NSCA Expo Day Two: The year of the ceiling loudspeaker, good moods, and nifty wireless links and amp modules. By Keith Clark Editorial Director ProSoundWeb

Packing them in at the Rane booth. Looks like predictions of good attendance, maybe better than last year’s Expo, might be on the mark.

By the eighth stop at a loudspeaker manufacturer’s booth/demo room at this year’s Expo, I began picking up a pattern. Some might call me slow, but eventually I figure things out. The pattern: All eight manufacturers are introducing new ceiling loudspeakers, and I saw what looked like even more in brief periods trolling the show floor. Just as last Expo featured “the attack of the killer new DSP boxes,” this year it’s “the invasion of the marauding ceiling loudspeakers.”

Not going too far out on a limb, it looks like many of these manufacturers see a growing market for “business sound,” I have the distinct impression that this means different things to different people.

Ron Sauro providing EASE 4.0 overviews on the show floor.

I define it as the ever-growing need and want for quality sound reinforcement in a variety of establishments, many of which have had limited or no audio to this point, and at the same time, many of these venues/facilities are best-served by smaller-scale – distributed ceiling – loudspeaker systems. Retail (in ever-expanding scope), corporate boardroom, factory, office spaces… Use your imagination, and perhaps these guys are right.

And as we all know, there’s a whole lot of improvement that could be achieved in existing distributed paging systems – just visit your local airport!

Stop in PSW WebExpo to get details on many of these new ceiling loudspeaker products, and for more of the latest new product and show news as well.

Gareth (left) and David with their latest creation, Aztec. Note the skeletal frame.

Day two began with a pleasant stop by Audient to see David Dearden’s and Gareth Davies’ new Aztec console. It features Mr. Dearden’s classic module designs, combined with an inspiration from Mr. Davies in the form of a skeletal console frame that dramatically cuts weight in addition to creating a nifty aesthetic. Given the heritage of the two gentlemen with DDA, there can be little doubt that this console deserves consideration.

Next, on to Mackie, where Costa Lakoumentos presented a wide-ranging demo and explanation of new Mackie Industrial products, and in a record time window. First up were… ceiling loudspeakers! Mackie Industrial’s new Sound Palette line looks like a contender in putting together a flexible, useful package of speakers and electronics.

Mackie Industrial’s Sound Palette tools.

The Sound Palette SP400C speaker is based on the design of the Mackie HR84 monitor, not at all a bad sonic pedigree in general and backed up with a live demo. The SP1200 amp/processor/router has been designed to match Sound Palette loudspeakers in addition to being capable of flexible stand-alone operation with other loudspeakers.

The Mackie Industrial Dx10e digital signal processor now includes five SHARC 32-bit processors, meaning that all applications of the new version 3 software – now offering room combining, more EQ, Bessel Alignment and much more - can run without tapping out DSP power. At a price of about $1,200 (U.S.), this is a very good bang for the buck package, a sentiment echoes by my friend, Consultant Dave Spoelhof, in a later meeting. Costa also showed new version 2 software for the Dx8 processor, and it includes a new Mimic feature - basically auto-mixing in the Dx8 platform.

Mackie Industrial’s Costa Lakoumentos says “hang on just a second, I only have five more new products to show you!”

Screen capture of mimic, a new auto-mixer feature of Dx8 version 2 software.

Down the hall to another kickoff demo from EAW, an event blissful not only for its clarity and sticking to the point, but for its briefness. They managed to introduce 19 new products – including new KF, MQ and MK Series models - over the course of about 20 minutes. That’s pretty impressive and goes right with what the company does very well – offering customers innumerable options in an easy-to-understand format. Jeff Mason concluded his remarks by noting EAW now provides more than 4,500 options amidst its deep line.

Just like the sign says, this is an EAW CP466 ceiling loudspeaker, one capable of pretty serious output.

EAW’s Jeff Mason and a mysterious floating loudspeaker. Catchy demo technique!

Back out in the hallway, I ran into two of my favorite people in the industry, the aforementioned Dave Spoelhof and Tom Young. Both are consultants with well-deserved reputations for offering outstanding electro-acoustical work, and both are to be thanked for their considerable educational contributions via the PSW Install Forum, Syn-Aud-Con listserve and churchsoundcheck.com.

Dave Spoelhof and Tom Young – BMOC, great consultants and friends of PSW.

“How’s business?” I asked. “Good, really good, almost too good but you never want to say that to jinx yourself,” came the dual reply. Got the same answer yesterday from everyone on this question… apparently the contracting market took a dip (like everything else) after 9/11, but this dip was neither as deep nor sustained as other market segments.

Ducked into the Peavey booth, where Lloyd Trammell was more than gracious in giving me thorough demos of the company’s new Freq Out feedback eliminator and SES 212 Sonic Enhancement System. This is worth a look – it seems to provide a nice “opening” and “depth” in music reproduction.

Also came across friend Steve Marks on the opposite side of Peavey, and he gave me the nickel tour on new – you guessed it – ceiling loudspeakers, and a load of clever electronics that can serve as companion pieces or stand-alone. My attention focused on a series of modules that can be plugged into the back of MMA and WMA modular amps to supply handy processing at significant cost and space savings.

Steve Marks and some of the new Peavey electronics designed primarily for distributed applications.

A new link of cost-effective, and handy, amp modules from Peavey.

The PEQM Parametric EQ module, for example, offers three bands of full parametric EQ, four octaves band frequency sweep, individual bypass switches for each ban, +/- 15 dB boost/cut range, and a lot more.

Back to the floor, and had a nice chat with Jack Kelly of Group One, who’s showing the Cadac R Type console for the first time at an NSCA Expo. Tom Benson of Group One gave the low-down on the cool new XTA Series 2 Digital processors, including C2 compressor, D2 stereo dynamic EQ, E2 stereo parametric EQ and G2 dual stereo gate. As the name connotes, all of these pieces are digital, and all offer feature sets to optimize higher end systems to any degree you’d want/need.

More cool stuff from XTA in addition to the new Series 2.

Jack Kelly (left) of Group One and Sam Spinacchio, kind enough to pose in “full demo mode” with the Cadac R Type.

Tom also showed me a very cool wireless serial link from Pram Technologies.

Tom Benson of Group One with the Pram wireless link between his laptop running XTA software and another monitor.

The device, called the WSL-2, supplies wireless control of serial devices from a remote desktop, laptop or tablet computer, using standard 802.11b WiLAN PCMCIA or PCE card and a 1U serial link transceiver. Tom had his laptop feeding another monitor in the booth, and the quality was outstanding.

The day wrapped with an announcement from Dr. Ahnert that EASE 4.0 should now, as of this moment, be considered a “done deal,” ready for use by system designers worldwide. Ron Sauro was playing to packed houses on the show floor in providing demos of this latest version of EASE.

PSW’s Ken Berger and Dr. Ahnert, talking EASE.

Tomorrow: New stuff from Renkus, Yamaha, Shure and others, along with commentary on trends, happenings, events –and - Don Eger receives the TEF Heyser Award.