From the early 2000s, after graduating from the Faculty of Electrical and Electronics, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Nguyen Hoang Thi began his passion for audio equipment. Loudspeaker is the first field he researched and made. Many types of loudspeaker have been researched and DIYed in these years by Mr. Thi includes closed, reflex, transmission line and horn loudspeaker. This research period has laid the foundation for the formation of the most successful and professional audio brand in Vietnam today, ThivanLabs. Mr. Thi is Chief engineer and technical-technological R&D manager of ThivanLabs. He plays the most important role in the whole technical-technological research and development projects and production at ThivanLabs.

After marrying in 2004, he has been greatly supported by his wife, Mrs. Nguyen Minh Chau (Joe Nguyen), in product design and business development in the audio equipment industry. Mrs. Joe Nguyen graduated from the Faculty of Industrial Design, Hanoi University of Industrial Fine Arts. After that, she went on to complete a master’s degree in fine arts and art history theory at Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts. Also during that time, she became a lecturer in the field of industrial design at Ho Chi Minh City University of Architecture until now.

Mr. Thi started his first business in the audio field with the tube amplifier in 2008. After two years of commercializing tube amplifier from 2008 to 2010, Mr. Thi and Mrs. Joe officially founded ThivanLabs in 2010. Since 2012, Mrs. Joe Nguyen has been the CEO of ThivanLabs and has played an extremely important role in building and developing the brand and company. She also has an important role in R&D orientation and product design in ThivanLabs.

After graduating, Mr. Van became an aviation engineer of the Vietnam national airline. He was trained in aircraft engineering in the US before returning to Vietnam and working for Vietnam Airlines until 2020. During this time, Mr. Van took part in many of Mr. Thi’s projects of making tube amplifiers and output transformers. Mr. Thi and Mr. Van have successfully researched and developed a bespoke Output Transformer technology used for all of ThivanLabs’s tube audio equipment. Mr. Van is now Chief engineer of Output Transformer production in ThivanLabs. Thanks to his experience and high standards in aircraft engineering, our OPT always meets the best specifications and the highest quality standards. Hitherto, all OPTs are made in-house and strictly controlled quality standards.

In 2008, the first commercial vacuum tube amplifier model was launched under the brand name Air Power. The Air Power name was suggested by Mr. Van and designed by Mrs. Joe. This logo appeared on some products in 2008 and 2009. Under this brand name, Mr. Thi developed some other models including tube preamplifier and phono with a great support from Mr. Van for technique and Mrs. Joe in product design and business development. In 2009, Mrs. Joe decided to move the headquarter office and a part of the workshop to District 1, Ho Chi Minh City to approach the new customers and extend the business.

In 2010, Mrs. Joe Nguyen was awarded a government scholarship to study for a master’s degree in management and entrepreneurship in London, United Kingdom. During the two years of living and studying in London, to define a philosophy of sound for ThivanLabs, she took advantage of researching the international market and traveling to many European countries to experience music and culture. She also experienced acoustics and sound reproduction when visiting and listening to the music at the churches, cathedrals and theaters in the UK and Europe. Until now, while Mr. Thi is the one to decide on technical issues, Mrs. Joe is the one to decide the sound quality of a new product model.

In the time living in London, she started the aspiration that would bring ThivanLabs to the world and the first market to conquer was Europe. This idea was implemented with creating a new brand name for their products. Inspired by the names of Mr. Thi and Mr. Van, Mrs. Joe designed the ThivanLabs logo in London in 2010. However, the brand name was not simply a combination of the names, it had a beautiful meaning that she wanted to convey through its image.

The ThivanLabs logo featured the ‘Thivan’ phrase and the image of a beautiful woman in the middle. The words ‘thi’ and ‘van’ in Vietnamese meant ‘poetry’ and ‘literature’, used in the logo with the connotations of emotion, artistry, a harmonious and optimal combination of components, sophistication and high standard. These meanings represented the highest product standards she wanted ThivanLabs’s audio equipment to achieve. The image of the beautiful woman who looks like dancing and holding her arms up high in the middle of the logo represents the beauty and the desire to reach the most emotional and fullest beauty of sound and music. It’s also the sound standard she wants their audio equipment to achieve. Moreover, the image of the beautiful woman represented her aspiration to build up ThivanLabs as a subject with a more distinct personality and identity.

After experiencing classical music concerts in the UK and Europe, she found that the best reproduced sound was the most realistic and correct sound. She also realized what was the original emotion the real sound and music bring to the listener. ThivanLabs’s sound philosophy was then defined by the two slogans ‘Master of Performance’ and then ‘Like Live Music’. ‘Master of Performance’ is a criterion and standard of sound while “Like LIVE Music” is a criterion of realistic emotions that a recording, audio equipment or sound system needs to be reproduced for listeners. This will be the goal for the ThivanLabs team to aim for when researching, developing and manufacturing products. With the goal of developing audio products that meet the criteria of the philosophy and slogans, Mrs. Joe and Mr. Thi arranged regular attendance at classical concerts in every European trip in order to experience live music and hone their musical sensibility at the same time of having the best comparison of real sounds and reproduced sounds.

After 15 years (2000 – 2015), along with the effort of Mr. Thi in technical development research and Mrs. Joe’s product development orientation along with the support of Mr.Van in some electronic projects, ThivanLabs’s engineering team has fabricated a wide range of vacuum tube audio equipment and custom-made speakers. That time was the foundation of technical and technological improvement and development of ThivanLabs. Mr. Thi and his engineer team have developed many audio equipment using various vacuum tube types and design including 845 SE/PP, 811A SE/PP, 572 SE, 300B SE/PP, 4D32, 3D21WB, GK-71, GU-81, KT88 (KT90, KT120, KT150), 2A3 SE/PP, 6C33-C OTL/PP/SE, 6336 OTL/PP/SE, 6H13C (6AS7,6080,5998) OTL/PP/SE, 6C19P OTL/PP/SE, GM-70, 6550, KT77, KT66, 6L6 (6P3C-E), EL34 (6CA7), EL84 (6BQ5), and the latest tubes from 2018 until present with 833 (GU-48) SE, 211 (VT-4C) SE/PSE, 805/805A SE, 813A SE.

Thanks to the rich experience of researching and making different kinds of loudspeakers that Mr. Thi had earned from the 2000s to 2015, he researched and developed the first commercial loudspeaker in 2015, the Fullrange 10. This model was ordered 100 pairs as soon as it was launched. After this speaker model, many others continued to be born including Open Baffle Loudspeaker, Half/full OB loudspeaker systems, Horn loudspeaker, Bookshelf loudspeaker, Center loudspeaker, Subwoofer loudspeaker, Super subwoofer loudspeaker 21inch and Soundbase.

With a very good aesthetic thinking and rich experience in industrial product design, Mrs. Joe Nguyen has played a very important role in orienting the R&D and almost all of the product design process. Almost all of ThivanLabs loudspeakers were influenced much by German Bauhaus art style. The designs were all about functionality and simple, basic shapes so that these speakers can easily blend into different interior spaces. Since 2018, she has researched new design concepts to create a new look for ThivanLabs’s loudspeaker. Then, her latest loudspeaker concept with a more artistic shape, GrandHorn, was designed in 2018. This model was demonstrated at Vietnam Audio Visual show 2019 in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. For tube amps, while the initial designs were full of improvisation in terms of layout, a careful and harmonious combination of blocks and details, later designs also gradually transitioned to Bauhaus minimalism and enhanced high functionality. This style is still the main identity for ThivanLabs tube amp and almost all of loudspeaker design today.