Seen for the first time in a concert situation at London’s Feis, the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury and the Hop Farm festival in Kent, the trust that APR boss Andy Reed put in one of his engineers was richly rewarded.

“We had never used DAS before, but Sennheiser UK’s Nick Pemberton suggested that we have a look at them,” says Reed. “My monitor engineer Fabrizio went over and said to me ‘Take these on, they’re going to be great.’ I took him at his word and they’ve been way above our expectations.”

The powered Road Series comprises two models, the 12A and15A. With 12″ or 15″ bass driver respectively, both feature an M-75 compression driver with 1.5″ exit, a 3″ titanium diaphragm and EFW voice coil. Each model is powered by a two channel 3G Class D amplifier (delivering 550wLF plus 220w HF) and features carrying handles on each side and a heavy duty Iso-Flex paint finish.

“We had never used DAS before, but Sennheiser UK’s Nick Pemberton suggested that we have a look at them,” says Reed. “My monitor engineer Fabrizio went over and said to me ‘Take these on, they’re going to be great.’ I took him at his word and they’ve been way above our expectations.”

“We chose them because they’re light, they’re active and they’re absolute dynamite,” says Reed. “They sound fantastic, the power is incredible, there’s no weight to them at all and we’ve got very high volumes with no feedback at all. And we’re taking very little outon EQ, which saves a lot of messing around.”

As well as these attributes, the Road Series proved their versatility by being used with a wide range of artists at each festival. These included Thin Lizzy, Christy Moore, Clannad and The Cranberries -in fact every act except Bob Dylan – at Feis; every act on the John Peel stage at Glasto including GlasVegas, Miles Kane, Example and Warpaint and most of the Main Stage acts at the Hop Farm, including Tinie Tempah, ElizaDoolittle and climaxing with that notorious perfectionist Prince.

“We were told that Prince was very pleased with the stage sound, which was fantastic,” Reed notes.

- Jim Evans

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