pocking, Rottau | GERMANY
Tel.: +49 8531 913880
E-mail: info@solton-acoustic.de