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48 l May 2012


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livefeature


Waterschoot also envisages considerable opportunities for “AVB-ready products, working with high-profile brands and installations”. For now, he is in absolutely no doubt about the importance of Germany on the level of both business profile and product quality: “The demands of the German market [with regard to] quality and features are of significant help to us in verifying and proving our products. Establishing our manufacturing base here has undoubtedly helped to promote the quality, technical excellence and highest audio standards that run through everything we do...”


LEANER, FASTER, STRONGER? Newer companies tend to benefit from more compact workforces and lower running costs in challenging times. For some of the ‘bigger beasts’ – most of whom have many decades of product development to their credit – the past few years have, at the least, necessitated a partial


Iosono is moving into the live events market with projects such as this year’s Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week Berlin


organisation restructure (in 2005) that saw the incorporation of target groups and business segments has “allowed us to get closer to our customers and to act faster”. In addition, Sennheiser has evolved extensive consulting services concerning frequency switchover – although that situation has thankfully assumed greater clarity since 2008. Refreshingly frank about the


rethink. Redeployment and restructuring have not been uncommon in a market whose conditions became rather less favourable than in the heady days of the early to mid-Noughties. Ties-Christian Gerdes,


president of Sennheiser’s German sales subsidiary, Sennheiser Vertrieb & Service GmbH, says that the country’s pro-audio business was “hit hard” during 2008-09 – a situation exacerbated by uncertainty over the implications of spectrum reallocation for wireless systems use. For Sennheiser, the new


realities prompted the introduction of short-time working at the head office for most of 2009: a move made “to reduce the burden of costs and avoid losing highly trained/qualified employees”, and one that saw the company working with the German Federal Employment Agency on special programmes allowing staff to garner further qualifications. Despite this development,


Gerdes says that the company was able to “intensify” its customer relations throughout the downturn. A German sales


recent challenges, Gerdes is nonetheless of the opinion that we are now firmly on the upward trajectory. From 2010 onwards, he notes, “we saw business picking up again. While there was still an investment backlog, the economic situation improved and has been improving since.” US-based but a long-term major player in Germany, Meyer Sound confirms that the German market has been more challenging in recent years, but believes it has been less affected than many other companies. The outlook for the rest of 2012 is positive, believes Sascha Khelifa,


managing director of Meyer Sound Germany. Following on from an edition of PL+S that entailed the introduction of the 1100-LFC (low frequency control) loudspeaker, Khelifa expects the recently launched CAL column array and extended family of low-voltage speakers to yield “a very busy time ahead of us, particularly in the permanent installation market”.


TOURING VS INSTALL July 2011 brought the news that Germany had overtaken the UK as the world’s third-largest music market (source: IFPI, Recording Industry in Numbers 2011). In the inevitable post-match analysis that accompanied this announcement, there was a general consensus that the country’s formidable live music sector – founded on a large and admirably diverse network of venues and promoters – had done much to ensure the good health of a market still striving to process dramatic changes in the recorded music industry.


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The five active and passive high-quality wood cabinets are easily combined to create a system fitting for a vast array of pro audio applications. And of course Linear 5 is made in Germany. Please find more information on our website at www.hkaudio.com.


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