![[Chicago Tribune (includes the RedEye) (IL)]](http://images.newsbank.com/infoweb/welcome/products/CTRB_off.gif){kind=small}
(1985-Current)| (1985-Current) |
| Home > NewsBank Full-Text Newspapers | Edit Search Help |
| Record 248 of 286 | E-Mail Text Only Display List Prev Next |
|
Chicago Tribune
April 5, 1992 Business is booming There's loud applause for the BMW of speakers Author: Paula Lauer. Edition: FINAL EDITION Section: TEMPO NORTHWEST Page: 1 Index Terms: SUBURB BUSINESS PRODUCT INTERVIEW PROFILE Estimated printed pages: 9 Article Text: When Jim Wischmeyer and Henry Heine first started building loudspeakers in a Palatine garage almost 20 years ago, they had one purpose in mind: to create a superior-sounding speaker for bands in which they performed. Today they are still single-minded in their purpose. The only difference is their speakers and sound systems are in clubs, studios, theaters, churches and on sound stages coast to coast and in 16 foreign countries. Nestled unobtrusively in a Barrington office/industrial park is what many in the music and sound world say is one of the best-kept secrets in the industry. It's the not-so-well-known-among-the-average-Joes Bag End Loudspeaker company, a small, privately held corporation that's been making big noise for more than a decade among sound designers and professional musicians. And, thanks to a more aggressive distribution strategy, the company has been catching the attention of big-name entertainers and, in the last six months, the home market. ``We're aggressively telling the story at this point,'' said Wischmeyer, 38, president of the 16-year-old company. The story starts in the late 1960s, when at the age of 14, Heine and Wischmeyer met at Luther North High School in Chicago. They dabbled in music and behind-the-scenes technical work in the school's theater club, often building their own sound equipment and scenery to create elaborate special effects. Heine's parents were professional musicians and audiophiles, and his father was a manufacturer's rep in the electronics industry for 50 years. Heine could often be found tinkering in his father's shop, so that by the time he graduated from high school, he was well equipped to excel in the varied electronics, engineering and computer courses he took-and still takes to keep abreat of trends in the industry. Prior to forming a partnership with Wischmeyer, Heine became a professional musician and photographer while Wischmeyer studied technical directing at the old Goodman School of Chicago's Art Institute before working as a sound man for Surubious, a now-defunct band from Chicago, and a sound system designer-installer with Foster Sound Systems in Wheeling. ``We started making our own stuff in '72, '73,'' Wischmeyer recounted. ``I think the story goes, `Dissatisfied with the currently available equipment, Henry and Jim embarked on building their own equipment.' It was just kind of a hobby. It was fun.'' ``There wasn't much professional-quality equipment available to musicians at that time. It was pretty much just a bunch of junk,'' agreed Heine, 37, who heads up the engineering and product development divisions of the company, which was incorporated in 1980 under Modular Sound Systems. ``In '76, after selling a few things to a few other bands, we kind of ended up with a company,'' said Wischmeyer, adding that the name Bag End evolved from a place out of a story book. They had given the name to one of their speakers and it stuck. ``We were buying and selling and had income-not much, but some-so we had one envelope for money and one for receipts and cash. We had one envelope for money and one for receipts, said Wischmeyer. So that was our early accounting system. We weren't really into business or companies much.'' But their business grew anyway, forcing them to relocate 1979 to larger quarters in Barrington. Today, with just under two-dozen employees and yearly sales approaching $2 million, their accounting system is a little more sophisticated. But Wischmeyer and Heine, both Barrington bachelors, still tend to shun the corporate executive image, with a preference for T-shirts over ties and comfortable sneakers over wing tips. Wischmeyer's business card doesn't bear the title president, and Heine, t hough he has cards somewhere, is hard pressed to find one on request. ``We're not a large corporation where maybe there is some sort of purpose for titles,'' Heine explained simply. ``Everybody here knows who's in charge. It's not necessary to fit into the mold that larger companies take. We just have a lot of work to do, so we're getting to it.'' Getting to it for Heine and Wischmeyer has led to a loyal following among a growing number of artists and an increasing popularity among sound professionals. Rob Milburn, resident sound designer for Chicago's Goodman Theatre and consulting designer for the Steppenwolf Theatre, said he was sold on Bag End speakers as soon as he heard them. Both the Goodman and Steppenwolf have Bag End systems. ``We tested them against a lot of different speakers, ones that I was familiar with and that I liked, and the Bag End speakers were as good or better,'' Milburn said. ``One of the really amazing things is that when we put the system in (the Steppenwolf) we had planned for a lot of equalizers (to adjust treble and bass), but we ended up not needing them because the speakers are very true and very clear. The sound reproduction is quite extraordinary.'' While sound technicians will marvel over Bag End's smooth high frequency dispersion, excellent transient response or high efficiency, not to mention their ability to ``move a lot of air'' (one reviewer for Electronic Musician magazine said they `` ... push enough bass to uproot the Statue of Liberty''), another reason for the popularity of the systems is that they don't have any sound at all. ``The speaker doesn't have a sound of its own as much as reproducing what the original intent or original sound sounded like,'' Wischmeyer explained. ``While that sounds simple enough, most speakers don't even attempt to do that. ``If you go into your local stereo store and ask to listen to every cassette player, every amplifier, every CD player, every turntable, every radio receiver . . . they'll all sound pretty similar, whereas every speaker, even to an untrained ear, is going to sound very different. So the question becomes, with every speaker sounding different, what does the sound really sound like? Which one is right? We make speakers that are closer to right than most other companies, and that's why they're used in such diverse applications.'' Indeed, Wischmeyer rattled off a long list of Chicago theaters, churches, and nightclubs where you'll find Bag End sound systems (Ditka's Northwest and City Lights, Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, Arlington Park Trackside, the new Comiskey Park, Park West, Drury Lane at Oakbrook Terrace . . . ). He also named a few bands about to go on tour with which he was currently negotiating (Emerson Lake and Palmer, Michael Jackson . . . ) and was almost casual about overseas distribution, which incl udes the Far East, Germany and Norway, as well as a small assembly operation in Poland for a new East Europe market. ``I expect we'll be all over the world at some point here,'' he said stifling what may or may not have been a mock yawn. At the same time, while they've gone from producing about 10 speakers a month initially to around 400 today and, despite the economy, the company enjoyed a profit growth of about 18 percent last year alone, both Wischmeyer and Heine are quick to point out the road to success has been a slow, albeit steady, climb. ``We've always had good products, that's never changed,'' said Heine. ``Our problem has been marketing. We make products that are as good or better (than their competitors), but we're small and basically based right here.'' Mike Klasco, technical editor of Sound and Communication, a trade publication, classifies Bag End as ``sort of a boutique outfit. They offer a specialized product with more expensive components and materials than you'll find in speakers manufactured by larger companies. Their cabinets are hand crafted, and they've got staying power. ``They've gone for the BMW/Mercedes part of the market. People buy their stuff and they're happy with it. It's not a magic success story,'' Klasco said from his office in Oakland, Calif. ``There was no quick gimmick that made them an instant success. It's been about 20 years.'' On a given day, anywhere from 12 to 24 speakers will make their way down the assembly line, which is actually a series of long, low workbenches taking up about half of the 20,000-square-foot plant. The other half of the room is filled with speakers stacked and ready for shipping or empty cabinets waiting for their turn on the production line. The custom-made cabinets of poplar, birch or oak veneer plywood are built to Jim and Henry's strict specifications by a cabinetmaker with whom the company subcontracts. Black Ozite carpeting or a textured black paint is applied to the poplar cabinets, and the oak and the birch cabinets are hand finished before they hit the assembly line. As a speaker makes its way down the line, it goes through a series of sound tests before corners, handles and wheels are installed. Then it's hooked to an audio oscillator for one final test just prior to being boxed for shipping. Bag End employees are used to the abrupt interruptions as the long, loud wail running up and down the frequency scale drowns out all conversation. Not only are the speaker's components being tested at this point, but strict attention goes toward any hardware to make sure nothing rattles. Wischmeyer and Heine make frequent trips down the exposed wooden steps from their office to the plant, whether it's to test a new design or just to see what's going on. ``They're no stranger to the shop, that's for sure,'' said John Vitale, national sales manager for the company. ``They know every step, and they know it well.'' Vitale, who's also a professional musician, joined the company in 1990 to help them expand their distribution. He's groomed a stable of marketing reps, most of whom came to the company on their own, all over the country to market and expand the company's dealer base, including a new retail market for the home musician/hobbyist. ``They're not employees of Bag End,'' Vitale explained. ``They're independent contractors working on getting Bag End out there where people might not have heard of them, because most people, once they hear them, say, 'Jeez! This is good! How come I haven't heard of them?' That's one of the fun perks of this job, people calling me from all over the country every day to tell me this is the best kept secret they've ever heard.'' Fritz Tasch, owner of The Sound Post in Skokie, Mt. Prospect and La Grange, one of four Chicagoland retail outlets for Bag End (the others are Gand Music and Sound, Northfield; Audio Visual One, Rosemont; and Music Works, Chicago), recently began carrying the company's new line of oak cabinets aimed specifically at the home musician. Prices start at around $1,000 and go all the way up to $3,180 for a pair of AF1s, a three-way setup (three speakers in a cabinet) originally designed and named for the U.S. Air Force Band. ``Bag End speakers are not cheap,'' cautioned Tasch, ``but if you really compare quality to the price, they become inexpensive because they reproduce a lot more sound than a larger system would. If you hear a comparison between Bag End and other good name-brand speakers, you can hear the clarity and distinction of sound from the highest range note to the lowest frequency. It's not a mish-mosh.'' One of the features contributing to Bag End's sound-or lack of sound-is Time Aligned technology, a trade secret developed and trademarked by E.M. Long and Associates in Oakland, Calif., a technology only one other company in the world is licensed to sell. ``It's very simple (to explain), actually,'' said Heine, ``though it's not that simple to do. When you design a conventional multi-way loudspeaker with tweeters and woofers and you divide the sound into those two speaker elements, you introduce some distortion as the sound goes through those speakers. It becomes offset in time. In other words, the highs come out at a different time than the lows do, so compared to the natural sound, it's distorted. The Time Aligned design is designed so that th e sounds from the loudspeakers, when they're combined in the air, hold the same time relationships that the electric input to the loudspeaker did. The result is it sounds more natural. It sounds less like a speaker because one type of distortion has been eliminated.'' Although hand-crafted cabinets, state-of-the-art components and Time Aligned technology most likely contribute to Bag End's success-indeed, survival-in the industry, Wischmeyer is reluctant to point his finger at any one attribute. ``(Time alignment) is one of the many things that makes them stand out,'' Wischmeyer said peering out his office window at the latest run coming down the assembly line. ``From a marketing standpoint, we hit on that because it's kind of a buzzword. ``While science is very advanced these days and there are a lot of scientific tools to use, the definitive book, scientifically, has not and probably will never be written on sound,'' he said. ``We understand very little about the actual mechanics of the hearing process, and the underlying math that acoustics is measured with is still under debate by top scientists, so, in addition to the straight scientific side of acoustics and loudspeaker design, there is a blending of science and art. ``We have our particular blend that we think is appropriate, and other people have their blends. That's why there's such a diversity in this area. It's not as cut and dried as other industries might be. In acoustics, there's maybe a little more on the art side. The final test is the ear. That's what you do it for, the human element.'' The answer to the what's-so-great-about-Bag End-question, it would seem, lies with those who use them and jump at the chance to tell you why. A list of some 50 Bag End owners includes big names like Prince, Neil Young, Herbie Hancock, Larry Carlton, John Patitucci, Chick Corea Elektric Band, Art Neville and Lee Ritenour. And what makes Bag End's relationship with its followers unique is that they don't pay their endorsers or bribe them with free equipment to sing praises about their rigs. ``Most of the musicians who endorse our speakers are genuine artists that use products of their choice that help them, and they don't mind telling people what's good,'' said Wischmeyer. ``They've been using our products for many years and genuinely like them. That's the only way we want it to be.'' Take Art Neville of the Neville Brothers. ``I'll tell you the story of how I came about using those speakers,'' he said from his home base in New Orleans. ``One year we played at the Park West in Chicago, and a guy set some speakers up and said, `I got some new speakers for you,' and I said, `Oh yeah, oh sure, yeah.' I got one of these attitudes. I turned my system up as high as I could turn it and said, `I'm gonna blow 'em out,' just because I had an attitude about 'em. I didn't believe it. Well I couldn't do it. They were really great. And from then on, I been usin' 'em. That was four, five years ago now. ``They're great speakers. I'm not just blowin' smoke,'' Neville added. ``I wouldn't do that because I do this for a living. As to try to get real technical, I couldn't really get technical with you. All I can say is I get great service from the speakers, and I can hear myself great on stage. That's the main thing when you got a lot of other frequencies coming toward you at the same time. They give me what I need.'' Chick Corea and the Elektric Band, who'll be touring Europe and Japan through August, never leave home without their Bag Ends. ``Chick is an artist that has access to the best of everything,'' said L.A.-based Mick Thompson, Corea's keyboard engineer and road manager. ``He's tried a lot of different speakers, and he's always gone back to Bag End because, to his ears, the sound that he hears is a natural and very realistic reproduction of what he wants to hear. They give you back what you put into them, and that's very pleasing musically.'' Caption: PHOTO (color): Henry Heine (left) and Jim Wischmeyer are making big noises with their Bag End Loudspeaker company, which was born 20 years ago in a Palatine garage workshop. Photo by Bob Langer. PHOTO: In their warehouse, Jim Wischmeyer (left) and Henry Heine are surrounded by boxed speakers. Tribune photos by Bob Langer. PHOTO: Employees at Bag End work on the more than a dozen speakers assembled at the factory daily. PHOTOS 3 COPYRIGHT 1992, CHICAGO TRIBUNE Record Number: 04*05*0\92040000.843 |
| E-Mail Text Only Display List Prev Next |