London-based event company Capital Sound has made its first investment in Powersoft amplification technology, pairing 24 X8 amplifiers with its new Outline GTO line array system.

The new amplifiers will be housed in eight specially configured amp racks, containing three X8s, with custom 4U power distro and speaker patch, with the flightcases designed for in-the-field efficiency. The X Series offers eight 5.2kW/2Ω channels in a 2U-high rackmount chassis.

Both the Outline GTO C-12 line array and the Powersoft amplifiers were supplied by UK distributor CUK Audio: ‘We have friends in the industry who have long promoted Powersoft and when we set up a demo at O2, and CUK Audio showed us the X Series, it became a no-brainer,’ says Capital Sound Project Manager, Robin Conway. ‘These new amplifiers are just so powerful, compact and clever, with a ridiculous amount of features.

‘At O2, we were able to drive the majority of the demo rig off just three amplifiers,’ he adds. ‘We have 192 channels of X8 amplification, and as our biggest PA rig will only comprise 104 amplifier channels there is flexibility to extend the Outline rig at a later stage. And since we have recently implemented a Dante returns system, having the Dante integration is brilliant as it will fall seamlessly into the new infrastructure, with our Lake LM44 processors and Cisco SG300 ten-port switches. There will be little in the way of XLR connections now in the signal flow – it will all be done with Dante and Data.’

‘Outline has traditionally used Powersoft K Series [in its products] but this is the evolution of that series,’ says Rich Soper, CUK Audio Brand Manager (Live Sound). ‘Not only was it much more cost-effective for Capital to go with X Series but it has a more advanced DSP platform, based on a tried and tested base, and they will be saving on rack space as well. The Dante implementation is really nice, because Powersoft’s new Armonía v2.7.0 software allows you to stream eight processed or unprocessed Dante signals out of the amps – pre or post DSP.’

The sale will be fully supported by CUK Audio, and Soper will arrange technical training, both internally and externally, for Capital personnel and their freelance sound engineers. ‘Rich has been really hands on from the beginning,’ says Conway. ‘We have experienced the complexity of Powersoft integration in our Martin Audio MLA, and that reliability – coupled with Outline’s recommendation – gave us all the assurance we needed.