Danley reinforces New Orleans Ahava Festival
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The weather was beautiful, and the event raised over $100,000. Danley Sound Labs supported the Ahava Festival with loudspeakers, subwoofers, and multi-channel amplifiers for all of its three stages.
“The whole concept behind the Ahava Festival is based on sharing love and giving to the people in New Orleans who are in need,” explained Matt Dupuy, Ahava Festival technical director. Dupuy is a system designer and installation technician at local AV integration firm Assurance AV Solutions of Mandeville, Louisiana, as well as the FOH engineer for New Orleans’ party band favourite, Groovy 7 (who also played the main stage at Ahava). He coordinated with all of the different production companies and suppliers, including Danley, who came together to make the Ahava Festival a success.
Dupuy continued, “As an integrator, Danley is always our first suggestion to clients whenever possible. Groovy 7’s main system is two SM80s and two TH118s. Danley has a level of clarity and a consistency in coverage that no one else can touch.”
Ivan Beaver, chief engineer at Danley Sound Labs drove down from Georgia to assist with the event and, more importantly, to chat with the many local live sound engineers who used the system. “Here’s the deal,” Beaver said. “What Danley is claiming goes against everything that live audio professionals believe. Sure, we can talk numbers, we can talk specs, we can talk blah blah blah, but when you hear it, that’s when you become a believer.
“Engineers at Ahava commented that it was way easier to get a great sounding mix. They didn’t have to work as hard against the system. Similarly, they noted that even small moves – a dB of gain or boost on an EQ band or the fader itself – were obvious. You have to experience it for yourself. There’s no substitute.”
The Ahava Festival used three stages stretched across a quarter mile of the Mississippi River in Woldenberg Riverfront Park: a big, central ‘Seruntine’ main stage, a smaller gazebo stage, and a smaller 420 Gospel Tent stage. The Seruntine main stage used a flown Danley J7-95 loudspeaker per side sonically supported from below by two Danley BC415 subwoofers per side. Two smaller Danley SM80s provided front-fill.
Four Danley DNA 20k4 Pro amplifiers power the system with 80,000 combined Watts and 16 amplifier channels of which 14 channels were used.
The SOTA gazebo stage used a Danley SH96HO stacked on top of two Danley TH118XL subwoofers per side powered by two Danley DNA 20k4 Pro amplifiers. Finally, the gospel stage used Dupuy’s Danley SM100s, along with two Danley TH115 subwoofers and a Danley DNA 10k4 Pro amplifier. All of the Danley DNA amplifiers used on-board DSP with model-specific pre-sets.
“I was really blown away that Danley was so willing and eager to do this for us,” Dupuy said. “No one else is willing to send us $150k worth of gear to run for the weekend! What they’re willing to do not just for their customers, but for potential customers, is amazing.”
(Jim Evans)
