Technotrix of Calumet City, IL (Chicagoland) recently became a member of the growing worldwide Martin Audio MLA Network with the purchase of an MLA System 24.
The System 24, which consists of 14 MLA and 2 MLD (downfill) enclosures and 8 MLX subwoofers, was acquired prior to the summer festival season and immediately pressed into service at the Taste of Chicago food and music festival, Summer Set Music & Camping Festival, Riot Fest in Chicago and a concert with The Replacements headlining in Minnesota.
“The MLA technology is really exceptional,” states Technotrix senior account executive Kevin Kiefer. “The system coverage is much better than anything we’ve ever used. For The Replacements concert, the last show at Midway Stadium in Minneapolis, we used a larger System 36 and the most noticeable thing was the phase coherence and stereo imaging. We were between 400 and 500 feet away from the PA and it sounded like listening to the concert in your living room.
“Apart from all of the control that you have over the volume and level of sound throughout the listening area,” he adds, “is the area beyond that. With MLA, you can be sitting on a hillside beyond the audience area and the experience is much better than any other system we’ve ever heard.
“I have to say that the MLA system has performed exceptionally well in these outdoor environments so far,” Kiefer continues. “It met with a universally positive response this summer, especially at some of these other festivals where we’ve been able to hear the other large format systems that are out there. It’s very apparent with MLA, especially over large distances, how the coverage remains consistent throughout the entire listening area from front to back. This is something we noticed right away when evaluating the rig. MLA doesn’t act like a typical loudspeaker system.
“What I tell everybody is that the cellular drive in the design of the MLA is the technology destined to replace current line arrays as we know them. The system looks and rigs like a line array, but much the same way line arrays replaced conventional PA systems for over 95 percent of the large shows these days, cellular drive will eventually replace line arrays. Once you do festivals with MLA, other systems just don’t sound right.”
