UK - For two years running, Envy has won the title for Best Post-Production House at the UK Broadcast Awards. Handling projects for all the main broadcasters, the company has just opened its third facility in London's West End, featuring an open-plan reception - lounge bar space and 750sq.ft roof terrace, fitted with an Electro-Voice EviD sound system.

This is the 100th EviD fit for installer Clive Alexander of Empire Sound & Light. It is also the second installation of EviDs that he has done for Envy.

The new Foley Street facility, which has 34 offline production suites, boasts exceptional relaxation areas for its clients. Four pairs of white EviD 6.2s are wall-mounted below the roof beams in the reception and bar area, with another pair of 4.2s outside, catering for the huge roof terrace that overlooks central London. The system accepts iPod input, and operates primarily in

France / Germany - French manufacturer APG reports a new stage in its ongoing product development, building on its experience in line source technology (i.e. Matrix Array). At the forthcoming ProLight&Sound exhibition (Frankfurt, 1-4 April) APG will launch its first Line Array.

Named Uniline, the new system comprises a main cabinet - UL210 - and a Low cabinet - UL115B. Featuring a 3-way system with twin 10" drivers, and the company's Isotop arrangement (a 6,5"+ 1"coaxially mounted with passive crossover), the UL210 is a bi-amplified cabinet. The UL115B low cabinet utilizes the efficient K-Horn load technology found in the company's TB subwoofer range, say APG.

The company says that the ergonomics and the flying points of the whole system are designed to offer safe, simple, flexible and intuitive installation. To operate and drive the complete system, users have

USA - Behringer has launched a major hiring initiative in support of continuing expansion and business development. "Over our 20-year history we have developed technologies, core competencies and processes that we can now apply to a growing number of markets", states chairman Uli Behringer. "We will be serving new market segments with new means of marketing. We're looking for talented, creative and passionate people to make this happen."

Opportunities exist at all levels of the organization, says the company. Specific areas of expansion for Behringer are the commercial and installed sound markets.

"Of course, like any company, we're going to say that we're looking for highly-motivated people, driven to succeed, and are passionate, energetic and enthusiastic," continues Uli Behringer.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - Console designer and manufacturer Audient will unveil Zen at ProLight & Sound. A compact, recording and mixing console, Zen combines analogue mixing technology with flexible DAW integration, seamlessly blending the two formats, making the ideal mixing desk for the modern studio environment, says the company.

Dual inputs provide the mic/line input stage and the DAW return path, offering a flexible system for connecting to a DAW or stand alone recorder. With individual DAW record outputs, mono and stereo buses, auxes, a sophisticated monitor section and an optional digital output interface, Zen allows simple audio connection to the rest of the production set-up.

Moving fader automation allows for integration with DAW software, providing precise, fully-featured automation of moving faders, mutes and transport control. Drawing on David Dearden's wealth of experience, Zen

Germany TOA Europe will show its new Type H line array at ProLight & Sound. It is billed as "an all-new series of line arrays designed to fit into the smallest of gaps, the most demanding of interior designs, the most reflective of environments, as well as the tightest of project budgets".

"Type H is the most affordable line array we've ever produced and we're delighted to launch it into the European market at Prolight + Sound 2009," says Brett Downing, sales & marketing director, TOA Europe. "The speakers have been designed with a simple goal in mind: to provide clear, intelligible speech reproduction in large, modern public spaces such as airport lounges, train station concourses, hotel lobbies, auditoria, conference halls, and places of worship."

There are four models in the Type H range, each based on the same 7cm full-range drive unit. The SR

UAE - Nicolas Kyvernitis Electronics, local distributors for Electro-Voice speakers, amplifiers and processors in the United Arab Emirates, has recently supplied the Dubai World Trade Centre's rental division an additional set of the EV XLC line array cabinets. The rental division already boasts a number of EV products in its inventory such as the XLC line array cabinets and Tour Grade amplifiers. The new purchase includes a dozen more line array cabinets from the XLC range, more Tour Grade amplifiers that include the RCM DSP module, Phoenix monitors and Plasma Series powered speakers.

DWTC's purchase includes the latest version of the XLC system, which features the all-new DVX transducer platform. It utilises the same high output ND6-HYDRA HF section, but provides more LF capability with the DVX3121 12-inch forced-air-cooled LF driver, along with lower distortion and more headr

USA - Biamp Systems has announced the twelve companies that received the 2008 Biamp Distributor of the Year Awards, recognising business acumen and drive to mutually grow business worldwide. Biamp developed the Distributor of the Year awards to showcase the "best and brightest" in the AV industry. The winning companies are selected on various criteria including: Business acumen; Strength of partnership with Biamp Systems; Service; Overall professionalism; Technical experience; Sales volume; and Passion for the AV industry.

The 2008 Distributor of the Year award recipients represent a broad range of companies that demonstrated excellence throughout the year, say Biamp.

Winners are: Europe West - Audiopole (France); Europe Central & East - Prase Engineering (Italy); SE Asia/Pacific - Audio Products Group (Australia/New Zealand); Latin America - Almacenes Audiovisuales/

UK / South Africa - Gearhouse South Africa - the country's leading supplier of presentation and event technical equipment - is a long-standing XTA user and supplier, so when the time came to upgrade their loudspeaker processing inventory, they naturally turned to local XTA distributor, Tadco.

Offering services across all disciplines including lighting, audio, structures, power, staging and set design, Gearhouse takes an imaginative approach to project design and prides itself on its state-of-the-art equipment.

Dave Tudor of Gearhouse explains the background to this recent purchase: "With the sale of equipment into Nigeria, we needed to replace and upgrade our stock of audio processing. XTA has proved a very reliable product in the past, which contributed to the decision to make the purchase." He continued: "We currently have in our inventory a number XTA DP224s

Serbia - Touring their latest release A-Lex, a new album based on the book A Clockwork Orange, Brazilian heavy metal band Sepultura's appearance in Belgrade made the most of a new Nexo S12 line array system purchased by PA company Light And Sound Design. Sepultura's front-of-house engineer Stanley Soares stated, "If you have a PA that sounds this good, even the most challenging acoustic venues can be tamed using almost no EQ."

Despite levels reaching 120dB at the mix position, there was not a single complaint about volume, and the system, configured with six cabinets a side plus four CD18 subs, demonstrated CD-quality detail. Using two NX242-ES4 TDControllers, the system was controlled by an EtherSound network. Milan Scepanovic, general manager of Light and Sound Design, happily notes that even colleagues from competing sound companies were impressed by i

China - Leading connector manufacturer Neutrik, based in Liechtenstein, reports that thanks to tireless efforts Ningbo Neutrik succeeded in taking legal actions against shops in China which sell Neutrik product copies. In close cooperation with the authorities in Guangzhou, a search in the Guangzhou Component Distribution Center took place on 2 March 2009. This concerted action was accompanied by the quality manager of Ningbo Neutrik Electronics Co. Ltd. who clearly identified the confiscated product copies on site. In total more than 100,000 connector copies were seized and destroyed.

Neutrik says the success of this measure exceeded its expectations considerably, and that it will "continue in suing product copiers in a calculated and adamant way and to strike back at them with all means and instruments that are available for this purpose".

(Lee Baldock)

Germany - At this year's Prolight&Sound, Meyer Sound will celebrate the company's 30th anniversary.

"Meyer Sound is known for creating legendary products," notes Helen Meyer, executive vice president and co-founder of Meyer Sound, "but underlying our success is a total commitment to supporting our customers with comprehensive design services, exceptional technical support, and a worldwide education program. It's a full-spectrum, creative approach to solving specific customer problems while innovating at the forefront of audio technology."

At Frankfurt, Meyer Sound will feature the Milo family of line array loudspeakers, highlighting the small M'elodie line array loudspeaker and the complementary 500-HP subwoofer, which recently started shipping. The compact UltraSeries products will also be shown, featuring the two latest additions-the UPQ-1P wide coverage

Germany - At ProLight&Sound (1-4 April, Frankfurt), Neutrik will be showing the opticalCON 4 with four fibres. Based on the well-established opticalCON 2, this is equally dust-proof and compatible to LC connectors. The 4-fibre version is an ideal solution for multi-channel point-to-point connections in broadcast and pro audio applications, say Neutrik. It is also available as a 12-fibre Y-split connection.

Neutrik will also present its multimedia product series which includes USB, HDMI and Firewire feedthrough chassis connectors, as well as locking USB and HDMI cable connectors - as usual in Neutrik quality, water-proof and extremely robust.

Also on show will be the HD version of the IP67-rated XX series which is totally dust-proof and protected against the effect of immersion between 15cm and 1m in mated condition.

Next up, Neutrik's Trouble Shooters range aims to avoid the

UK - GE Lighting's Vio high power white LEDs were announced the winner of the recent Lighting Design Awards in the Light Sources and Controls category, sponsored by Ex-Or. The Vio won the award for what judges described as a "major advance in colour stability".

GE Lighting's highest power, white LED yet, the Vio 7.2, also available in 1.2W and 3.6W, provides has light outputs of up to 350 lumens. Receiving the award, GE Lighting's product manager for solid state lighting, Andy Davies, said, "We are thrilled that the Vio has been recognised as best in class at the Lighting Design Awards. This prestigious award demonstrates that the Vio truly is the best available high power LED on the market and is valuable recognition of GE's commitment to bringing innovative top quality products to market."

See GE Lighting at PLASA Focus -

Germany - Sennheiser has announced that WiCOS, a wireless conference system that automatically avoids interference, will soon be available.

WiCOS, short for Wireless Conference System, features automatic dynamic frequency management with two frequency ranges (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz), for wireless transmission, and automatically switches the range if it detects interference on its wireless frequencies. This means that WiCOS can be operated much more reliably than conventional wireless conference systems, says the company.

"A conference system has to operate with absolute reliability," explained Jens Werner, product manager for conference and information systems at Sennheiser. "For that reason, in addition to the usual 2.4 GHz range, which is often subject to interference from Bluetooth transmitters and WLANs, WiCOS uses the range from 5.1 to 5.8 GHz for its transmissi

USA - The most notable thing about weekly services at Christ's Church at Mason, Ohio, is that each service is in a distinctly different style - traditional, contemporary and blended. The church's 1300-seat sanctuary was recently renovated with a new sound system to handle the contemporary and blended services, while a smaller chapel was built to handle the traditional service.

Long time integrator, Worship Resources, was brought in to develop an appropriate audio design, and Allen & Heath's iLive digital mixing system was chosen to handle Front of House and monitors for the larger sanctuary.

With a volunteer technical staff and a large musical presentation, it was essential that the new console be easy to learn and use. "Previously, the sanctuary had an analogue console but Sunday morning worship now comprises two back-to-back rehearsals and two services," explains T

Germany - The J-INFRA is the cardioid infra subwoofer for the J-Series that can be used to supplement J-Series systems consisting of J8, J12 and J-SUB cabinets in various combinations. It is tuned to fit below the J subwoofer in terms of phase, sound and impact and extends the frequency response of a J-Series system down to 27 Hz.

It is an actively driven two-way bass-reflex design housing three long excursion neodymium 21" drivers of which two face to the front while the other radiates to the rear of the cabinet. The two forward facing drivers are housed together in a bass reflex chamber and are driven from a single channel of the D12 amplifier. The backward facing driver is in a second chamber and is driven by the other D12 channel.

Through this driver setup its cardioid dispersion pattern avoids unwanted energy behind the system and greatly reduces the reverberant fiel

USA - EAW has announced that its JFL210 Compact Constant Curvature Line Array and compatible sub, the JFL118 Subwoofer, are now available to purchase. The company says that its JFL210 compact line array features a range of its innovative line array technologies in a lightweight package that offers an ideal solution for a wide range of small- and medium-sized applications - and with the compatible JFL118, now offers a turnkey loudspeaker solution.

Incorporating constant curvature line array design principles, JFL210 modules form easily configured arrays with predictable output and coherence, and coverage that is both horizontally symmetric and consistent from short to long throws, say EAW. The JFL210 can be flown or stacked in a variety of ways, and the enclosure size, shape, weight and rigging are optimized for ease of transport and handling. Arrays may be easily flown or ground

USA - Davis Wade Stadium is the home of Mississippi State Bulldog football and the scene of blood-stirring clashes in the notoriously hard-hitting Southeastern Conference. The 55,000-capacity stadium in Starkville is now equipped with a high-impact AV system that delivers powerful and intelligible audio to the tiered bowl. A self-powered Meyer Sound system sits atop the venue's new scoreboard tower, while images flash across a 111x47ft HD video screen, the largest in the conference.

The entire new AV installation operates under the general supervision of Bennie Ashford, Mississippi State's coordinator of sports television. On the quality of sound, he comments, "We love it. It's a huge difference from what we had before. We are now hearing true bass, along with exceptional clarity in the mids and highs. Having that ability to hear the full range of sounds, particularly for m

USA - BankAtlantic Center of Sunrise, Florida, is a multipurpose arena venue serving the diverse sports and entertainment needs of the Fort Lauderdale area. Aside from housing the Florida Panthers NHL franchise, the arena hosts minor league and college basketball, arena football, mixed-martial arts and professional wrestling, as well as such high-profile events as concerts by Iron Maiden and AC/DC, among others. In addition, in 2008 the venue hosted multiple presidential campaign events from then-Senator Barack Obama.

The BankAtlantic Center recently upgraded its sound system with a spread of products from EAW including KF730 Compact Line Array Modules, AX364 Arrayable Install Loudspeakers, AX366 Arrayable Install Loudspeakers, AX396 Arrayable Install Loudspeakers, SB1000z Large Format Subwoofers and UX8800 Digital Signal Processors.

The venue contracted Delray Beach-based Eve

Malaysia - The Soundcraft Si3 digital mixing console made its Malaysian debut at the Harman Pro Road Show in Kuala Lumpur resulting in its deployment for the high-profile Monsoon Cup concert in Pulau Duyong and Terengganu a few weeks later.

KL-based Systems Electronics and Engineering (SENE) supplied the Si3 to Show Gear Production who used the console for the event.

The Monsoon Cup Concert is the fifth event on which Show Gear operated on the Soundcraft Si3 having previously mixed high-profile events such as 2009 New Year's Eve Countdown for Kota Bharu and Ministry of Science and Technology and Innovation Malaysia (MOSTI) official logo launch 2009.

(Jim Evans)

USA - The 81st Academy Awards kicked off on a comedic note, with host Hugh Jackman joking that a recessionary budget had forced the cancellation of an elaborate opening number. Left to create his own instead, the singing and dancing relied on cardboard set pieces, lawn chairs, and other yard sale props, put together with good effect to parody the films garnering the night's award nominations.

"It was an original bit featuring a cameo by Anne Hathaway," noted wireless guru Dave Bellamy of Burbank-based Soundtronics, "With only two people onstage, we used eight wireless mics. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the evening, which was extraordinarily RF dependent from start to finish."

Given the task of developing the wireless blueprint for the stellar event, Bellamy used Soundtronics' Phoenix III antenna system to help tame the confines of the caver

UK - TOA, a company which boasts 50 years' experience in the development of emergency broadcast systems in Japan, has now introduced a system that fully integrates emergency and general-purpose broadcast functions.

TOA's VM-3000 Series is a highly cost-effective combined emergency voice alarm system and public address system. The VM-3000 Series is ideal for small and medium-sized applications, such as shopping centres, retail stores, nursing homes, schools and fitness clubs. It incorporates such emergency voice alarm functions as continuous speaker line monitoring and a built-in voice alarm.

This easy to install and set-up, all-in-one system also offers PA broadcasting, paging and BGM functions that operate with uncompromisingly high audio quality to ensure consistently high intelligibility, say TOA Corporation UK.

The VM-3000 Series is digitally audio processed and controll

USA - EAW, one of the pro audio brands owned by Loud Technologies, has announced a two-stage plan which will result in the sale of its SMAART real-time sound system measurement and control software to Rational Acoustics.

In the first stage of the plan, Rational Acoustics is being awarded worldwide distribution of SMAART software: with immediate effect, all of the mechanics and infrastructure associated with the sales and distribution of SMAART are being modified, so that sales of SMAART is now conducted and supported by Rational Acoustics. Then, within six months, Rational Acoustics will purchase SMAART outright and assume immediate responsibility of the management of the products.

Rational Acoustics, founded in early 2008 by Jamie and Karen Anderson, Calvert Dayton and Adam Black, has been working closely with EAW for the past year, offering SMAART support, development and an

Germany - For the first time this year, distributor Mega Audio will be showing a range Turbosound's loudspeakers on its stand at ProLight&Sound (Frankfurt, 1-4 April), having just been appointed as the company's new German distributor.

Turbosound will be showing its TCS series sound contracting products, and its Flex Array system in both flown and ground-stacked configurations.

The TCS series is a complete range of installation products ranging from a large-format double 18" subwoofer and two single 15" arrayable subs, through 12" and 15" active/passive two-way mid-highs to an ultra-compact 6.5" passive model. Turbosound has also developed a high power three-way switchable bi-amp / tri-amp loudspeaker to provide contractors with a full complement of solutions, rounded out with a ceiling speaker for background sound applications.

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