Chicago’s Grant Park hosted the recent Lollapalooza festival’s eight stages, providing non-stop music throughout the three-day festival. More than 100 acts performed at Lollapalooza including Eminem, Foo Fighters, Cold Play and Fuse.
With headliners Girl Talk, Pretty Lights, Modeselektor and The Glitch Mob, the Perry stage found Technotrix, powering 48 Martin Audio WSX subwoofers with six Powersoft K20 DSP+AESOP amplifiers. ‘We have been trying out different subwoofer amplifiers over the past few years and have had marginal results,’ says Technotrix system tech, Alex Sostarich. ‘We jumped at the opportunity to use Powersoft amplifiers at the event. The ability to run so efficiently down to 2Ω was a huge plus.’
The K20 DSP+AESOP provides up to 18kW in a single rack space, making it the most powerful model within the K Series, the most advanced line of power amplifiers from Powersoft. Well suited to subwoofers requiring relatively high continuous power and ample headroom, the K20 is the result of smart design, attention to sound quality, and extremely high efficiency with reliability, portability, and adaptability in mind. At the Perry stage each K20 DSP+AESOP powered eight Martin Audio WSX subwoofers.
‘We had what seemed like infinite amounts of headroom,’ Sostarich adds. ‘These amps are by far the most powerful we have ever used.’
The K20 DSP+AESOP units allowed Sostarich to use Powersoft’s Armonía Pro Audio Suite. The software’s advanced grouping panel made it easy for him to manage the system while offering sophisticated input EQ for individual channels and groups with multiple layers and various filter types.
Sostarich also noted that the TruePower Limiter function, designed to keep the amplifier’s output power at safe levels, was something new that he found extremely useful. Active DampingControl also played an essential role by providing compensation for speaker wire current losses, dramatically improving cone control with virtually negative output impedance, resulting in exceptional audio sound quality. He added that LiveImpedance monitoring was also employed and vital to verifying system integrity in real time throughout the three-day event.
Onboard DSP was used for crossover, parametric and delay control. With a pre-existing redundant Ethernet network already in place, the Powersoft amps easily tied into the same network.
‘One of the challenging aspects of the festival was the almost nonexistent changeovers between acts,’ Sostarich concludes. ‘Knowing we didn’t have to worry about the power on the subs helped relieve some of the production stress.’
More: www.powersoft-audio.com
