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Sound

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Germany - May 2003 saw the official opening of one of the largest and most modern cinema complexes in Germany - the Mathäser, in the heart of Munich. This mega cinema boasts no less than 14 auditoriums - each featuring a sound system from Electro-Voice.

The jewel in the crown of the new mega-complex is Screen 6, which is used for premieres. This auditorium has 840 seats and offers a screen in XXL format, and a sound system to match: the front system from Electro-Voice consists of five Variplex XL enclosures, while the surround system comprises 30 SL 12-2V units powered by 20 CPS 2 amplifiers. According to Eric Egenolf, sales director of Cine Project, the company responsible for installing the sound and projection equipment: "The cinema has been THX certified, for which it needed to satisfy extremely high standards of projection and sound quality."

Egenolf continues:

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UK - LA Audio will be taking orders at this year's PLASA show for its new G400 four-channel frequency conscious noise gate, and GC400 two-channel auto compressor and frequency conscious noise gate, both of which complement the current range of signal processing products, which includes the C400 4-channel auto compressor.

The G400 features four identical gate channels that can be operated as four separate processors or linked as two independent stereo pairs. Each channel has fully variable controls for filter frequency, threshold and release. The range is switchable to provide either full muting (-80dBu) or a more subtle level of signal attenuation (-20dBu). Two attack modes are available - fast or slow, and release is manually adjustable. In-built side chain 'auto-level-sensing' and hold circuitry ensure that false triggering and chatter are kept to a minimum.

The GC400 combin

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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UK - Two years ago, entertainment industry veteran Paul Edwards saw an opportunity to solve a long-term problem. Over the years, he had been frustrated trying to find a vendor to build the quality power distribution and motor control equipment he wanted. And he knew that others in the production world had felt the same way. So he decided to do it himself - and Quantum Energy Devices LLC (QED) was born.

Power distribution represents a major investment that no one wants to think too much about after they purchase it. Quantum Energy Devices' aim is to design and manufacture power distribution products which are well-engineered and well-constructed enough to work reliably and safely day after day in the often adverse environment of the entertainment industry, with a minimum of service. All QED products are fully ETL listed (not just using ETL approved components) and each product is

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UK - This year's A.C. Lighting North Tradeshow in Leeds on 15 and 16 July was deemed to be a success by both sponsors and visitors alike, with more than 400 people attending over the two days of the show.

Key highlights of this year's event included the much welcomed addition of new industry seminars, which were well attended and are likely to become a permanent feature of future shows. Also of note was the increased presence and space devoted at this year's show to a host of key audio manufacturers, emphasizing A.C. Lighting's increasing role as a distributor of audio, as well as lighting, brands. Much interest was also aroused by the first industry unveiling of the new Tourspot and Tourwash moving lights and SpectraLite Combi Case products, all available exclusively from the company.

A.C. Lighting's Northern sales manager Jonathan Walters told PLASA Media: "I am please

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UK - Pro audio manufacturer Audient will show one of the first production units of its brand new eight channel mic pre-amp, the ASP008, at this year's PLASA Show. The ASP008 is a compact, 1U rack-mount unit, featuring eight high quality mic preamplifiers, developed from the mic-pre design used in the company's ASP8024 recording console and the Aztec Live Performance console.

All channels include XLR input, 48V phantom power, switchable input impedance, 25 - 250Hz hi pass filter, phase reverse, as well as line input selection. Channels one and two also feature a -20dB attenuator and high impedance Instrument/DI input, on a jack on the front panel. LEDs provide indication of signal present and overload. A digital output option is available in addition to the standard balanced analogue outputs, making the ASP008 an ideal front end to any DAW or Pro Tools system.

This is the first

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UK - Sennheiser UK has announced that BBC TV Glasgow has purchased a significant amount of replacement Sennheiser wireless microphone equipment for use on the station's studio and outside broadcasts.

Consisting of four Sennheiser SK 3063 UHF 16-channel pocket transmitters, two SK 3072 handheld UHF 32 channel microphones, two EM 3032 twin UHF diversity receivers, two EM 3031 single-channel diversity receivers, a ProSplit 600 active filtered 2x1:8 antenna distribution system and two SK 5012 16-channel miniature pocket transmitters, the order was supplied by long-established Edinburgh and Glasgow sales and rental operation, Warehouse Sound Services Ltd.

(Ruth Rossington)

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Italy - Spanish loudspeaker manufacturer D.A.S. Audio systems has been fundamental in providing a clear message at the Vinovo Hippodrome in Italy. D.A.S. distributor Kennell was responsible for the design and installation of the sound reinforcement systems.

Starting with clear requisites for the performance of the system, Kennel designed the system to provide precise coverage for the different messages to be communicated which include the race start signal, speaker commentary and background music. Sound is provided for three specific areas, the bleacher and parterre areas surrounding the course; the bar, restaurant and VIP areas and finally, a projection theatre located within the facilities of the racecourse.

28 Bi-Drivers were flown from the roof structure of the bleachers in order to obtain precisely defined coverage areas. The Bi-Driver is a high-power, mid-high coaxial de

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UK - Described as a 21st century pentecostal church, New Wine Church in Woolwich has carried out a major upgrade to its sound and vision infrastructure. Leicestershire-based Hawthorn Theatrical was awarded the contract, after having impressed with the PA support they provided for the Church's New Year's Eve celebrations.

Divided into three spaces, the three-year-old church includes a small downstairs chapel and community area, including crèche and catering. However, it was the 1,500-seat main room - set within the shell of the Odeonesque art deco church - that Martin Hawthorn's company was asked to upgrade, in order to provide additional functionality.

For sound reinforcement, they selected exclusively Martin Audio components - and provided a cabling infrastructure for future expansion, as well as over 100 ways of audio patching, a 72-channel Allen & Heath ML500) desk, fully-

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USA - Nearly four decades after Gladys Knight and the Pips performed their first-ever main showroom gig at the famous Flamingo Las Vegas, Knight has once again returned to the resort to headline her own extended run of dates. Five nights a week, the revered R&B/soul singer now performs a musical retrospective in the cosy 720-seat Flamingo Showroom, accompanied by a seven-piece band and four backing vocalists, including brother and former-Pip, Merald.

What initially started out as a single-year performance contract was recently extended an additional three years prompting Knight's monitor tech, John Wrote, to specify an improved monitor system for the diva. As a result, Wrote, who also serves as concert touring operations foreman for ProMix Electrotec's Las Vegas office, spearheaded the early-June installation of a new loudspeaker set-up comprising half a dozen L Acoustics ARCS

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UK - Thunder Ridge utilized state-of-the-art digital audio tools for the One World stage at the recent Glastonbury Festival, opting for Powersoft digital amplifiers, supplied by Arbiter Pro Audio, to power their X2000 system, placing the whole FOH system and the major monitor fills under digital power. At the same time, they employed the latest processing tool from Klark Teknik - the Helix digital EQ system - to control every component of the FOH and monitor systems.

Compared to the conventional amplifier, Powersoft DIGAM technology offers very high efficiency and delivers more power to the loudspeakers with much reduced heat dissipation. The output stages of the amplifiers typically run at 95% efficiency, dissipating only 5% of the input energy as heat. These compact (1U), lightweight (10kg) amplifiers can generate up to 3,500W per channel into 2 Ohms.

The advantages of such

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Spain - Valencia-based pro audio manufacturer D.A.S. Audio is to show its new Dynamics series at PLASA 2003, with the presentation of the DS-115 passive and DS-115A powered systems. The Dynamics series provides users with loudspeaker systems that are easy to carry, simple to set up and offer high quality sound, say D.A.S.

The DS-115 is a versatile two-way system designed to be used as a full-range stand-alone unit. Low frequency reproduction is handled by a 400Wrms 15" loudspeaker with 3" voice coil. High frequencies are reproduced by the new M-5N neodymium compression driver. This 1" exit driver incorporates a 2" titanium diaphragm and EFW (edge-wound-flat-wire) voice coil. The unique enclosure design has three ergonomic handles for easy carrying, will accept a standard 35mm mounting stand and includes a floor monitor position for added flexibility. Nine M8

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UK - Nagra has announced the death of Derek Jones, aged 66, who died peacefully in hospital surrounded by his family on Monday 14 July 2003.

Derek enjoyed a long and successful career in audio sales - his extensive product knowledge was paralleled by an enduring personal interest in computing and a garage full of everything you would ever need to fix anything. His years in audio included positions with beyerdynamic, Hayden Labs, ASC (with his famous Skoda company car) and Alice (Soundtech). In 1998, he joined Nagra (GB), where he approached the role of sales and marketing manager with typical self-effacing humour - often adding that he had only himself to manage, which was quite enough!

As a long-standing and active member of the Institute of Broadcast Sound, Derek accepted honorary membership in December 2002 'in recognition of his contribution to broadcast sound over many y

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UK - Apple Sound, experts in the design and installation of sophisticated systems for the Ecclesiastical market collaborated with pro audio distributor beyerdynamic to provide an audio control system to Beverley Minister in East Yorkshire. As part of a substantial audio system upgrade, beyerdynamic provided an intuitive control system, which centered on Audia from Biamp and the Cue management/media management system.

Working closely with its sister acoustic consultancy Apple Dynamic, headed by Dr Paul Darlington, Apple Sound designed a system that would counter the massive acoustic challenges (and satisfy the installation restrictions) presented by the cathedral-like, Grade 1 listed Minster. The system had to be visually diminutive and very easy to operate.

Following an in-depth RASTI acoustic analysis, it was apparent that intelligibility was the key factor as the enormous va

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UK - Sennheiser UK has announced it is sponsoring a double bill of free festival entertainment this year at Ashton Gate Park, Bristol. The first Sennheiser Sounds of Summer Festival will be on Friday 8 August and the live finals of the third annual Sennheiser Unsigned Artist Contest the following evening.

The events take place as part of the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta 2003, sponsored by Vodaphone Live! The Friday night free festival features legendary Scottish songsmiths Hue and Cry, supported by the Cosmic Rough Riders, plus performances from Tippi, The Hazey Janes, Jo Stevens, Tony Moore and DJ Miss Behavin'.

The Saturday Unsigned Artist Contest final kicks off at 2 pm, with live appearances by all the finalists - Hooper, Nowhere Near the Garden, The Adventures of B Violet, The Climb, Demon Summer and Range#Eleven. Saturday's show also features the tabla and guitar

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Germany - German pro audio manufacturer HK Audio will present its own answer to the line array at PLASA 2003. Concert sound sales manager Christian Stumpp explains. "When line arrays were introduced to the touring market, we regarded the concept as having a great deal of potential, but we had no interest in being a me-too manufacturer and rushing to market with a half-baked solution. Our approach has been to survey the situation rather intensively for several years, carefully analyze the advantages and disadvantages of current solutions, and pay special attention to those areas in need of improvement. Once we were satisfied that we had a comprehensive list of requirements, and were confident that we would be attacking the problem areas with a fresh approach, our specialists Jörg Knieschewski and Thomas Adt began the R&D in earnest to create a new type of line array."

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UK - North London's hottest new nightclub was designed as a 'reactive antidote' to the current trend toward 'superclubs' in London and other major cities. The 800-capacity Egg has been more than six years in the planning. Carved out of a former Victorian warehouse, the venue is described by owner Laurence Malice as "an entertainment leisure space rather than a club."

The venue is something of a work in progress, with the revamping and augmenting of the existing structure being carried out in a series of phases. The industrial minimalist design has been extended into all three storeys of the expanded building, with a plan in place to landscape and enclose the courtyard entryway to extend the club's capacity to around 1,500.

The sound system in the club goes well beyond simply powerful, though power is certainly not lacking. London company Blue Box, led by Mark Metcal

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UK - For the third year running, the television phenomenon that is Channel 4's Big Brother has Audio-Technica microphones positioned throughout the House. Occupying every single fixed mic point, the 31 Audio-Technica products were specified for the show by sound supervisor Oliver France, who, working in conjunction with Middlesex based OB company, Roll to Record, designed and constructed the complicated audio system for BB4 on behalf of TV production company Endemol.

Wherever the contestants go in the house, an Audio-Technica microphone picks up any sound, so that even when they take their personal radio mics off, the viewers hear every single word. Big Brother addresses the house through an AT4050 and when the housemates are in the house's wet rooms, they are picked up by AT871WR waterproof boundary mics.

During the weekly nominations in the Diary Room, the nominators speak i

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Germany - Three sound companies based in Düsseldorf, Germany, recently decided to create an audio pool and standardize their audio material: after establishing their amplifier rental stock, Merz Concept, Medientechnik Stüttgen and Max Stabel, decided to invest in mixing consoles that could be used for a variety of events and consequently made the decision to purchase three ML3000-32 mixers.

With these three consoles, a majority of their rental business is covered and on bigger events the consoles can be connected via Allen & Heath's Sys-Link 2 system. Merz Concept's Jens Meinke said: "The ML3000 is a hard working, excellent sounding console - a really great tool for the sound engineer - and there is no other VCA console on the market that is so competitively priced. Standardizing our audio material gave us more flexibility and minimizes system failures."

(Lee Baldo

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Europe - EAW's new KF730 SLAM (Small Line Array Module) has made its touring debut, joining the Legends of rock, Deep Purple, on their summer tour of Europe. 16 KF730 boxes were supplied by ML Executives, sound contractor for the tour, alongside a 28 KF760 arena system and 24 SB1000 subwoofer cabinets.

Gary Marks of ML Executives says of the inaugural outing: "The new EAW KF730 line array system is the ideal compliment to the EAW KF760 line array, we have until now been using KF850 cabinets for the short-throw side hang applications in arenas but now we have the KF730 - it's the ideal solution. The KF730 is also a great compact stand-alone line array system, which sounds fantastic and ground stacks excellently."

The tour kicked off in Austria in June before playing a further 16 dates in five countries, up to and including the Nandrin festival in Belgium on 10 August.

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UK - Wigwam Sales has completed the installation of an L-Acoustics ARCS system at the Abundant Life Church in Bradford. The system comprises of 2 x 6 flown arrays of ARCS, with each hang delivering 135° coverage in the horizontal plane with 40° down and 20° up in the vertical domain. Each single ARCS cabinet is 22.5° horizontal by 60° vertical due to the asymmetrical Wavefront Sculpture Technology (WST) waveguide. The inverted arrays are complemented by two SB218 subwoofers per side, and the system is powered by a combination of both LA24a and LA48a amplifiers.

Mike Spratt, managing director of Wigwam Acoustics, comments: "The 1,500-capacity church is very wide and also has a long balcony at the back and down both sides, so it was important to be able to cover the entire auditorium from a L/R system without having to use standard delays and fills. The ARCS is the perfe

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UK - Audace Ltd, manufacturer of the Intelliplate programmable control system for audio-visual installations, has appointed Prase Engineering S.r.l. of Treviso - an established distributor of professional audio-visual equipment - to distribute its products exclusively in Italy. The deal was brokered by Audace's global distribution partner Comsec International.

Following the appointment, managing director of Audace Ltd, Bryan Waters, recently visited the distributors' facilities, which are situated close to Venice. The visit provided Prase Engineering staff with an opportunity to view the system first hand, receive technical training and see future plans for the Intelliplate product range.

Bryan Waters welcomed the appointment, commenting: "Prase is extremely well-placed, in terms of resources, complementary products within its portfolio and its status within the Italian m

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UK - A new range of Audio Lighting has been developed from leading-edge aerospace technology. The Light Wand Audio range of console and desk lights will be formally launched by Black Cat Music at PLASA 2003.

Evolving from the latest Aerospace LED technologies, the Light Wand Audio range provides even, glare-free light, with a hint of blue, aids concentration and highlights the screen-printing on even the most tired of desks, according to UK distributor, Black Cat Music. The quality of light is achieved by utilizing the patented Beadlight diffusion system, which scatters the light with little attenuation.

The lights, on goosenecks of 6", 12", and18", are available with a choice of connectors. The unique lamp head rotates through 360° which, when combined with the suppleness of the gooseneck, provides a flexibility not seen before in similar products. The units f

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UK - Studio design company, Munro Acoustics, has completed the monitor installation and acoustic refurbishment of a new audio dubbing theatre at BBC Post Production in Bristol. The project involved the installation of a 5.1 surround-sound monitoring system based on custom Dynaudio Acoustics C3F main monitors, BM6 surround speakers and custom T1000 amplifiers. This is identical to the system Munro Acoustics installed in October 2002, when it completed the acoustic refurbishment of a similar dubbing theatre.

The refurbishment is part of general expansion of the audio facilities at BBC Post Production in Bristol, where there are now two main dubbing theatres with Foley facilities and a third, smaller, dubbing theatre with a commentary booth. The complex also houses three track lay areas. Both the large dubbing theatres are equipped with AMS Neve MMC consoles, while the smaller thea

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UK - UK distributor Miltec is offering a line-up of new products from Ecler, Fal and Pearl River at PLASA 2003. Ecler will be showing two new speakers - the Philos 10" and Philos 15" - as well as the new APA, MPA and PAM range of amplifiers. Also on stand will be the company's complete range of mixers and the Ecler 100 volt line system - Enviro. On display from Italian lighting manufacturer Fal will be a new range of architectural outdoor IP65-rated lighting effects, along with a number of theatre lighting products including followspots and profiles.

Chinese lighting manufacturer Pearl River will be showing its full range of Pilot moving heads, plus architectural lighting for outdoor use, DJ lighting effects for mobile and bar/club use and a new range of LED lighting fixtures.

Miltec can be found on stand C103, and Pearl River on stand D110.

(Lee Baldock)

  1. Tannoy lines up new products for PLASA
  2. Sanchez and Scratch Perverts play for Pioneer at PLASA
  3. Soundtracs unveils new website
  4. Annie Lennox tours with Mackie HDRs
  5. Autograph takes West End musical productions Europe-wide
  6. JBL with Respect at the Dome
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