CE Pro Podcast #113: Vanco Grows Commercial Business; the State of Kaleidescape

Summary

The past couple of years has been extremely busy for electronics companies in the custom integration sector. Explaining how their respective companies have fared and how they are looking ahead, Vanco’s Frank Santos and Kaleidescape’s Tayloe Stansbury recently spoke to CE Pro.

In part one of this week’s CE Pro Podcast, Santos, who serves as director of training and product knowledge for Vanco, points out how the ongoing addition of 70-volt products to the company’s product line, including amplifiers and speakers is helping dealers serve commercial AV clients.

“Within both Beale Street Audio and PulseAudio lines we’ve released many new products: Outdoor speakers, pendant speakers, 70-volt amplifiers as well, [and] we also have a multichannel 70-volt and eight-channel amplifiers that serve both residential and commercial,” notes Santos.

“We’ve got a good mix of both residential and commercial. I’ll be honest … when I first started, we were probably 90% residential 10% commercial. Today, I would say that’s about 65%/35%.  Our goal is to be about 50%/50% residential and commercial so we’re pushing the envelope in terms of new products.”

Later, Santos went on to discuss the popularity of Vanco’s new HDMI products, and he previewed some products Vanco may show at the 2022 CEDIA Expo in Dallas, after having staged a booth during the recent InfoComm event in Las Vegas.

Kaleidescape Continues to Innovate in Home Entertainment

In part two of the Podcast, during the annual HTSA Spring Conference this year, Stansbury took time out of his day to talk to CE Pro about Kaleidescape’s current product line and its dealer support mechanisms.

“We have been really working on our product line. We’ve added a number of servers that are larger and smaller than the ones we had before. We’ve taken out the product that was the all-in-one product that wasn’t quite as performant … people who had the player and server products were much more engaged both in buying and watching movies than they were with the all-in-one product,” states Stansbury.

“We’ve changed our product lineup. We’ve also been building out in marketing and sales. On the marketing side we’ve brought in some great people and we’ve done a number of cool programs that we are happy about, including partnering with a number of manufacturers that are complementary to us such as Sony, Meyer Sound, and Stewart Filmscreen.”

Stansbury goes on to emphasize that Kaleidescape is not designed as a competitive solution to today’s streaming services. He notes that streaming services provide high levels of entertainment and they offer a lot of exclusive titles, but this content does not deliver the same level of performance as the lossless, bit-for-bit content the Kaleidescape Store offers.

To hear the entire interview with both Santos and Stansbury download or watch the podcast episode above. Find past episodes of the CE Pro Podcast by subscribing to the CE Pro YouTube channel or our Apple and Spotify podcast feeds.

Summary

The past couple of years has been extremely busy for electronics companies in the custom integration sector. Explaining how their respective companies have fared and how they are looking ahead, Vanco’s Frank Santos and Kaleidescape’s Tayloe Stansbury recently spoke to CE Pro.

In part one of this week’s CE Pro Podcast, Santos, who serves as director of training and product knowledge for Vanco, points out how the ongoing addition of 70-volt products to the company’s product line, including amplifiers and speakers is helping dealers serve commercial AV clients.

“Within both Beale Street Audio and PulseAudio lines we’ve released many new products: Outdoor speakers, pendant speakers, 70-volt amplifiers as well, [and] we also have a multichannel 70-volt and eight-channel amplifiers that serve both residential and commercial,” notes Santos.

“We’ve got a good mix of both residential and commercial. I’ll be honest … when I first started, we were probably 90% residential 10% commercial. Today, I would say that’s about 65%/35%.  Our goal is to be about 50%/50% residential and commercial so we’re pushing the envelope in terms of new products.”

Later, Santos went on to discuss the popularity of Vanco’s new HDMI products, and he previewed some products Vanco may show at the 2022 CEDIA Expo in Dallas, after having staged a booth during the recent InfoComm event in Las Vegas.

Kaleidescape Continues to Innovate in Home Entertainment

In part two of the Podcast, during the annual HTSA Spring Conference this year, Stansbury took time out of his day to talk to CE Pro about Kaleidescape’s current product line and its dealer support mechanisms.

“We have been really working on our product line. We’ve added a number of servers that are larger and smaller than the ones we had before. We’ve taken out the product that was the all-in-one product that wasn’t quite as performant … people who had the player and server products were much more engaged both in buying and watching movies than they were with the all-in-one product,” states Stansbury.

“We’ve changed our product lineup. We’ve also been building out in marketing and sales. On the marketing side we’ve brought in some great people and we’ve done a number of cool programs that we are happy about, including partnering with a number of manufacturers that are complementary to us such as Sony, Meyer Sound, and Stewart Filmscreen.”

Stansbury goes on to emphasize that Kaleidescape is not designed as a competitive solution to today’s streaming services. He notes that streaming services provide high levels of entertainment and they offer a lot of exclusive titles, but this content does not deliver the same level of performance as the lossless, bit-for-bit content the Kaleidescape Store offers.

To hear the entire interview with both Santos and Stansbury download or watch the podcast episode above. Find past episodes of the CE Pro Podcast by subscribing to the CE Pro YouTube channel or our Apple and Spotify podcast feeds.