Alcons Audio has announced that two Japan-based sound companies — T-Spec and SSP — have both recently added the company’s LR7 micro line arrays and numerous other components to their inventories.
T-Spec founder Toshikuni Hashimoto first heard an Alcons system at the Prolight+Sound trade show in Frankfurt in 2018, where the LR28 larger format line array was used at the Production Resource Group (PRG) lighting presentations. “I was taken aback by the scale of the PRG show and it made me think that these speakers must be of a very high specification,” he says.
This was followed by a demo in 2021 arranged by Osaka-based E’Spec, the Alcons distributor in Japan.
Following those experiences, Toshikuni chose to invest in in eight LR7/90 micro line arrays, two LR7/120 micro line arrays, four LR7B 12-inch line array bass units, two BF181mkII 18-inch subwoofers, four VR8 8-inch pro-ribbon monitors, four VR12 12-inch pro-ribbon monitors and two Sentinel 10 amplified controllers.
“It’s not uncommon for sound reinforcement needs to change between the initial briefing and the event,” he says. “We want to satisfy the client’s needs, so I wanted to try using the same system of speakers for different-sized sites, but with different numbers of speakers.”
Meanwhile, Makoto Goto, who established SSP in 2006, first saw Alcons LR7s in the offices of E’Spec and later assisted with a listening session. “Alcons pro-ribbon drivers have such a flat, natural sound. I was shocked to discover there was a speaker that reproduces sound like that,” he says. “I was so surprised that I called our office from the listening session and asked all available staff to come.”
He subsequently added 10 LR7/90 and two LR7/120 units, four BF151mkII 15-inch subwoofers, VR8 and VR8M monitors and two Sentinel10 amplified controllers and points to the directivity of the LR7 line arrays: “120 degrees means 120 degrees, 90 degrees means 90 degrees, and the sound is cut off immediately. The throw is also very good and the sound quality is great. It all means that for technicians like us — who are usually recording engineers, not live sound specialists — it’s really easy to mix the sound. As long as the microphone is set up properly, the sound that comes out is exactly as it is input.”
