Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

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UK - Packed with a host of facilities to satisfy a wide variety of different requirements, the 8-channel FSM8 stereo mixer from Formula Sound now offers a flexible solution for many different applications. Compact, versatile and easy to operate, the FSM8 is ideal for use in clubs, pubs and bars, conference centres, hotels, cruise ships and theme parks.

The 8 channels of the single-zone FSM8 are configured as a microphone section with 4 mono input channels (all with optional phantom power), plus a music section with 4 stereo input channels. Each section has its own tone controls, every input has a preset gain control, and all are adjustable through holes in the rear panel. The flexibility of the FSM8 is underlined by the option to connect an auxiliary input such as a jukebox, via a preset gain control, which will automatically take priority over all other music channels.

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France - The Digigram Group has agreed to a management buyout led by top management from Digigram and Audemat-Aztec. The management group, as well as venture capital company Perfectis Private Equity and the Digigram co-founders, will create a new private holding company, Audiendis, which will control three companies: Digigram, Audemat-Aztec and Digigram subsidiary Innova Son.

Three professional audio veterans lead the management buyout: Digigram managing director Philippe Delacroix and Audemat-Aztec managers Daniel Werbrouck and Bruno Rost. Delacroix, Werbrouck and Rost will make up the new executive board of directors for Audiendis: Delacroix will become managing director of Audiendis, in collaboration with Werbrouck as production director and Rost in charge of special duties for the board.

Digigram founders and current majority shareholders, Philippe Girard-Buttoz and Marian

PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

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UK - MC2 Audio has announced the first sales of its T4-250 amplifier, which is designed for multi-zone installations. This latest addition to the T Series has been in production since December and is available on a 10-day lead time. A pre-production prototype of the T4-250 amplifier (4 x 250W/channel in a 2U chassis) was shown to customers for the first time at PLASA in September 2002 and advance orders for this new model were taken at the show. The first production units were shipped to Greece and Austria in December, with orders to Portugal and Spain being fulfilled in the first week of January. In common with all MC2 Audio products, the T4-250 is covered by a five-year warranty.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Hayden Laboratories Ltd - exclusive UK distributor for Denon pro audio products - has announced two new machines, the DN-C615 and the DCM280, both geared to MP3. The DN-C615 is the first Denon Professional MP3 player - and a replacement for the DN-600F CD player. The DN-C615 features CD-R/RW playback, with a pitch control of +/- 12%, and MP3 playback with intuitive folder/title search. Direct Track buttons are available, as well as CD Text.

The unit offers 10 seconds of shock-proof memory, and other neat features include a preset, selectable Auto Cue. 'Playback' mode is also preset as well as selectable for Single Track or Continuous Play. General features include a tidy, standard 19" 2U aluminium front panel. User preset functions are available via an IR remote sensor or a wired remote control terminal.

The DCM280 is a high-performance CD auto-changer with MP3 which

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South Africa - On 28 December, 2002, 10 of Bollywood's biggest stars - including Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Karisma Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Rani Mukherjee and Shilpa Shetty - performed in a major extravaganza at Durban¹s ABSA Stadium. The concert, called Now Or Never Live, was put together by Anant Singh's Videovision Entertainment and Amitabh Bachchan, Indian cinema's biggest star.

Gearhouse Durban was awarded the contract to provide all the technical aspects of the show. Aside from the massive stage, and three enormous screens, the Gearhouse team managed the technical requirements of live singers, a band of 18 musicians (on a raised platform on the stage), dancers and chorus singers as well as the retinue of stars. The concert aimed to convey that sense of Bollywood opulence and extravagance and the Gearhouse team had to not only create this opulent stag

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USA - A new sound reinforcement manufacturing company, KV2 Audio, launched itself and its first new products at NAMM in Anaheim this week. Consisting of KV2 Audio Inc, based in Woodinville, Washington, and sister company KV2 Audio Europe, based in the UK, the new company has a strong pro audio pedigree, and strong ideas on sound reinforcement.

KV2 Audio Inc is headed by Marcello Vercelli (the 'V' of the company name). Vercelli, the former engineering product director for all Mackie loudspeaker products, is joined by a team of ex-Mackie personnel. The 'K' of the company name is George Krampera, the Czech designer who was responsible for many of RCF's most successful loudspeaker products.

Meanwhile, across the pond, Phil Price, former managing director of Makie/RCF UK, is joined by another well-known ex-Mackie/RCF figure, Andy Austin-Brown, and Jonathan Reece-Farren, until recen

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UK - The newly-opened Lonsdale House in Notting Hill is destined to make its mark very quickly as one of London's most glamorous new high profile nightspots. When it came to supplying the audio, owner Charles Breedan was equally clear about what he wanted. "I'm a huge fan of the restaurant Momo," he stated. "I love everything about it. Indeed, I chose the architects partly on the basis of the work they had done there, and the same goes for the audio-visual contractor. The Sound Division Group was responsible for the installation at Momo, which I greatly admire, so they seemed to be the natural choice to supply the audio for Lonsdale House."

The specification was for a sophisticated audio system capable of delivering high quality background music throughout the venue with the ability to zone to specific areas. The system also needed to be powerful enough to ma

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USA - The layout of Level 3, the latest addition to downtown Atlanta's vibrant dance club scene, might have presented a challenge to many sound contractors, but Dewayne Walters knew exactly where to turn for performance gear. Having already installed powerful Turbosound systems in the city's top clubs, including the Velvet Room, Nomenclature, Lava Lounge, Karma and Globe Theatre, Walters carefully selected a variety of the company's loudspeakers to deliver targeted SPLs to several different areas throughout Level 3. The loudspeaker systems were supplied via Turbosound's US distributor, Sennheiser Electronic Corporation.

Level 3, which occupies over 2000sq.m in a former Planet Hollywood on Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta, sprawls across three floors and features a large dance floor, a VIP area and balcony seating. The club offers patrons five bars, two downstairs, two upstai

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UK - At a time when the IT sector as a whole is experiencing a marked downturn, indeed, even industry giants such as IBM and Sun Microsystems are reporting reduced profits and scaling back their predictions for next year - Stardraw has announced a staggering 55% growth in sales of its traditional shrink-wrapped range (namely Stardraw Audio, Stardraw AV, Stardraw Radio, Stardraw Lighting 2D and Stardraw Professional) over the last 12 months.

Stardraw marketing director Rob Robinson is understandably pleased: "Annual growth of 55% is a considerable achievement under any circumstances, particularly as it represents almost three times the growth rate we achieved in the preceding period, but against the backdrop of the slowdown currently being experienced within the IT and entertainment technology sector, it is especially gratifying. It proves that we are on the right track with

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UK - Aztec, the new live console from Audient, has completed another sell-out tour. This time the console donned stripy leg warmers and backcombed its mullet to join some of the biggest stars of the 80s on a nine-date tour of the UK.

The Here and Now Christmas tour kicked off in Newcastle on 12 December at the Telewest Arena. It then visited Brighton, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bournemouth, Wembley, the London Arena, Sheffield and finally Manchester on 22 December. The line-up of performers included Human League, 5 Star, Kim Wilde, Dollar, Visage and many more from the decade that fashion forgot.

The sound company for the tour, Capital Sound, with the company's Mark Ballard acting as FOH engineer for the tour. Working alongside him were Becky Pell as monitor engineer, James Gebhard as monitor engineer/system technician and Andy Banks as system technician.

The Aztec Live Performanc

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UK - CP Sound has designed, specified and installed a discreet, powerful audio system at The Zinc Bar & Grill in Fulham, London, for Conran Restaurants. This follows hot on the heels of their other successful sound reinforcement projects at Zinc sites in Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

This latest Zinc occupies a prime location amidst the bustle of Fulham Broadway, one of the liveliest parts of London. Although a smaller space than the other restaurants, the same aesthetic and sonic requirements were applied to this venue. Sound equipment had to be invisible, to offer comfortable and almost imperceptible background levels and dispersion, yet also be capable of pumping up the volume in the venue when needed. Zinc's bar area is designed for multi-purpose use, and can be converted into DJ/dancing mode. It was also important that sound in the two adjacent areas - restaurant an

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The Netherlands - In less than three months, Electric Audio BV has found takers for three complete EV XLC systems. Since the summer of 2000, the team led by Axel Nagtegaal, managing director of Electric Audio BV, has been pulling out all the stops with its marketing: advertisements placed in all relevant magazines, demos and comparative tests are just as much a part of the business repertoire of this Almere-based EV and Klark Teknik distributor as regular direct mailing, intensive customer service and a range of made-to-measure campaigns targeted at dealers and rental companies. The EV Europool, a loose association of Electro-Voice users that today comprises seven sound companies and offers many advantages to its members, is another idea that originated in Electric Audio BV. The slogan of the company is 'We power your ambition'.

In the three months since the official launch of t

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UK - With the country's flagship aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal now on its way to the Mediterranean, it's interesting to note that part of the ship's complement of equipment for the military exercise includes two HK Audio E.L.I.A.S. active PA systems.

"We were really surprised when we got the call," explains Paul Siddall of Bradford-based Pro Audio Systems. "This happened a couple of months ago, when the Navy were fitting the aircraft carrier out for the exercise, and were looking for some powerful, yet compact PA systems for off-duty entertainment purposes. They must have been browsing the web, found our site and decided to put in an order with us for various bits and pieces of equipment for the carrier, which included the two HK Audio systems."

Following a drive down to Portsmouth to deliver the order to the Ark Royal, Pro Audio Systems were further rewa

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UK - The last few months have seen the introduction of some significant new technology to the Stardraw product portfolio via the unique 'Feature-per-Month' update service. The newest feature to be added is the Symbol Wizard.

Even with the hundreds of products added to Stardraw's libraries every month there are likely to be times when users wish to create their own symbol. The Symbol Wizard can be used within the Block Schematic environment of Stardraw Audio, Stardraw AV and Stardraw Radio to create a high-quality symbol in seconds. The new symbol can be based on one of hundreds of pre-drawn templates which are grouped by product types such as Amplifiers, Loudspeakers, Players/Recorders etc. Alternatively, the user can start from scratch with a blank template. The Wizard's dialogues allow set up of the product details (for instance manufacturer name, model number and product desc

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Canada - The Capitol Theatre in Moncton, New Brunswick, hailed as one of the most beautiful performing arts spaces in Canada, is one of the country's latest venues to invest in a Midas Legend 3000 supplied by Tour Tech East. The plush 800-seat auditorium, now fully refurbished and restored to its former glory, dates back to 1922. As is the case with most theatres, space for permanently installed audio hardware, particularly a large format mixing console, is extremely limited, so the small footprint of the Legend 3000 suited the Capitol perfectly.

Tour Tech's Dave Rudderham explained: "The theatre was fed-up with their seats getting damaged by people hauling their heavy flightcases to the temporary FOH position. Eventually they decided to reduce the physical impact on the theatre by investing in a high quality console of their own that was capable of supporting some of the s

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UK - Hayden Laboratories Ltd - exclusive UK distributors for Denon pro audio products - offer new advanced MP3 and other features to the DN-D9000 dual CD player. The high compression rates and portability of the MPG3 format has made it the medium for exchanging music files on the internet, establishing it as one of the essential elements of global communications.

With MP3 now widely recognised as a core music medium for both established and unsigned artists, hardware manufacturers recognise it as central to the way we enjoy and listen to music. Utilising the new plug in, the DN-D9000 offers MP3 playback - via MP3 files on CD. This vastly increases the machine's flexibility, giving access to approximately 250 tracks per CD plus full filename viewing facilities on the front LCD. This reveals useful info. like artist and track names Other features enabled with the software update i

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UK - The latest pop musical to arrive on the West End stage is Our House, written by Tim Firth and featuring the music of eighties legends Madness. Mike Mann reports . . .

Despite the complexity of the flying manoeuvres (and AVW's heavy workload elsewhere in Europe during the fit-up), Brown reports that the system went in smoothly, and has coped well with the demands of a fast-moving show. "We did a lot of work with Delstar who provided the mechanical engineering. Although we have AVW control at the National Theatre, this is the first time that Impressario Advance! has been in the West End, and it's being used to control several moves with motors running at full speed."

The Impressario Advance is the second generation of theatre controllers from AVW, and was launched just prior to the show's opening. Based on the original Impressario product, the new system adds seve

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Australia - Despite more than a decade of false starts and operator frustration, simple wireless and infra-red remote control of lighting has finally reached a level of sophistication and reliability where it has become a useful production tool. Audio, on the other hand, with its hundreds of parameters and its ever-increasing complexity, has thus far resisted any simple approach to wireless remote control.

System Sound, Melbourne-based specialists in audio for musical theatre and musical events, have been working on developing systems for remote control of audio, based entirely on off-the-shelf technologies and commonly available components. Much of this work has been done by Julian Spink, who in addition to being one of System Sound's supervisors and an associate sound designer, works on developing advanced engineering solutions for the company.

System's first brush with radi

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USA - Mach Speakers and the Pro Audio Group of Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc have formed a strategic alliance aimed at increasing brand awareness for both companies' products. The agreement joins together the Mach speaker brand with a leader in digital entertainment technology in a group sales and marketing effort that will give greater visibility to the Mach and Pioneer product lines while strengthening Martin's Total Club Supplier concept in the US market.

For Mach, the alliance allows the company to co-market Pioneer products alongside its own range of speakers, adding another established, professional brand to the Total Club Supplier, one-stop shop concept. The Total Club Supplier concept enables clients to procure Mach audio, Martin lighting, and Jem smoke in one convenient package. Mach will now be able to add a vast line of Pioneer digital entertainment products to its au

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UK - Pete Hughes has joined Canegreen as a full-time special projects manager following years on the road as a freelance engineer. Having started engineering bands 15 years ago, Pete has worked periodically with Canegreen for about 12 years, since when he has toured with the likes of David Byrne, 911, Stevie Wonder, Nanci Griffiths, Neil Finn, Patti Smith, King Crimson, Jethro Tull and most recently Toploader.

In addition to touring, Pete has also managed the sound for a number of large one-off events including The Prince's Trust's 'Party in the Park', Capital Xmas Live and Cambridge Folk Festival, along with stadium shows for The Corrs and Paul Weller as far afield as Japan.

Hughes will be based at Canegreen's North London premises, working alongside Yan Stile and Andrew Frengley. As well as overseeing some large projects this year, he will also be charged to ensure the effec

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UK - Newlands Technology Ltd, based on the Science Park of the University of Hull, has appointed Gary Orrell as its general manager for audio. Gary held a similar post with NXT, the flat panel loudspeaker technology company and prior to that, introduced Wharfedale Loudspeakers to the commercial/professional market in the late 80s and early 90s.

Newlands has recently introduced its first commercial audio product to the market, the Soundbug, an audio device, similar in shape to a PC mouse but slightly smaller; driven directly by a Walkman/Discman, it is attached to plane surfaces such as table tops or windows, transforming the whole surface into loudspeakers.

Newlands design and innovation work is based on magnetostriction - the process by which a material changes its shape in response to a magnetic field. Terfenol-D is a material that displays extreme magnetostrictive propertie

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UK - UK console manufacturer Soundcraft has launched the second in its new range of multi-purpose live performance mixers, the MH3. The new design follows Soundcraft's highly successful MH4 console, bringing the benefits of dual-mode operation at a lower price level, achieved through an appropriate feature set and mechanical and electronic designs that permit lower manufacturing costs.

"The success of the MH4 has shown that people really want this flexibility, and by bringing out the MH3 we are offering that flexibility to a wider section of the market," states Soundcraft product manager, Andy Brown. The MH3 features eight groups, 12 auxiliary busses, the same new mic amp and EQ designs as the MH4, eight VCA and eight Mute groups with snapshot automation, true LCR panning and outputs, and an integral 12x4 matrix. Consoles are available in 24, 32, 40, 48 and 56 mono inp

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USA - New from PreSonus Audio Electronics comes the TubePRE, which the company says delivers the sound of a tube-based system at an affordable price. "The TubePRE is a fantastic product that solves problems for the musician or vocalist," says Jim Odom, president of PreSonus, adding that it "is a no-nonsense, tube-based preamp that delivers the classic warm sound of valve technology, while providing a flexible platform that addresses the many interface needs found in live and recording situations. It offers excellent sound at a very aggressive price point, making this product a winner for musicians and studios alike."

PreSonus's TubePRE is a single channel preamp based around a 12AX7 vacuum tube circuit that provides a stable, transformer-free signal path. The unit can be used as the primary stage of a live or studio system, as a direct box or in a side effect

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UK - North London recording and mixing complex Angel Studios, which specializes in classical recordings and film soundtrack work, has installed a Meyer Sound X-10 5.1 system into its newly-refurbished studio one.

Angel is the second London studio to install Meyer X-10s following the installation of a stereo system at Abbey Road's mastering room 7. Allen Stagg, recording engineer and former manager of Abbey Road Studios, was instrumental in introducing the Angel staff to the X-10. The sale was conducted through acoustic analysis expert Bob Hodas, a Meyer studio products dealer who is well-versed in X-10 technology. Meyer's UK distributor Autograph Sales handled the sale and also provided a SIM System II FFT Analyser for Hodas to install and tune the system.

Angel Studio's senior engineer Gary Thomas requested that Hodas help them to configure a 5.1 system for the new room. They

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  6. Metropolis at the Sports Café, Manchester
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