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Dynacord Xa System

When I first reviewed the Dynacord Cobra Speaker System, the product literally fit the definition of the European over-designed "Uber-system" with a price tag to match. While many Cobra systems were sold, a number of potential customers could not make the investment, even with its plug and play abilities. So the Dynacord Xa Speaker now comes along to address the market's desire for a cost-sensitive, plug and play speaker system at home with corporate gigs, DJ-work, and live music performances.

"Digital Goes Midas." No, I didn't coin this phrase (nor did I have anything to do with the Matrixlike magazine ad). The phrase is the promotional tag Midas (Telex, Klark Teknik) hung on their new digital mixing console. I would have said "Midas puts the analog in digital." However, I am not an ad guy; I am simply a writer for FOH who found himself an invited guest of the Midas folks to witness the unveiling of XL8 digital desk.

Anyone who does one-off or touring gigs has been there. It's late, it's been a long day and you have hundreds of feet of heavy snake to drag and coil into a box, which then weighs a ton, and you have to push it around to get it into the truck. Sometimes, if you are really lucky, the truck has no lift, so you get to muscle it up a ramp. It's one reason why we have been watching the development of digital snakes that transmit over fiber or CAT5 and fit in a case that you can carry onto an airplane without a sideways glance from the flight attendant.

Audio-Technica ATH-PRO700 SV Headphones

By Rob Orlinick

Last week, I was given the task of dubbing some appropriate walk-in music for some upcoming shows (don't ask!). After setting up a dubbing station, I grabbed a set of headphones that were sitting out in the office.

On the first disc was some old Motown stuff. When I slipped on the cans, there were parts in the arrangement I had never noticed before in the thousand or so times I heard the number–a secondary rhythm guitar part, percussion fills–that caused me to stop and listen to the entire track! The next disc was a 1970s R&B compilation. The same thing happened–details in the music came out. Reverb tails on the vocals, harmonics on the strings and more. I asked the company owner what the deal was with these headphones. When he told me they were here for evaluation, I immediately volunteered.

Klark Teknik Square ONE GEQ and Dynamics

By Mark Amundson

Sporting three rack spaces and purple epoxy on the front and rear panels, the Klark Teknik Square One series of products takes the essence of KT signal processing excellence to a mid-market category of customers. I am going spoil the ending for you slightly by saying that both the Square One GEQ and eight-channel Dynamic Processor units are worthy in any application from touring outboard to garage band rehearsal rig.

FOH was well represented at Winter NAMM with as many as six of us on the floor at times (OK, that six includes the ad folks, but ours are not weasels, so we can include them). While there was nothing really earth-shattering, there was some cool stuff, and some of it in unexpected places. Each of us had our favorites, but a couple of things caught everyone's eye. I have yet to talk to a soundguy at any level from regional on down who wasn't jazzed by the Peavey Distro, and their line array created quite a buzz as well. A couple of us saw some not-yet-released EV stuff that we can't talk about without an automatic contract going out on all of us and our families, but it will be worth talking about eventually.

The Yamaha M7CL Digital Mixing Console

By Paul Overson

Have you ever fallen in love with a piece of gear to the point where you would want to marry it? This didn't quite happen (good thing, because it is probably illegal in most states…), but we did love the Yamaha M7CL enough to want to buy it. It is the fastest, most versatile and user-friendly and has the best value of any digital console we've used to date.