SoundVision Podcast with Aaron McCarty from Bang and Olufsen
Listen to the Podcast with Aaron McCarty
“Luxury Timeless Technology”
On this episode of “Simplifying Life Through Technology,” Mark, Zach and Andrew from SoundVision sit down with Aaron McCarty, Head of Custom Integrations in the Americas for Bang & Olufsen.
“Since 1925 Bang & Olufsen has created iconic audio and home entertainment products to the highest standards of sound, craft and design.”
Prepare to be swept off your feet by the extraordinary world of Bang Olufsen. They’ll take you on an auditive journey that spans the remarkable history of this elite brand and the innovative designs that have set them apart. In their engaging chat, you'll discover the story behind the distinctly Bang Olufsen aluminum design tradition and how it enhances the approachability of an audiophile-grade listening experience.
You’ll learn about the unique capabilities of this advanced speaker and the fascinating difference between the Beolab 18s and 28s, and the Beolab 50s. Aaron and Zach express heartfelt appreciation for their partnership with Sound Vision and Bang Olufsen. Tune in for an episode that promises to be as captivating as the sound of Bang Olufsen itself!
Bang and Olufsen’s Ambitions:
To learn more about Bang and Olufsen:
https://www.bang-olufsen.com/en/us
To learn more about SoundVision or request a technical home inspection:
https://www.svavnc.com/contact-us/
Listen to more “Simplifying Life Through Technology” podcasts:
https://www.svavnc.com/podcast/
Check out SoundVision’s Podcast with David Zapfel from B&O, as well as our other podcasts, on Apple and Spotify.
SoundVision Podcast with Aaron McCarty from Bang and Olufsen
Listen to the Podcast with Aaron McCarty
“Luxury Timeless Technology”
On this episode of “Simplifying Life Through Technology,” Mark, Zach and Andrew from SoundVision sit down with Aaron McCarty, Head of Custom Integrations in the Americas for Bang & Olufsen.
“Since 1925 Bang & Olufsen has created iconic audio and home entertainment products to the highest standards of sound, craft and design.”
Prepare to be swept off your feet by the extraordinary world of Bang Olufsen. They’ll take you on an auditive journey that spans the remarkable history of this elite brand and the innovative designs that have set them apart. In their engaging chat, you'll discover the story behind the distinctly Bang Olufsen aluminum design tradition and how it enhances the approachability of an audiophile-grade listening experience.
You’ll learn about the unique capabilities of this advanced speaker and the fascinating difference between the Beolab 18s and 28s, and the Beolab 50s. Aaron and Zach express heartfelt appreciation for their partnership with Sound Vision and Bang Olufsen. Tune in for an episode that promises to be as captivating as the sound of Bang Olufsen itself!
Bang and Olufsen’s Ambitions:
To learn more about Bang and Olufsen:
https://www.bang-olufsen.com/en/us
To learn more about SoundVision or request a technical home inspection:
https://www.svavnc.com/contact-us/
Listen to more “Simplifying Life Through Technology” podcasts:
https://www.svavnc.com/podcast/
Check out SoundVision’s Podcast with David Zapfel from B&O, as well as our other podcasts, on Apple and Spotify.
Welcome to Simplifying Life Through Technology. Joining us today, we have Bang Olufsen's Head of Custom Integrations in the Americas, aaron McCarty. ["bang Olufsen"]. Welcome, aaron. Thank you for being here with us today. Thank you for having me, aaron.
Speaker 3:McCarty from Bang Olufsen. We're super excited to have you today. What brings you in? I know this is a softball that you're going to smack out of the park, so what brings you in?
Speaker 2:Yeah well, i'm here to hang out with you guys for your lovely event and welcoming Bang Olufsen to the market and for everyone to really get to know Bang Olufsen. So I'm here just to do demonstrations and talk about the product and make certain everyone understands what we're about and, more importantly, what we do. Super excited to be here.
Speaker 3:And we've got our Chief Sales Officer, Zach Simpson, in the booth with us as well.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes, welcoming Aaron back to past stomping ground of his.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, yes, We're just talking about that off here. yeah.
Speaker 4:Area. So I asked him last night hey, are you staying local? No, staying uptown. I was like whoa, excuse me. I'd be doing the same thing, so happy to bring you back into North Carolina. We're excited about it And it's going to be a fun evening for sure. What is your?
Speaker 3:history, both in the industry and in the area.
Speaker 2:I've been in the industry basically my whole life, started with the other big B name of audio that's out there. It also has an O as the second letter. You guys can complete the rest. But I started off with them, worked with them for about four or five years And then I transitioned over to Bang and Olufsen in about 06. From there I started off very similar to what you guys are doing here, with the showroom and operating a CI retail style business working all through the Metroplex of Dallas, and I did that up until about 2010, 2011, when Bang and Olufsen officially tapped on me and said hey, would you mind doing what you're doing down there and taking it on the road. So my first stop was Charlotte, came over here, stayed here for two years. That was our first entry into the market as well. We had great reviews. Everyone wanted to be a part of us and come on down, so I was super happy And then, at that point in time, they asked me to continue my journey.
Speaker 3:So where was the store?
Speaker 2:It was down over in the South End, right at the tail end of it where Kingston and Camden meet.
Speaker 4:So probably a really big building standing there now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were very early contenders down in South End before it was popular.
Speaker 3:Let's just leave it at that, Well one of the super cool things that we have on display tonight is the Beolab 50s. I don't want to steal any thunder. Why don't you kind of prep exactly what they are? Sure?
Speaker 2:So the Beolab 50s are our second in line in the arsenal of loudspeakers And really what they're there to do is bring the magic of what Bang and Olufsen is known for. So they have some motorization and some aspects that are really moving. Literally, the speaker is turning on and off and through different features of the speaker itself. But basically that speaker is designed to be the ultimate, or the second ultimate, if you will, in our line of audiophile grade listening, and what it does is it not only provides you that audiophile grade listening, but it also allows you to be approachable too, and what I mean by that is that you can have anybody come in there when you're not in audiophile mode and still have an awesome, awesome, awesome experience. And you'll even find that that's true even off access, as we're playing around here yesterday just getting them to set up.
Speaker 2:But what really they bring to the customer is the ultimate of what Bang and Olufsen is known for. So all of our craftmanship is built inside of it. You see all the metal on display. You see the wood aspects of it, also the fabric or the metal fronts, if you decide to go for it all the way in. But that's something that's truly a hallmark of Bang and Olufsen. So when you look at the Baylab 50s, you're getting our striking design that's subtly subdued with the audio aspect of it inside, and then also the performance that matches it.
Speaker 3:That was one of the things that is so impressive about the speaker and the line itself. When David was in here a couple of weeks ago, we talked about the different aspects that Bang and Olufsen brings from an aesthetic, And I threw out the term wave the wife acceptance factor.
Speaker 3:Nailed it Most. Standing loudspeakers are just boxy And to kind of enhance them, if you will, people like lacquer them or make them white or just change the color. Maybe it's a fancy blue or something which is fine, but you guys actually have real architectural aspects to it with the metal accents. You touched on the Twitter, but that is incredible. Can you tell us more about that design? Sure.
Speaker 2:Sure. So the idea of everything being made with aluminum has been a hallmark of Bang Ellison for, i would say, at least 40 years now. We didn't always do it with aluminum but we've done it for most of the years that I can remember, in most of the more recent years, and we still appreciate wood. So we love those lacquers that are out there just the same. But for us it's a little bit more about humanizing everything into your home And for us having something that's overly lacquered is really probably more in line with something that should be in a garage, not necessarily something that's really in your home every day, that you're going to approach and walk around and use.
Speaker 2:I mean that's where you see the hallmarks of mixed of wood, aluminum and the soft touch of fabric because you hit it. There's a little bit of an acceptance factor out there And we pander towards the designers and towards the more sophisticated in eye and also in ear type of people And they asked for that type of craftsmanship where the end of the day, luxury AV company, you know, and we deliver on that with all those three hallmarks that I've just talked about You know.
Speaker 4:I mean that is really really well said. Before Mark brought it up, it was going to bring up the fact. In a lot of high performance audio product you'll almost get to such a striking physical appearance of speaker, very polarizing. Right, when someone sees an electrostat, they either love it or hate it. Right, there is no common ground When someone sees a big rectangle thing in their room. I think most guys could probably get over it, You understand sir.
Speaker 4:You know exactly what Mark was just alluding to. You can walk into a room and basically all of banging, all of some products, but the fifties in particular not even turn them on, and you just can't stop looking at them. And then you turn them on and the experience from an acoustical standpoint is even better than the visual experience.
Speaker 3:You get to really see what you do. Yeah, they're just fun. I think if you never turned the things on ever, if they were never even plugged up in a lot of homes, they would just be like art, oh, all day.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Clearly that's not what they're meant to be, but they have that kind of cachet to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, agreed, 100%. And then the motorization just reminds you of why you bought them right. So when you sit down and you know that you're going to have a great experience with the loudspeakers, that's what we do And you know, obviously you purchased them for a reason. But when you sit down and you kind of want to get out of that headspace of, okay, i'm going to turn on the radio, maybe I'll have my phone on, that's not really what banging Oliphson's about. We're really about okay, put the phone down, hit that one touch button to turn everything on in your home. That's banging Oliphson.
Speaker 2:Now, all of a sudden, your TV turns on and, harmony with your bailout, fifties to fifties. The tweeters articulate up out of the ground seemingly and just kind of raise up to about your level And you have the side aluminum cheeks that can either widen or narrow depending on if you're in the audiophile mode or not, and that's really what sets you up before you even hit play on the actual experience. So it's very much like kind of getting in a car and getting ready, you know, turning it on and giving in that first rev and then take a deep breath. Now start your journey.
Speaker 4:Yeah, So many of other loudspeakers as well. I mean, they have very defined sweet spots Like hey, if you want to come in and listen to music in my room, sit in this chair. Banging Oliphson can obviously do that, But to accommodate a room of folks where everyone can have an amazing experience is unique and difficult to do. And the fifties pull it off very well.
Speaker 2:Very, very nice, Agreed It's been a hallmark of us as a brand to really be inclusive of everybody in the room, not necessarily just for that audiophile who tends to be just one person and, you know, usually with a cigar, a cognac, no friends, things like that and dimly let room.
Speaker 1:You know how that goes.
Speaker 2:So, and we have no problem with those type of people, you know, come on over, we can give you the experience. But the idea is that that experience is really built for one person, and that's not what we're about. We want everybody to have a great experience. So when it is time for that one person to have the enjoyment, they can take center stage, sit in the sweet spot that's coordinated with the microphone system that we plug into it that dials in where those spots are. So that say, if you're by yourself and you're in your favorite recliner and you want those speakers to perform in the peak performance for where you are in that recliner, we can do that.
Speaker 2:And then, at the same time, if your wife is over in the nudge of the chair and that's her favorite spot and every now and then she does like to enjoy it at that level, she can as well, with the touch of a button, redirects the sound straight over into that area. And then, finally, at the end of the day, everyone's at home family, kids, whoever's there with you. You've got your partner or you've got all of your friends just hanging out for a party. You can put it into a wide mode and everybody can enjoy the audio So nobody feels like, yeah, it sounded great, but only when I was over there or maybe if it sounded better over in that area. That's really what we're trying to eliminate when we step into a product like Balef 50, balef 90, any of the products that have that beam forming and beam with technology.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they have this technology called magic, because evidently no one else can do it as well as they can, so it's fun.
Speaker 3:Couple things before we get out of here. One you talked about the motorization, the Twitter. He talked about the different materials that are involved. Clearly, we're audio form right now, but we're going to be doing some videos on this as well, so on our YouTube channel you'll be able to see that. If you can't experience it, live with us tonight, and we hope you can. The other thing is that we have on display the Baylab 18s and the 28s, which, from a cost perspective we're talking about roughly 10, roughly $15,000, and the Baylab 50s we haven't mentioned are $50,000. So there's a pretty good step. Can you kind of maybe articulate what the difference is in a $50,000 speaker versus a $15,000 speaker, the looks notwithstanding? Clearly there's that, but from an audio perspective, what would somebody that does have a critical listening ear, what could they expect to experience as a difference?
Speaker 2:Sure, I would say primarily. The biggest difference between the 28s and the 50s is going to step up, assuming design is not an idea and that one is going to be the sound quality and the sound performance. Giving an example, baylab 28 simply has a six and a half inch woofer. That's on the very bottom, and they work in tandem when you have both of them together to give you a very meaty based performance. But it's not always adequate for some of the more demanding things that you might want to do.
Speaker 2:And if that's the case and you have that demanding need, then that's where you step into the Baylab 50s, where you're getting plus 2000 watts worth of power in each speaker.
Speaker 2:So then multiple drivers all the way around You get the articulation of the actual sound design itself. So that means as long as you're in front of the speaker you can articulate the audio to where you need it to be for that sweet spot. And then on top of that you obviously get the design and all the other craftsmanship pieces that are actually built into the product. So no piece that you actually see on the Baylab 50 is something that's really over automated. Almost everything gets touched by hand at one point in time through the process, and most products have originated or end up coming back to Denmark in some form or fashion to be assembled or for the final touches on there. So, and that's really the hallmark of the Baylab 50, where you can see all of that on display, all of our talents as far as craftsmanship, and then also sound quality, and a lot of that could be driven by, you know, price, taste, budget, things like that, but room size as well, too, right?
Speaker 4:I mean to you know a pair of 28s in a room this big would sound like a pair of 50s in a room five times this big. Nailed it right, As there's a good bit of. That was just kind of designing a system that's going to fit a space that a homeowner or a business may have that they need filled.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And when you combine that with the technologies built inside to accommodate really any room, because of that, that acoustical ability to read the rooms, acoustics, and then point where the beams going for that audiophile experience, it doesn't matter the room for us, you know, we'll dial it in a little bit further, within reason, obviously, you know.
Speaker 3:Well, we are very excited about tonight. However, we also Would you like to know a little bit more about you, right, Andrew?
Speaker 1:That's right. Who is your favorite band or artist?
Speaker 2:I'm probably going to throw you guys for a big loop, judging by my appearance and what I listen to.
Speaker 2:So get ready, i would say so. I don't necessarily have a favorite, because it's always evolving And as I get older I find myself going back to some of my older stuff as well as the newer stuff. But I am a hip hop head through and through big time, so I would say what I'm listening to now would be a little bit more appropriate because, again, i listen to it all, but West Side Gun seems to be one of the big ones that are in my playlist over and over again.
Speaker 4:I've been to a public enemy concert. I've seen them way back a long time ago.
Speaker 2:And if you want to go way back a long time ago, I can do all 13 minutes of rappers to like me being in the pseudo music business with, you know, running around with banging on listen, we get to hear so much stuff, so it's hard for me to claim my favorite. It changes constantly. I just find that I go back to hip hop in general and then I'm all over the place.
Speaker 3:The first time Zach and I ever saw the nineties. Where were we when we saw the nineties? Which show were we at? It was in Orlando.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was a tech summit before tech summit exists.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's what it was. It was a tech summit before tech summit. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I would like to point out. So when do you get on the wall 2031?
Speaker 1:Oh good question 2006,.
Speaker 2:You said right, i need to be 30, 20, 30. No, actually 31. You're right. No, actually 2031.
Speaker 4:For all of our three listeners that heard the last podcast with David Zappel, you realize that every employee that's been banging on Oliveson for 25 years or more, regardless of title, is on a wall, and there's 1200 of you roughly on there, roughly 1200 and growing.
Speaker 4:I say it often to as many people when I'm talking about banging on Oliveson haven't been able to be there and be a part of the factory experience in Denmark. It's really a culture that you feel it when you hear product and the wall to me was just an amazing piece of culture.
Speaker 2:What we call in Denmark the Hoogley, which is the warm and fuzzy Yeah. And that's exactly what that creates, and that's a lot of what we do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, we've talked about a lot of the banging, oliveson technology and craftsmanship And one other thing that we have in common that also has quality and craftsmanship.
Speaker 2:Must be Porsche.
Speaker 3:It is in fact, right before we came on the podcast, we found out that Aaron is a big Porsche fan. In fact, his term was, quote unquote Porsche collector.
Speaker 2:Not so much now, but yes, at one point in time I had four in the arsenal all together? Yeah, At one time it was an expensive proposition but had numerous 944s, couple of 911s and a 928 throughout the years.
Speaker 3:So And just real quickly. Which was your favorite and why?
Speaker 2:You know I go back time and time again. The 944 was my first purchase and my first kind of endeavor into Porsche And ironically it's the one that I've been able to move around and use everywhere, so I think it's been the Swiss Army knife for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I would say I had probably the most fun with the O3 911 career. That.
Speaker 3:I had.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a convertible and had it in Texas and I would fly back and forth from Charlotte, So it was a great. you know, just drop top.
Speaker 3:So cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really cool.
Speaker 3:Well, this has been great, Aaron. We are very appreciative. Aaron does not live in Charlotte anymore I do not, and so to come here for our event is very much appreciated, both for you and banging all of a sudden. We're very thankful and we hope that it turns out tremendously well tonight. And again, thanks for all that you've done for us. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me guys. We're super excited to be partners with you guys, and working forward Sounds good. Thanks a ton.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for joining us. You can learn more about Sound Vision at soundvisionlakenormandcom. You can follow us on Twitter at soundvisionlkn. Find us on Instagram and Facebook at soundvisionllc. Bangin' Oliveson partners with architects and real estate developers, offering the proper infrastructure for a high end, fully integrated smart home.