Back went on to reveal that the LR16 compact line array, designed for small to medium applications and receiving its US launch at the show, has been picked up by European rental companies and used for much larger events than might be expected - "the biggest concerts in the biggest venues", in fact. These have included the Nordic Music Awards in Scandinavia, featuring Robbie Williams and Tina Turner. "The US is the biggest slice of the cake," he added, "and we want a good presence in the market - not the highest level of turnover, but a strong platform. Our website gets a lot of visits from US browsers."
The booth display also afforded a sneak preview of the QR Series, a flat, isophasic line array in contrast to the more common curvilinear ones. "It provides much higher frontal radiation," Back said, "reducing the side-lobes at the top and the bottom of the array. To do this, we wanted to design one big ribbon rather than a lot of small ribbons, and over the past year we've been seeing how far we could stretch the design limitations. The result is the 1801, an 18" ribbon driver with 3,000W power handling. Take two of those units and put them in a box like this, and you have a peak power output of 150dB - not that you'd ever use it!"
With such headroom, the 1801 promises to be the basis of new-generation products at Alcons Audio, beginning with the QR - a modular 1m column system scaleable up to scores of metres high, with the aim of extending the nearfield over a longer distance.
