"We are trying to expand the market to which our sound systems are pitched," says ACK owner Alastair Kerr. "We do a lot of theatre and corporate events that our existing HK Audio systems are great for but we want to start looking at systems for bands and small outdoor festivals for which the COHEDRA Compact is ideal."
ACK has purchased 16 CDR 108 mid/high units, eight CDR 210 C subwoofers and two PR8 amp racks with additional controllers to enable two smaller systems to go out on hire at the same time. The company already has a substantial inventory of HK Audio systems. ACK's introduction to COHEDRA Compact came about when UK distributor John Hornby Skewes brought over a demo system for the Indian Community Mela Festival in Belfast's Botanic Gardens.
HK's Christian Stumpp set the system up for the event, which was attended by around 8,000 people throughout the day, peaking at around 5,000 mid afternoon. "The system covered the whole site without any problems, relaying music from both live bands and CD playback for dancers," says Kerr. "In fact at one stage during the first hour I had to ask our engineer, Damian Hughes, to turn it down, the coverage was so good."
Having ordered its own system, ACK took delivery of it on the day of the local National Training Awards in the City Hall Belfast, a venue notorious for its highly reflective acoustics. "The system came straight out of the boxes and was flown onto the lighting truss, and coverage was even from the front of the hall to the rear without any problems or complaints," says Kerr. "Normally we would have rigged several delay speakers down the sides to ensure even coverage, but this wasn't necessary with COHEDRA Compact as it really projects enough direct sound onto the audience and helps avoiding too many reflections."
The event, hosted by Natasha Kaplinsky, was attended by 450 people. Once again the show was in the capable hands of ACK's Damian Hughes, previously monitor engineer for Van Morrison. ACK is now arranging to demo its new COHEDRA Compact system to local councils and events promoters in order to raise both its own profile and that of HK Audio in Northern Ireland.
(Lee Baldock)
