The show comes at the end of a busytwo months which has seen the MLA system at work on the highly successful Fettes Brot tour (including the 15,000-seat Lanxess Arena in Cologne); debut in London at the month-long iTunes Festivalat the Roundhouse and now Stateside, on tour with Grammy Award winning country artists, The Zac Brown Band.
Martin Audio R&D director Jason Baird comments, "Our primary aim with MLA was to take the guesswork out of daily system design and enable the engineer's mix to be delivered throughout an audience with precision, consistency and repeatability."
"Based on the amazingly consistent results we experienced during the system's German tour debut, and now with the Zac Brown Band tour in the US, we are even more convinced that MLA is a game-changing product."
"MLA is beyond anything I've ever experienced," stated Jeffrey Cox, VP of Martin Audio. "After spending three days on tour, and experiencing MLA's consistency in coverage, and what's easily the broadest stereo image of anything out there, I can honestly say MLA changes everything - and is the NEW standard for live-sound performance and technology."
The result of many years of intensive R&D, MLA's methodology replaces trial-and-error array design with intelligent numerical optimisation of the array's output based on a highly accurate acoustic model.
The multi-cellular format has six individual cells in each enclosure - each with its own onboard DSP and power amplification.
Martin Audio's proprietary Display 2.0 system design software automatically calculates FIR DSP filters for each cell and a redundant-ring audio network (U-NET) downloads the settings into each array enclosure. Martin's VU-NET software provides real time control and monitoring of the system.
Also on display at PLASA will be the new MLX powered, flyable subwoofer capable of a peak output of 150dB @ 1m, and MLD down-fill (being shown for the first time) as the components of a system managed by the Merlin 4-in/10-out dedicated controller and network hub. Audio input is via analogue, AES3 or U-NET.
(Jim Evans)
