Although much of AVFX's emphasis has always been on visual media (multi-image projection was the rage when the company started in the early 1980s), the company has also supplied sound systems for years. One of their long-time audio mainstays has been the classic UPA-1A loudspeaker, which AVFX started using many years before the self-powered UPA-1P became available. The versatility of the UPA-1A insures that those conventionally-powered legacy speakers not only remain in AVFX's inventory, but continue to see constant use.
As AVFX continues to grow, the firm's Meyer Sound inventory has grown with it. Around four or five years ago, a dozen UPM-1P ultra-compact wide coverage loudspeakers were added and, early in 2005, AVFX acquired UPJ-1P compact VariO loudspeakers. This gave AVFX a solid arsenal of loudspeakers chosen specifically to meet the needs of the exhibit and meeting industries, but the rise of line array systems presented new possibilities for covering larger events. The market in Boston does not have the very large ballroom venues commonly found in the South and West of the US. A large-scale line array product would not have been optimal for AVFX, as most of the venues they serve don't require large-scale systems and a big system would present greater storage and trucking demands.
Audio Department Manager Jim Wilkens looked around at all the options, but ended up opting for Meyer Sound. He approached company founder and owner Murray Lapides and requested not one, but two line arrays. The company invested in a dozen M2D compact curvilinear array loudspeakers and another dozen M1D ultra-compact curvilinear array loudspeakers, as well as a pair of 700-HP ultrahigh-power subwoofers. "The M2D allows us to do large ballrooms and other things a bit bigger than what we've done before," says Wilkens, "while the M1D gives us the flexibility to have a line array on just about any size gig."
(Lee Baldock)
