Lee Engineering also has a reputation for thoroughly scrutinising each new piece of equipment before it goes out. "The kit goes straight into the workshop," says director Phil Leedal. "We are a sales rep's worst nightmare as we won't sell anything that we know will give us grief."
One of the company's major accounts is right on its doorstep - Lancaster University's nine colleges and Student Union nightclub, The Sugar House. In the past, each of the colleges had operated its own independent sound system for use in their bars, but this year the Union decided to standardise the kit in all nine colleges - and turned to Lee Engineering for advice.
Leedal explains that the essential requirements of each bar were the same - and the most difficult task was to specify a front-end that would provide each college with flexibility and reliability, while preserving the signal's integrity. He opted for Denon's DN-D4500 rackmount twin CD player, matched with the new DN-X500 mixer. "Denon is as reliable as you can make a DJ product. It's recognisable, it works well consistently, it is intuitive to operate and a familiar brand to everyone."
The DN-D4500 is a recent overhaul of the popular DN-D4000, with new playback facilities including extended MP3 functionality. Like the DN-D4500, the DN-X500 offers robust construction, high quality audio and components and reliability: its 8-channel input matrix routing provides the freedom to move any source to any channel or even the same source to multiple channels for remixing.
Each Denon combo fits neatly into a flightcase, custom-designed by Lee Engineering. All are kept in store and wheeled into position as required, the Denon kit keeping company with the Formula Sound Guardian CX4 fire alarm interface and Cloud zoner.
(Lee Baldock)
