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52 l June 2012


www.prosoundnewseurope.com livefeature www.prosoundnewseurope.com/live For the latest live news


Coda Audio’s AIRLINE LA12 on the Guano Apes tour


The big PA is dead, long live the big PA


BIG ISbest, so we’re told: ever- taller buildings, massive sports stadiums and cruise liners like floating towns. At the same time there is greater miniaturisation: smaller cars, tinier – but more powerful – electronic components and compact, yet smarter, mobile phones. The live sound loudspeaker exists at both these extremes. Over the past 20 years the touring market has witnessed concert shows on a grand scale – from the high-tech, multi-stage bombast of U2 to the all- singing, all-dancing kitsch of Madonna and Kylie – and the


“In the current market I personally would not feel that comfortable in having to establish other bigger and louder line arrays” Werner ‘Vier’ Bayer, d&b audiotechnik


huge PAs needed to make them work. At the other end of the scale is the more intimate club or theatre, calling for a smaller, discreet but still high- performance audio system.


This year has only just hit the


half way mark but already there have been major endorsements of the big line array approach. Adamson Systems Engineering is entering Phase II of its Energia


After dominating the live sound touring market for over 20 years the big line array shows no sign of going away. But, as Kevin Hilton reports, it might just exist in a slightly different form


project; there have been high- profile sales of Martin Audio’s MLA system; Meyer Sound’s 1100-LFC low-frequency control element heralds a new system set for launch soon; JBL’s VTX is riding on the back of significant European orders; Nexo is producing a different take on concert systems with the forthcoming STM (see box page 54). Also active in the market are L- Acoustics, the pioneer of line arrays in the early days, QSC with the Wideline, D.A.S. Audio with the Aero Series 2, Turbosound’s


Flex Array and Flashline, X-treme Audio and DB Technologies. Coda Audio is another company looking to extend its user base across Europe. At this year’s Prolight + Sound it showed its current range of cabinets, including the CoRAY4 and the AIRLINE LA12, and showed a new amplifier, the C3, which is designed to work with a range of Coda loudspeaker systems.


FULL SPECTRUM


Mick Anderson, a partner in Anderson Ward Consulting (AWC), which handles


t


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