UK - Award-winning audio technology company, Flare Audio, launched what they believe to be the world's first 'fully' open back headphones at PLASA 2014. The Reference R1, aimed at the pro audio and audiophile market, uses Flare's unique new approach to produce distortion free sound, even at full volume, enabling true transfer and transmission of source material. The Reference R1's are now available for pre-order.

Flare also showcased the new Flare X0A, a compact vertical point source array, together with the rest of the Flare Audio range of products, including flown X2A and X5A systems.

"PLASA was a fantastic show for us and generated a huge amount of interest around the R1s as well as our install and touring products," says Flare CEO, Davies Roberts. "Since the show, the Flare system has been installed at award-winning venue The Leadmill, and is currently being

Norway - Scandec Systemer AS has been appointed exclusive distributor for DiGiCo products in Norway, stating its desire to only work with leading manufacturers as one of the main reasons for the company's decision to include the DiGiCo brand in its product portfolio.

Established in 1984 by Knut Børke and Hakon Rønning, Scandec's continued success is due to its high adaptability and fast response times for projects small and large, for both the public and private sectors. These include a wide variety of entertainment venues, recording and broadcast studios, schools, sports arenas and stadiums, background music, public announcement, emergency evacuation and voice alarms installations, marine systems and AV / interactive education systems.

"DiGiCo is a great complement to our existing product mix," says Hakon Rønning, sales director of Scandec. &quo

Czech Republic - The O2 Arena in Prague is the latest large-format multipurpose venue to embrace Nexo's Geo S12-ST sound reinforcement systems, high-output long-throw loudspeakers developed specially for stadium and arena use.

Built for the 2004 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships, the O2 Arena is home to the HC Slavia Praha and HC Lev Praha ice hockey teams and also hosts a range of other sporting and corporate events and concerts.

The venue needed to replace its existing PA system installed 10 years ago, a point source system that was, by the venue's own admission, under-specified and under-powered. The brief required a complete new PA/VA system to provide information and emergency announcements as well as music: also the new system needed to integrate easily into the Arena's existing systems, and to represent good value for money.

"We looked at the best technology a

USA - Pastor Smokie Norful founded Victory Cathedral Worship Centre in Bolingbrook, Illinois in 2005, the same year he won a Grammy Award for Contemporary Soul Gospel Album of the Year for Nothing Without You. He is one of the country's top gospel artists, and his credits include several gold and platinum albums, dozens of awards and nominations, and numerous high-profile performances, including a performance at the White House in celebration of Black Music Month.

When Victory raised funds for its first permanent sound system, Norful scrutinized the options, using his perspective to articulate exacting requirements. The Chicago branch of Advanced Systems & Technologies (AST) designed and installed the new system, which centres on Danley Sound Labs loudspeakers and subwoofers for the main house system, the delay system, and on-stage monitoring.

"Victory Cathedral Wo

USA - Denison High School in Denison, Texas recently completed a new 300,000sq.ft building to accommodate its 1,250-plus students. Although packed with the latest in academic technology and the sort of architectural features that both provide comfort and encourage learning, the new building faced cost overruns and a budgeting challenge that required creative thinking on the part of its subcontractors.

Among them was a plan put forward by local A/V integrator Batts Audio, Video & Lighting to jettison a 70-volt announcement/bell system (and all the expensive conduit it would require) for a distributed amplifier system running a 25-volt announcement/bell system. Based around eight 8-channel Ashly Audio ne8250.25pe Network Amplifiers with built-in Protea DSP processing, Batts AV&L gave Denison a reliable, high-quality system for a fraction of the cost of the proposed 70-volt system.

USA - Wireless intercom systems play a vital supporting role in day-to-day communications within many production and broadcast operations facilities around the world. Traditionally most wireless intercoms are low-power, full-duplex, belt-pack type systems utilized within studios and theatres. When extended range operations are needed at outside broadcast venues such as motor sport circuits and golf courses for example, few commercially available "high-power wireless intercom" options exist posing significant challenges to sports and news broadcasters.

For more than 25 years Raycom has been custom manufacturing "high-power" 2-way radio based PMSE / remote broadcast wireless intercom systems that fit the worldwide dynamic applications of outside broadcast operations.

Following initial success supplying its RTB systems to, American broadcaster NBCs' overseas n

Bulgaria - L-Acoustics has announced that Sofia-based Joker Media Rental has joined the worldwide L-Acoustics Rental Network. Established in 2003, Joker is the largest rental company in Bulgaria, employing 40 professionals and over 80 freelancers. Joker provides a full range of high end staging solutions including sound, lighting and video equipment as well as stage structures for some of the biggest concerts and festivals in Bulgaria. The company provides sound production for major European music festivals, as well as world renowned artists such as Sting, Metallica, Lenny Kravitz, Bryan Adams and Jennifer Lopez.

"The market in Eastern Europe is very dynamic and growing fast," commented Tim McCall, L-Acoustics sales manager. "Joker is a known and respected sound provider and is already putting its L-Acoustics+ systems to good use for high-profile events across Bul

Australia - The Brolga Theatre in Queensland is the cultural entertainment heart of the Fraser Coast, with a first-class theatre and conference venue that attracts the finest international and national performers. The Brolga Theatre has recently implemented a complete turn-key audio system based on Meyer Sound's award-winning Ultra products.

Coordinated by Robert Haigh, operations technician at Brolga Theatre, with design assistance by Meyer Sound Australia, the system includes the UPQ-1P wide coverage and UPQ-2P narrow coverage point source loudspeakers complimented by UPA-1P's as in-fill and USW-1P subwoofers from the system originally install some 14 years ago.

"Originally equipped with a Meyer UPA-1/UPA-2 system, the Brolga Theatre has always been a Meyer Sound client," says Robert Haigh, operations technician. "Over a number of years it became apparent that

USA - Audinate has released its latest firmware update for the Dante PCIe soundcard. Version 3.7.1 delivers a range of new features, including audio signal presence indicators, latency statistics monitoring and packet error detection.

In addition, the Dante PCIe high performance soundcard may now be used with several popular Thunderbolt expansion chassis, to enable connection to computers such as Apple's Mac Pro, MacBook Pro and Mac mini. The Dante PCIe soundcard has been certified to run with Apple's latest version MAC OS 10.10. The soundcard will now also run on Microsoft Windows servers. Both Windows Server 2008 R2 and Window Server 2012 R2 are supported.

The Dante PCIe Soundcard supports up to 128 channels of bi-directional audio with incredibly low latency. "Professionals migrating to Thunderbolt based workstations and workflows will now be able to utilize Dante PCIe

USA - Meyer Sound has appointed John McMahon to the newly created position of vice president of solutions and strategy.

Working closely with CEO John Meyer and executive vice president Helen Meyer, McMahon will oversee the broad-based strategic planning for new products, product management, and multi-product solutions across various vertical markets.

McMahon's new Solutions and Strategy Division aligns product management, design services, technical support, and education under one umbrella with a goal of creating a common understanding of strategic initiatives amongst Meyer Sound's renowned technical and customer support teams. In addition, McMahon will continue to spearhead the digital product concept group in accelerating new digital solutions into the market.

A high point of McMahon's leadership at Meyer Sound is his work on the Constellation acoustic system, which has be

UK - TC Group has announced the appointment of Andy Rust as its VP of Marketing for Install & Tour, with responsibility for the marketing of TC Group brands - primarily Tannoy, Lab.gruppen, Lake and White Acoustic - in installed sound and touring markets.

Based at Tannoy's headquarters in Scotland, Andy has assumed the lead role in the marketing of the Install and Tour verticals, the managing of the core I&T marketing team at Coatbridge, as well as the delivery of the marketing strategy and co-ordination of other marketing teams within TC Group offices in North America, Japan and China.

In congratulating Andy on his new role, Andrzej Sosna, CEO of TC Group's Install and Tour verticals, said: "Andy has a wealth of experience of marketing and the audio industry having spent 13 years at Peavey and the last nine of those as their European marketing manager. His diverse experi

Italy - Powersoft has announced the introduction of the new DigiMod Integration Kit (IK), a true plug 'n' play solution for active loudspeakers. This offers all the components necessary to easily design a complete, but simple plug 'n' play solution around any DigiMod amp module. The result is a considerable saving in time and resource when compared with that normally required to manufacture mechanical parts and integrate external electronics.

Two elegant aluminium heatsink plates, both equipped with PowerCon input and output, are available to accommodate even the most recent DigiMod PFC models. The customer is able to choose between two different DSP solutions including interface panels with I/O connectors, LEDs, programming and networking connections.

Part of the DigiMod IK platform is Armonía ProManager, a new dedicated software tool which will configure any IK combination

UK - Ed Sheeran, one of the most popular UK artists, recently ended his summer tour after 14 dates at the biggest European festivals. The singer used the same set on all dates, with AV equipment provided by Colonel Tom Touring LLC.

The stage was composed of four LED screens surrounding the singer to display graphics and content. To feed the screens, Barry Otto, owner of Colonel Tom Touring (CT Touring), selected Analog Way's NeXtage 16 (Ref. NTX1604), a powerful seamless video processor.

"My client needed to be able to manage multiple screen destinations with a small and powerful system. We looked at the show design, technical specifications and equipment space, and decided that the NeXtage 16 was the best solution for the show", comments Otto.

Sources for the NeXtage 16 included 4 x CamBall 3 remote cameras, plus the festivals' FOH camera. The NeXtage 16 served to

Belgium - Every year, David Guetta visits Brussels to play one massive indoor concert. For the second year running, he has played to a capacity crowd of 16,000 at the Palais 12, using leading Belgian rental company Arto S.A and its substantial Nexo STM Series modular line array system, for the first time featuring the brand-new M28 down-fill modules.

The Palais 12 gig was the opening concert for Guetta's forthcoming world tour, so the technological wow-factor was set at the highest level. Setting up the sound systems for FOH engineer Hassane Es Siahi was Arto system tech Pierre-Laurent Babuine, who is a regular Guetta man.

For main PA, Babuine called on left and right arrays of 15 sets of Nexo STM, comprising 15x M46 Main and 15x B112 Bass Cabinets, together with 32x S118 subbass units. Flown in adjacent lines of main and bass modules, the arrays were completed by two diminuit

Ireland / Spain - PreSonus, a leading designer and manufacturer of audio recording software, hardware and related accessories, has announced that an alliance of Algam-Music Distribucion will serve as exclusive distributor in Spain and Portugal, commencing immediately.

Algam, the leading distributor of MI and audio products in Europe, will take care of the supply chain, while Music Distribucion, a well-established distributor based in Barcelona, Spain, will be in charge of the sales and marketing activities.

"We're delighted that Music Distribucion has teamed with Algam," declared PreSonus Europe managing director, Michelle Lynch. "Algam is absolutely amazing; they're consummate professionals who know the market extremely well. In a relatively short period, they have already greatly improved our sales in France. We are confident that this new alliance will do won

Curve Ball - A musical version of the hit British comedy film Bend It Like Beckham is to open in the West End next year. It will be written and directed by Gurinder Chadha, who also made the 2002 movie starring Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley. "Developing Bend It Like Beckham for the stage has been the most enjoyable creative process of my career so far," Chadha said. "It was always my intention to build on the film and to present its themes and storylines to live audiences in an exciting new dynamic way. I believe we are presenting a totally new kind of musical - part West End, part London Punjabi, but whole-heartedly British."

Double Act - TV duo Ant and Dec are to host the 2015 Brit awards, 14 years since the last time they presented the ceremony. The hosts of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! and Britain's Got Talen

USA - Roland has confirmed their support for Audinate's Dante audio networking solution as an optional expansion card in their new M-5000 Live Mixing Console.

Roland is a premier pro audio and video manufacturer and is most notable in the audio market for their live digital mixing consoles, digital snake systems, multi-channel recording/playback systems, and personal mixing solution - all over Cat5e/6 Ethernet network.

Roland's offering of a Dante solution addresses the need from system integrators, consultants and pro audio professionals wanting to interconnect digital audio products. Supporting Dante in addition to REAC, MADI and Waves SoundGrid positions the new Roland M-5000 Live Mixing Console and the O.H.R.C.A platform as one of the most openly networked audio consoles on the market.

"We are excited to be working together with Audinate in offering Dante connectivi

UK - Roland has today unveiled its next-generation, live-sound digital mixing console, the M-5000. The console is based on a brand new operating platform that provides more adaptability to individual workflow than any previous option.

The platform is known as O.H.R.C.A, which stands for three key concepts: Open; High Resolution; and Configurable Architecture. This combination adapts to the needs both of the application and the operator by delivering 128 freely definable audio paths, an extremely flexible user interface, expandable protocols and multiple-format I/O choices. All paths are delivered at a pristine 24-bit/96kHz sound quality.

The key to the Roland M-5000 Live Mixing Console's internal architecture is that it is not fixed to any configuration. It can be freely defined within a range of up to 128 input or output channels or busses, allowing the operator essentially t

UK - HHB Communications has supplied dBs Music with an API 1608 console and the latest Pro Tools HDX systems for its new Higher Education Facility in Bristol, UK.

The new dBs Music premises recently opened on St Thomas Street, Bristol to cater for a range of Higher Education Degree pathways in Sound Engineering, Music Production and Game Audio. The new facility features five studios, music ICT classrooms and a lecture theatre that will provide music production training for students across the West of England. dBs Music is also an authorised training centre for Ableton, Apple Logic and Avid Pro Tools.

HHB has been a long-term supplier to dBs Music and recently supplied a package of music technology equipment that includes an API 1608 analogue recording consoles with 17 motorised faders fitted with moving fader automation, Avid Pro Tools HDX systems, two sets of SSL XDesk contro

The Netherlands - Abcoude-based Soundcheck, one of the country's respected rental firms, have taken delivery of two new iP24 iMode controllers from Outline, based on its iMode's proprietary processing platform.

Soundcheck owner Rodney van Zwol comments: "I was knocked out by the sonic performance of this iP24 and how easy the iPad control software operates. The on-board features are so easy to work with, and the amount of filter processing power is simply unbelievable."

A major advancement of Outline's proprietary iMode processing platform, the iP24 is a multi-purpose DSP loudspeaker controller housed in a single 19" rack space. For the first time, it provides all the features associated with the iMode platform, now able to control external amplifiers and passive sound reinforcement systems.

The iP24 iMode controllers were been sold by The Audio Specialists, O

World - Five time Grammy-winning Christian singer/songwriter Israel Houghton is currently in the midst of a major world tour, playing shows in six different countries. DiGiCo mixing consoles are helping him to spread the word along the way.

Nick Burns, managing director of Australian production company Forefront Productions, first mixed Front of House sound for Houghton on a tour of Australia and New Zealand a few years ago, on the recommendation of other high profile worship artists.

"It was a great call to get, as I have always been a fan. Since then I've continued to do dates around the Asia Pacific region with him and also some in the USA, when I'm there and schedules allow," says Nick.

For this tour Forefront was engaged to provide production management and the FOH mix, including the design and specification of the technical systems. Nick is a fan of DiGiCo co

Czech Republic - The O2 Arena in Prague is the latest large-format multipurpose venue to embrace Nexo's Geo S12-ST sound reinforcement systems, high-output long-throw loudspeakers developed specially for stadium and arena use.

Built for the 2004 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships, the O2 Arena is home to the HC Slavia Praha and HC Lev Praha ice hockey teams and also hosts a range of other sporting and corporate events and concerts.

The venue needed to replace its existing PA system installed 10 years ago, a point source system that was, by the venue's own admission, under-specified and under-powered. The brief required a complete new PA/VA system to provide information and emergency announcements as well as music: also the new system needed to integrate easily into the Arena's existing systems, and to represent good value for money.

"We looked at the best technology a

Austria - Twelve channels of Shure's flagship Axient wireless microphone system have been installed for use at Bregenz's international music and performing arts festival in Western Austria.

Situated on the stunning shores of Lake Constance, the month-long annual Bregenz Festival sees the picturesque lakeside town of Bregenz in Austria taken over by regular theatrical, musical and operatic productions, with the spectacle of the Spiel auf dem See (Music on the Lake) as its centrepiece, taking place on a gigantic floating stage in the lake itself.

As with most modern live stage, musical and operatic productions, the Bregenzer Festspiele has made increasing use of wireless microphone technology over the years. However, the use of RF at Bregenz has always been constrained by local environmental factors. The town is very close to borders with Germany and Switzerland ('border

Sweden - Lab.gruppen has announced that all models of its recently launched touring platform PLM+ Series, as well as all models of the install platform D Series, are now available for shipping.

PLM+ is the new touring platform from Lab.gruppen, a platform that offers all of the performance characteristics, flexibility, and raw power of the 20000Q, but with a whole host of additional features and improvements designed to deliver real world benefits and make the life cycle of any production easier, smoother and more efficient, from the system design stage, operating, through to the final load out.

PLM+ range offers two models - PLM20k44 and the PLM12k44 - each combining a true 4in/4out configuration for audio IO as well as four modules of Lake Processing.

Available in three power configurations (8000W, 12000W and 20000W total power output), the D Series platform is available i

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