All performances took place in the 1,500-capacity Festivalhalle Moers, where the patent-pending Leopard and the 900-LFC delivered clear audio despite the challenges present in the reverberant space, according to Gerhard Veeck, technical director for the Moers Festival. "Leopard brought the audience closer to the stage, giving the hall the intimacy of a club. This transformation is exactly what we aim for when we bring this type of music to a big stage."
Leopard's quick deployment made a strong impression on Björn Wiesehöfer, systems engineer for Overath-based contour, provider for the Moers Festival for the past eight years and the first German rental company to purchase the system.
"Leopard is the most linear, easy-to-use line array I have experienced-from any manufacturer," says Wiesehöfer. "Though we've been very happy with Meyer Sound Mica and M'elodie systems in the past, Leopard is clearly the next generation. It's the first system I have heard where you can rig it and play some music, and it sounds almost perfect without correction. We still make some adjustments, but we don't do much.
"The low-end directivity of the 900-LFCs is amazing," Wiesehöfer continues. "It reduced the spill a lot and made it easy to control the resonant frequencies of the room. The whole system sounded completely natural. What went in came out; everything sounded exactly like it should."
The system comprised eight Leopard line array loudspeakers per side and 11 900-LFC elements arranged under the stage in a cardioid configuration. One UPQ-1P and two UPA-1P loudspeakers provided out-fill, and eight M'elodie line array loudspeakers served as near-fills at the stage lip. A Galileo Callisto loudspeaker management system with one Galileo Callisto 616 AES and two Galileo Callisto 616 array processors handled system drive and alignment.
"Leopard and 900-LFC are the logical next step for us," explains Frank Kasper, managing director and project manager for contour, who plans to use Leopard in a variety of concert, sporting, and corporate events throughout Germany. "All of the benefits that we have enjoyed for many years with Meyer Sound systems-self-powered speakers, rider compatibility, and uncompromising audio quality-are combined with lightness and compact size."
Leopard and 900-LFC will be featured in live demos during InfoComm 2015 in Orlando.
(Jim Evans)
