Only recently established by Rolf Feldmann, aha-audio has already provided sound services to major concerts and festivals across Germany.
When distribution of APG came to an end in 2015 in Germany, Feldmann moved to keep APG active in the German market, creating aha-audio in January 2016 as exclusive Germany distributor for the French manufacturer. ‘This could be seen by some as a big risk to take, but when you hear the sound that comes out of these boxes, you know that the brand is bound to succeed in this highly demanding market,’ he argues. ‘Plus APG was already a recognised brand in Germany.’
Rental companies including Tonwerk and Sound Light & Design Wesel (SLD) were using APG at the time.
After the ProLight & Sound 2016 show, SLD – having held a large stock of APG speakers since 2010 – ordered 12 Uniline Compact UC206N and six UC206W speakers, and three DA 50:4 high performances class-D DSP amplifiers from aha-audio.
‘The response we get from clients and users is quite simply fantastic,’ says SLD Technical Director, Marvin Feldmann. ‘They love the true sound of the speakers, the fact that you can hear every detail without any sound alteration. Basically, everything you do on the console, the system gives it back to you, which truly is a unique feature that sets APG away from the competition.
‘We first started to hear about APG in 2009,’ he recalls. ‘At that time, distribution was handled by Audio-Technica,. It’s not easy for a speaker manufacturer to penetrate the German market, there’s a whole bunch of great audio solutions around, so APG had to have a competitive edge.’
Feldmann was invited to APG’s headquarters near Paris to audition APG’s DX15 and the Uniline range: ‘We were impressed by how easy the product was to handle, and from a sound perspective, the linearity of the speakers was simply phenomenal,’ he says. Six years on, SLD holds 125 APG speakers including the Uniline Compact range.
The UC range was first put to the test at the StuStaCulum Summer festival in Munich, in front of a crowd of 15,000. Six UC206N and two UC2016W speakers were flown on each side of the stage, along with six TB118S and two TB115S subwoofers. The system’s linearity was noted by international sound designer Christian Siller and Arne Weitzel, technical director of the Festival, who commented that it was the best sound he had heard on this stage.
Rolf Feldmann recently organised a demo of the Uniline Compact for 30 clients and prospects, and report enthusiastic feedback: ‘I’m confident we can answer any request from the market, from the most complex installations to the biggest festivals.’
SLD has also called on its Uniline and the Uniline Compact range as its main speaker system for Cologne-based band Brings, who performed at the Hansetag for the 775th anniversary of the city of Wesel, in front of more than 3,000 people.
More: www.apg.audio
