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Japan - D&M Professional's newly-launched DN-S1000 CD/MP3 player and DN-X100 mixer have been recognized with Good Design 2004 awards by the prestigious Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization (JIDPO). Both the DN-S1000 - an entry-level MP3/CD tabletop device - and the complementary fully-featured DN-X100 Battle mixer - were designed by Kimura Akihito, from Denon Ltd's Global Marketing Division Design Group.

This year's Good Design Awards, which give manufacturers the opportunity to achieve a closer communication with their target markets and customers, were announced on 1 October. JIDPO was founded in 1969 and is the only organisation in Japan involved in the comprehensive promotion of design activities. These activities have included the implementation of a Design Year ca

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Strong launched its new Radiance followspot, which has attracted praise for both appearance and operation. The SkyTracker: MiniTracker searchlight is also new and is an affordable option for those who want a lighter, lower power unit. Jack Schmidt said the company appreciated their close proximity to the Bandit Lites bar - which he says is a positive feature of PLASA and a great place to do business.

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MDG Fog Generators was attracting strong interest on the stand for its DMX-controlled Fogger and Hazer. The company has recently done a huge installation of them into MGM studios. The machines are auto filling and developed after the company designed some products for the US army to use on practice manoeuvres. The reliable and heavy-duty machines are also aimed at the theme park market.
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Indochine X PixMob Fan Immersion

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - 40 thousand LED pixels on a ceiling!!! Indochine's whirlwind tour transports fans to another level of the live experience - immersing them from floor to ceiling with PixMob's X4 wristbands, and an LED ceiling made entirely of its NOVA Minis! With the vision of Indochine's creative team, PixMob used its LED fan-technology to turn attendees and venues into an ocean of effects, and a starry sky of LED magic. Très très cool!

Read more about the Indochine tour in the latest issue of LSi

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Aside from announcing the formation of new lighting distribution company Difuzion (see news this issue), Fuzion Plc featured many brands on its stand including Nexo and Camco. Brand new was the Radia Pro-Line range of architectural speakers, which offer equal sound anywhere in a room using planar technology: there are three speakers in the range - the Pro 1.0, the Pro 1.3 and the Pro 1.9. Finally from the Fuzion portfolio was the new Synergy series of amps from Australian Monitor.

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Dynalite was promoting its full integration packages for control of AV, sound, lighting, window coverings, blinds, etc. Aimed primarily at the high end residential market, featured products included the Dynalite Universe panel wall controller, with seven standard buttons, available in a variety of architectural finishes to match the interior.

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Skyhigh FX Ltd launched its new compressed air 4&8 channel Air-Fetti cannons, which they see as a great alternative to pyrotechnics. They are proving popular with cruise shows that are unable to use pyros but still want great FX for their shows. The company conducted a prize draw on its stand during the show, with the prize of an 8-channel Air-Fetti system won by Mathew Jones, a freelance stage manager working at Butlins in Bognor Regis. Skyhigh's Tom Owen said: "PLASA 2004 was absolutely brilliant - we've confirmed new and serious relationships into Russia, Albania and The Canaries, along with smaller dealers around Europe."

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The ever-cheerful Paul Hinkly of LMC Audio was looking content, saying "Business is good after a lean couple of years." No doubt his mood was improved by receiving an order for one of Soundcraft's new GB4 consoles, which debuted at PLASA. Other new product on display included the Soundcraft GB8 desk, Drawmer DSL424 2+2 compressor/gate and dbx ZonePro 640.

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DiGiCo's new D1 digital audio mixing desk is based on its worthy forebear, the well-known D5. Being a smaller footprint desk - yet sporting 40 busses, 64 channel inputs (with expansion facilities up to 96) and all the familiar D5 high/low filters, 4-band EQ etc - this looks to be a product attractive to the theatre market and for smaller touring productions. It comes in three variants: 'DP' has 12 onboard graphics for possible dual FOH/Monitor role; 'DR' has two drive racks (onstage as a stage box and one local to the desk); and 'EX' is basically D5 specification, with optical snake etc, just physically smaller.

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The ribbon driver has yet to gain wide acceptance, but maybe the new QR Series from Alcons Audio is just the thing to do it. Designed for use in churches and large halls, this line source system utilizes an 18" ribbon driver and three 6.5" LF drivers, offering 120° by 19° dispersion. Available in two forms, Q36 and Q18, the former is merely a vertical doubling of the Q18. This two-way system has a frequency range from 70Hz - 20kHz with an SPL peak of 150dB (QR18: 144 dB - presumably at 1m).

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Jacelle Mattsson, marketing manager for Swefog Technology Group, said the company was showing its new Live T26 smoke machine. It features the new Swefog Merlin R.I.S.C. processor-based electronics and delivers as a minimum, a massive 1,800 cubic metres of clean, dry smoke.

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Proel was showing various new products, including its Next 8 and 15 speaker cabinets, the Axiom line array and the Edge series subs and stage monitors. New distributed products included the Alto AMX series mixers, powered PSH loudspeakers and digital loudspeaker management system, plus B&C loudspeakers and a wide range of JTS wired and wireless microphones.

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Blackburn's HSL Production Services provided the eye-catching focal point on the top deck, with a wide range of products on show to highlight its production hire, sales and design services. These included James Thomas LED products, Community loudspeakers, Martin Pro moving heads and various trussing and rigging solutions.

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PLASA witnessed the first sight of the latest Canford Audio catalogue, now assuming telephone book proportions. The main new products on show were the Omnimount & Fastback, sturdy and adaptable mounting systems for a range of audio and video products, as well as the company's very handy new robust and flexible Cat 5 cable.

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UK - Bandit Lites UK supplied lighting equipment to Derek Halliday Productions for the main catwalk at the National Weddings Exhibition at Earls Court. It was the first time Bandit has supplied the ever-popular event. The contract was project managed for them by Lester Cobrin, who worked closely with Derek Halliday, technical production manager for the runway section of the exhibition. Halliday's client was The Production Team, a London-based fashion show production house.

The 25-minute, four-times-a-day show was choreographed by Oki Wamu, who also chose and arranged the music. With only one day of rehearsals, good prepping was of the essence when it came to lighting, explains LD Mark Strange. "Bandit was absolutely brilliant" he enthuses, "It was a vast improvement on previous years. Their attention to detail and the quality of gear made a real difference from ot

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Rationalizing its range of speakers, Logic System now offers the B.5 and B1, install subs with a 12" and 15", 400W and 500W respectively, both with a frequency range between 40-150Hz, designed to complement the LS range. The existing range already offered a twin 12" and 15" which remain, but all other subs have now been discontinued, greatly simplifying end-user purchase decisions, and equipment utilization. Logic's Ethos line array is based on 120° by 10° dispersion and is lightweight (27kg per cabinet). The system requires just three boxes minimum to achieve linear characteristics, while the flyware allows up to 18 boxes in line. Sub cabinets are designed to be flown at the top of an array, or ground-stacked.

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USA - Allen & Heath will be introducing a new product inspired by the award winning Xone range of DJ mixers at the 117th AES Convention (Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco, 28 - 31 October 2004). A big hit when it was launched at the recent PLASA show in the UK, the new Xone VF-1 is a single rack space, universal analogue stereo filter intended for live and studio use that can interface with any mixer to create and manipulate sophisticated audio filtering.

Allen & Heath's third generation of MixWizard desk/rack mount consoles, introduced earlier this year, will also be seen at a U.S. AES Convention for the first time. The new WZ³12:2, WZ³14:4:2, and WZ³16:2 mixers utilize the latest technology to add new and improved features to the well established functionality and build quality of the MixWizard range.

Allen & Heath will be exhibiting on booth 919 at the 117th AES C

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Turntable wizards and style-conscious DJs will love the new Technics SLD21200 turntable, a feature-packed attractive machine, with sample button, Q-Pad position buttons, rotating platter and many more. Effectively it's creating a turntable with a CD player, using the same platters as the industry standard Technics 1200.

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UK / USA - West London Electric of Acton London - one of the UK's oldest commercial audio distribution companies - is to distribute the complete range of Audio Spotlight speakers, manufactured in the USA by Holosonic Research Labs Inc. Audio Spotlight Speakers utilize ultrasound to produce a highly directional loudspeaker: only those within the 'beam' of sound will hear the program source - those outside hear nothing. It is because of the high directivity of these speakers that they are especially suitable for use in libraries and other environments where the intrusion of sound in quiet places has prevented concepts such as 'talking book' areas or point-of-sale displays taking root. Now, with the ability to deploy discreet, focussed, audio systems, a whole new world of possibilities has been opened up, say WLE.

WLE's Marc Ryan says: "We are very excited about the uses of u

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Launching its new RS range of installation speakers was Sound Directions. The RS is a flat box prototype with highly directional sound, currently installed at the Tate Modern for mixed media installation artist Bruce Nauman's fifth Unilever Series of commissions.

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Color Kinetics showed several new products. With colour temperature of white being one of the big issues in LED lighting today, perhaps most notable were the two prototypes of dimmable white fixtures, each with different colour temperature.

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A new card from Auvitran designed to plug directly into the back of Yamaha digital consoles, giving full access to the Digigram-developed EtherSound network, was on display at the Marquee Audio stand. 16 channels per card (the network will support up to 64 channels bi-directionally) can be assigned within the software. Extremely fast - Marquee say under a millisecond - this makes feeding to/from multiple sources and destinations feasible in live applications. To demonstrate this low latency and high quality audio performance, Marquee provided multi-channel audio to five other stands around EC1 - Yamaha and InnovaSon on the Top Deck and Fuzion, Sennheiser and Stardraw downstairs - via Cat 5 cable. Marquee also had a prototype product from Garwood that finally solves the after-dinner speaker problem - a radio networked self-powered (rechargeable battery) speaker with a 360° throw. The siz
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