Now the largest Electro-Voice systems rental house in the UK, APR first adopted the X-Array concert sound technology in 2000, two years later, buying into EV's line array concepts, first with X-Line and then with XLC systems. With this latest purchase of 24x EV XLD281 and 12x XLE181 compact cabinets, APR is intending to service its growing interest in touring musicals and cabaret-style one-off shows, which play in town theatres where audience sizes are generally less than 1500.
APR's owner Andy Reed is also a partner in new company R2 Digital, which owns the rights to a number of touring productions and supplies production services to others. He has hired APR Audio to handle the sound reinforcement provision for shows like O What a Night! starring Kid Creole, and the UK tour of TV psychic Sally Morgan, which are using all-EV systems and RE97TX ultra-low profile headset microphones.
"I like Electro-Voice," says Reed. "The Xi1152 is one of the best boxes I've ever heard, incredibly powerful for its size, and the X-Sub is the best sub on the market today. We're investing in the new Compact XLD and XLE systems because of their efficiency, and because you can fly them anywhere, even when space is at a premium and other cabinets have to be groundstacked which is typically the case in older regional theatres. Plus the support from Shuttlesound is fantastic; if there's ever an issue, it's addressed immediately."
"Our relationship with APR Audio goes from strength to strength," said Shuttlesound's Sales Director Sean Maxwell, welcoming the fact of APR's further investment in EV's line array technology.
Originally, Andy Reed conceived his rental company as a dry-hire operation. "However, we found that we had to keep buying all the latest gear all the time, which represented a huge investment. Now we do more of our own events, only 30 per cent of our work is in sub-rental." Dry-hire customers include Britannia Row, Major Tom and half-a-dozen smaller PA companies around the UK.
(Jim Evans)
