Conceived to celebrate Cognac, La Fete du Cognac is a four-day festival held annually in Southwestern France. With 15,000 visitors to accommodate, the Association Fete du Cognac called on local rental company Atlantic Sono to supply and run all of the audio equipment – who partnered with Alpha Audio to provide the main PA and stage monitor system.
As the festival has grown in size and popularity since it was first staged 13 years ago, a more powerful sound system was required than in previous years. To meet these requirements, Atlantic Sono’s Yann Henard turned to Philippe Marlingeas of Alpha Audio for a UniLine line array system from APG. ‘I’ve known Philippe for years, and we often work together on big events like these,’ Henard says. ‘I have complete confidence in him and his team, although I confess I was curious to see how the system would perform, as it was the first time I’ve worked with UniLine.
‘Saying that, I was already attracted by the quality of the flying system and the way the loudspeaker units themselves had been conceived to deliver the maximum performance, Just by looking at it, I felt it would work –it is precise, powerful and functional. The system we had in Cognac was more than enough to delight the ears of both our audience and clients. The visiting engineers who used the system were equally impressed, as they were with the SMX15 stage monitors. With this type of equipment, you simply need to have ears and to know your job, and you’re guaranteed a successful show.’
‘The UniLine system did an excellent job once again in terms of throw, SPL, and delivering smooth and even coverage throughout,’ Alpha Audio’s Philippe Marlingeas confirms. ‘We had a lot of compliments from the musicians who appreciated the fact that they could achieve high levels with zero distortion, and found that the ease of implementation of the multi-angle system was really useful. On a personal note, I’d also like to add that I was very impressed by the new DX15 which we used as front fill on stage. It’s a superb complement to the SMX15 as it has a very similar tone, but in a much more compact, low-profile package. To be perfectly honest we did our very best to destroy the one we had on test by driving it to the absolute max with a big Lab.gruppen FP10000Q amp – the amp went into the red, but the DX15 didn’t budge, so we bought some.’
More: www.apg.tm.fr
