Gary Brookes is the front of house systems engineer for ESS alongside Mike Benson, Imogen's front of house engineer, and Darren Connor who handles the monitor position for ESS.
At the Brighton Dome the system comprised eight TA-890H mid/high cabinets flown two wide by two deep a side, plus five TA-890L vertically ground stacked with two TSW-718 double 18 subwoofers aside. "We're using the older 718s to emphasise the real low end," explains Brookes. "This is a little out of the ordinary, but Turbosound has seen what we're doing, time aligned it and is happy for us to do it.
"We're also using TQ-440 three-way 12"s on stage for the very nearfield. Because the TA-890H is quite a narrow box, the TQ-440s work very well at padding out the areas that don't get quite as good coverage, for example underneath the balcony where the sight line is disturbed and right at the front where there's a very nearfield to the sound stage."
The system is powered by Turbosound-badged MC2 T-45 and T-25 amplifiers with the T-45s powering the subs, lows and low mids and the T-25s on the mid highs and highs. Processing is from three XTA DP224 digital signal processors, one for left, one for right and one for the subs. "I haven't designed any crossovers on this myself," says Brookes. "But I know the XTAs sound better and don't run out of processing power and they have worked perfectly throughout the tour."
(Jim Evans)
