Headquartered in the West Midlands and with a satellite office in North Wales, CS Audio is an independent professional sound production company supplying specialist equipment, personnel and services to the concert touring, theatre and events industries. Owner Paul Hatt took very little persuading, when he recently made his initial investment in Outline’s Newton FPGA processor,
‘The unit had been on my radar for a while thanks to the industry buzz it has generated – some products quickly develop a reputation for simply being the right tool for the job and Newton is definitely one of them. It quickly became obvious that it was way ahead of any comparable product and ideal for our needs. Its ease of use, dual redundant PSUs and connectivity options, all in such a compact package, made it a very simple decision to invest.
‘It has become our go-to choice for our FOH drive rack, using Dante as the primary network with AES backup, and it works so well with our inventory of Martin Audio loudspeaker products,’ he continues. ‘It’s already been out on tours with Groove Armada, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Soft Cell, Emma Bunton and Belinda Carlisle – plus we used it for The Alarm’s 30th anniversary show up here too. My crews really like it because it’s reliable, the control software is excellent and it’s everything they wanted. Also, James [Lawford] from CUK Audio was incredibly helpful, managing to get us product on time during the supply chain problems that have affected the whole industry.’
One of Hatt’s freelancers, James Jewry, was PA Tech on the The Alarm show: ‘Newton is a superb bit of kit for the heart of any audio system,’ he says. ‘The workflow and speed of operation helps me concentrate on the bit of getting the sound system tuned and lined up before handover to the band engineer. The variety of inputs and outputs, in only a 1U-high chassis, is super flexible to deal with whatever’s thrown at you.’
