The masterpiece of this year's sound reinforcement design was the Firenze Series KH8 Line array touring speaker and powerful KS8 subwoofers. The team flew a line of six KH8 units and three KS8 units with four KH15s for side-fill.
One of the key advantages of the Firenze series is the software calibration and digital acoustic steering that allowed Klaus Hausherr K-array's technical concert team to make digital calculations and configure the speaker using FIRmaker software which would then calibrate the onboard FIRfilters to direct the sound around the difficult terrain that lay ahead of them.
The Skiclub Kitzbuhel commented, "We were really satisfied with the system, everyone could clearly hear all the way up the mountain." Klaus Hausherr diarised his experience with the Firenze system on the slopes. "The loadout on site, was at 7:30am and all the system was suspended and ready to play at 11:00am. During the set-up, I dedicated myself to finding the exact measurements of the site, distances and settings, with a professional laser measurement tool. Finally, the presets system set-up can be changed on Armonìa software for complete control and monitoring of the system. 600 Kg. and six boxes only, for a system able to push a clear sound over 200m is really a whole new frontier."
Karl Wienand, from Austrian distributor Musik Lenz, added, "It is a great advance to have the up-tilt possibility for these kinds of events. You can easily play the sound up the mountain which, is really different to any other system" Stefan from Murdock also commented, "The system was ultra reliable even during the blizzards we encountered at the event. With the steering of the new Firenze series we can keep the audio system out of sight making more room for the fans. We loved the KH15s used for side-fill, it supported the Firenze system to give it more than we have ever heard before at this event."
The Firenze series fought through six days of intense weather including high winds, big freezes and giant snow falls yet delivered the powerful sound it needed, throwing further SPL than the event has ever heard before.
(Jim Evans)
