B&O teams up with Aston Martin -- but that's not why we're smiling

Aston Martin and Bang & Olufsen just announced a new "creative partnership." No details were provided but we can assume that it means the introduction of some B&O audio into future Aston Martin automobiles... and not the other way around. The result of which will be something you can neither afford nor differentiate from a Delco in the deep cacophony of rage known as mid-town Manhattan. Now hit that read link -- you'll appreciate the blast of over-exuberant, CEO blow-harding which fills your colon. We sure did.

[Via Audio Junkies]

[Adam B @ Dec 11th 2007 7:24AM]

Sweet. We can get some Body AND Odor while driving our ridiculously exspensive car :D

[earthling @ Dec 11th 2007 7:35AM]

From the other CEO

"We are proud to be working with Aston Martin, a company with whom we share many ideals such as design, performance, and ultimate esthetics. But beyond the obvious marketing opportunity we are all about business and this business is about the ulitimate extraction of capital from the well heeled pockets of rich, ego driven consumers. We do this not through the engineer talents of our R&D departments which are quite extensive, but through the pens of our stylists and through the prosaic presentation of our marketing departments. We realized a long time ago that engineering on its own is overvalued so now we concentrate on meaningless partnerships which while adding no value to the consumer will maximize our potential profit margins while costing us little in R&D. This partnership with Aston Martin is especially intriguing because we bring no practical experience in automotive acoustical engineering so we will probably just outsource the speaker design to Bose and the amplifier design to Kicker. Of course we will design a very nice speaker grill and amplifier chassis, that is after all what makes B&O so special, the premium branding of off the shelf components into quasi futuristic danish modern sculpture which is the hallmark of our company after all.

[Alex @ Dec 11th 2007 8:34AM]

now that's that type of transparency i expect from a ceo

[earthling @ Dec 11th 2007 9:04AM]

Apparently my (sarcasm) (/sarcasm) tags didn't show up.

[AlexP @ Dec 11th 2007 9:19AM]

And how do you know whether or not Alex was being sarcastic?

[Alex @ Dec 11th 2007 10:35AM]

in fact I was! I propose, moving forward, that anything that immediately gives us that "wtf feeling" we now read as sarcastic.

[Will H. @ Dec 11th 2007 8:07AM]

If someone offered me the car and told me I had to have the stereo, I'd think about it.

[Malayvanti @ Dec 11th 2007 8:08AM]

That stupid fucking wing ruins it...

[Flashpoint @ Dec 11th 2007 8:11AM]

That wing musta been put on their by some HongKonggers who thought this was a rice rocket. The DBS has such a low center of gravity that its almost impossible to flip naturally - and doesn't really need the downforce. This isn't a Veyron.

[John Easton @ Dec 11th 2007 9:47AM]

@Flashpoint

Its not to stop it flipping, its to give it more grip around the corners

[Arsenal @ Dec 11th 2007 3:26PM]

@Flashpoint

John Easton already explained what wings are for but what really interests me is: in what physics class did you learn that wings are needed to keep cars with high centers of gravity from flipping over?

And why the hate for Hong Kong?

[Kal-El @ Dec 11th 2007 11:09PM]

The wing is used to create downforce at high speeds, sort of like the opposite of an airplane wing. In the case of (most) Aston Martins, they CAN go fast enough to make spoilers/wings a necessity.

[Scott_t @ Dec 12th 2007 11:35AM]

Just what I was thinking. Where's the Type-R sticker?

[Flashpoint @ Dec 11th 2007 8:08AM]

I'm dissapointed Ford dropped Aston Martin. Until CASINO ROYALE, I never really found that make very appealing. It was a good decision though because Ford's been in the red for a while and AM wasn't going to be a major money maker. I'm just dissapointed the DBS hasn't even been released yet and Ford won't get recognition for it when it is.

[Nick @ Dec 11th 2007 9:32AM]

Ford dropping AM is the best thing that could have happened to AM. Ford cuts quality for cheap partst that help make each vehicle more profitable because they are so much in th red. Thats not the mentality of the company i want to be buying a vehicle from.. nor should that be the mentality of a high end luxury sportscar producer.

[Jim H @ Dec 11th 2007 8:41AM]

Bummer. What happened to Aston's deal with Linn? Now there's a proper high-end hi-fi brand. None of yer style over substance crap from Linn. Functional, drilled alimunium boxes with mininal fuss and no expense spared sound quality.

Guess I'll have to put the Aston order on hold;).

[craig @ Dec 11th 2007 10:07AM]

B&O and Linn have some things in common: both are pretentious, outrageously priced, highly proprietary, and overly styled. The difference is that B&O nurtures its name recognition. Since audio performance is secondary to bragging rights here, Linn's near-total lack of name recognition makes it a less interesting choice. If someone wanted a real audio system in these cars, they wouldn't choose B&O OR Linn to do they work.

[Jim H @ Dec 11th 2007 10:38AM]

craig, well, well. Pretentious, outrageously priced, highly proprietary and overly styled!? I don't really think that those four descriptions apply to Linn.

Firstly, they deliberately adopt a minimalist styling so that their designs don't detract from the sound quality, e.g. a minimum number of LEDs to reduce electical noise and no bass, treble, etc. to ensure that the music is unadulterated.

Secondly, I can't quite comprehend the proprietary part regarding Linn either. Their equipment has to conform to obvious standards such as CD and DVD encoding. The only proprietary stuff is their multi-room setups and, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure that they are completely proprietary either.

Thirdly, price. I bought my first Linn system around 15 years ago. The only part I still own is the Kairn pre-amp due to a theft, however the remaining parts are a good 10 plus years old. Expensive to purchase initially sure but how many crap mass market hi-fi systems would I have bought in that time, of lower aural quality and at what cost? I'm currently looking a pretty good return on investment myself as far as I'm concerned and I've no plans to get rid of it any time soon either.

Fourthly, as far as name recognition is concerned, Linn has one of the best names in high-end hi-fi out there. It's LP12 turntable has been the one to own for the last 30 years or more. Near, total lack of name recognition? Sure, if you're a cloth-eared moron on minimum wage but then you're hardly the target demographic for either Aston Martin or Linn, are you?

[T @ Dec 12th 2007 5:06PM]

The Linn system were complete rubbish! Ever heard one? No bass, peaky mids and just awful. You could tell they had never designed car audio before. AM went back to ALpine, thank God.

[Jim H @ Dec 15th 2007 1:03PM]

T, no I've not had the chance to hear the Linn in an Aston. Which of the three(as far far as I know) models of hi-fi have you heard? I can imagine that the lower end systems might be a little light in the bass area but the top end system had 950W total output which, I'd have thought, would've satisfy even a Max Power reading chav in his Kevved up Corsa.

I guess the subset of Linn-appreciating Aston Martin owners just wasn't large enough. Whether that's because AM owners didn't appreciate high-end audio or the Linn systems really were crap I couldn't possibly comment.

[roger stafford @ Dec 11th 2007 9:20AM]

whatever about whatever, the image of that ride makes me melt...

[jared @ Dec 11th 2007 9:25AM]

We took a vette front end, kicked a big ass hole in the front, slapped it on a 350Z body shell, and threw in a prerelease 2009 STi wing for some sp[r]ice. That'll be...ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS.

[Andrew @ Dec 11th 2007 10:31AM]

There is nothing corvette about that car... DIE BLASPHEMER or somesuch

[shelterpaw @ Dec 11th 2007 11:47AM]

Jared,

A modern day corvette is a meat heads penis extension where as an Aston Martin is a work of art.

[Ryan Trevisol @ Dec 11th 2007 10:17AM]

Hmmm, I wonder if they'll make the seats as uncomfortable as B&O's in-ear headphones.

[Zoundguy @ Dec 11th 2007 10:45AM]

So... reading the Title, and was like what the heck, Baltimore and Ohio Rail-Road and Aston Martin are teaming up? well thats AWESOME, don't know what they will do, but, COOL!

[Andrew @ Dec 11th 2007 10:57AM]

No joke, so does the fucking wheels! Bitch should just hover around or something.

Seriously though, it's neat to see ignorant armchair automotive engineers commenting on an Aston Martin, because hell, what does Aston know about racing:

http://www.autoblog.com/photos/2007-le-mans-24-hours/280187/full/

[Andrew @ Dec 11th 2007 10:58AM]

Gah, this was a replay to Malayvanti. What's up with the reply button only working 80% of the time?!

[Mobius_1 @ Dec 11th 2007 10:59AM]

Do you really need to listen to music when you've got a V12's baritone??? :)

[Andrew @ Dec 11th 2007 11:01AM]

You're joking, right? I mean, heh, you'd have to be. That's an ASTON MARTIN, not a fucking dime-a-dozen Corvette. I'm biting my tongue....breath in....10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...breath out. I'll be ok.

[Andrew @ Dec 11th 2007 11:02AM]

THE REPLY BUTTON DIDN'T WORK AGAIN!

[ecobore @ Dec 11th 2007 11:12AM]

Aston Martin is a great marque... Excellent well built cars that perform... On the other hand B&O is all about style over content, well built yes, but acoustic performance is really pretty crappy! Not a match made in heaven!

[jared @ Dec 11th 2007 12:16PM]

1. ...because what I said was "an Aston Martin is a Corvette"?

2. A Corvette may be a meat head's penis extension, but at least the hp/$ is reasonable. An Aston Martin is a semi-classy financial analyst's penis extension that doubles as a lure for a trophy wife. A douche wearing a suit and muttering "shaken not stirred" to himself during rush hour is still a douche.

3. The article isn't even about a *nice* Aston Martin. It's about an Aston Martin that someone tarted up like a cheap whore for the sequel to Tokyo Drift.

[Jensen @ Dec 11th 2007 12:15PM]

It's not Bose and that is great in itself. I don't know why auto manufacturers like Mercedes and Porsche chose that overrated crap.

[Andrew @ Dec 11th 2007 12:48PM]

"Bose" and "great" in the same sentence. Hehehe.

[Jesse S @ Dec 11th 2007 2:03PM]

B&O is just a more expensive Bose, aka it's overpriced and has crappy sound quality.

[James @ Dec 11th 2007 4:17PM]

Does anyone on here actually own anything B&O apart from the headphones? The audio quality is far superior to your Bose/regular high street audio… most car manufactures are putting bose/harman whatever it is… I have owned B&O for the past 12 years and have tested various other makes and B&O is up there with the best of them! As for the Aston Martin it’s a beautiful piece of engineering but for the guy who said they are well made? Err no it’s as well made a ford focus with the same electric window buttons!!?? Hopefully now with the new owners and partnerships like these AM will become a great!

[Ayle @ Dec 11th 2007 6:22PM]

The car looks like a peugeot RC....