Because of the limited space available, it had proved impossible to position all the speakers of the OB truck's original production monitoring system in exactly the right places. The only way to achieve the correct placement was to block the view of some of the monitors, which clearly wasn't an option.
K-Array is distributed in the UK by Sennheiser UK and when Bow Tie TV's head of outside broadcast sound Ross Banks attended the latter's roadshow on 9 June at Knebworth House, he was impressed with Dave Wooster's demonstration of the tiny K-Array KZ10 full-range loudspeaker and KU36 sub.
"Because the KZ10 is so small, we thought that it was the ideal product to use. It allowed us to do something we'd never been able to do before," says Banks. "We could place them between two video monitors and they would be virtually invisible. It was the only thing we could find that allowed us to do that."
Working with Dave Wooster and Sennheiser UK's Lee Shuttlewood, Ross and his colleagues installed five KZ10 and five KU36 in the truck as a 5.1 surround system. "We've already used the truck on a number of jobs," says Ross. "We used it at a major festival during the summer and they didn't even notice that you couldn't see the speakers.
"Another of the main clients that uses the truck for HD 5.1 sports coverage has been very happy with it. In fact, everyone who sees it comments on how good it is. When you see how small the speakers are, the excellent quality of the audio doesn't make sense."
(Jim Evans)
