Counting more than three decades as a touring engineer in and heading up his UK-based sound company, Pyramid Audio, Ian ‘Fleece’ Elliott is well versed in the value of both vintage and contemporary technology – typically he will field a sound system combining classic Martin Audio loudspeakers with new Linea Research power amplifiers.

‘I’ve got Martin Audio products that go back to the 1980s and 1990s,’ he admits. ‘We plug them into new Linea Research 44M or 48M or 88C power amplifiers and they sound amazing The clarity is phenomenal. Everybody’s blown away by it every single time.’

While having favoured Martin Audio loudspeakers for a long period, Elliott has experimented with an assortment of power amplifiers over the years before settling on Linea Research: ‘We do mostly loud rock shows, and it demands a lot of power,’ he says. ‘The new Linea Research amplifiers save us a lot of rack space and weight. We used to run 4U-high amplifiers that weighed 35kg [77lbs] each; by the time we added crossovers, one amp rack would be 14 rack units and weigh 150kk [330.7lbs]. Now we can do that with one Linea 48M that weighs 12.5kg [27lbs], and we’ve gone from 14U to 2U. It shaved a colossal amount off our trucking.’

Elliot typically chooses Linea Research 48Ms to drive bi-amped stage wedges and picks Linea 44M20s for FOH. He uses older Linea Research XiB amplifiers on drum fills, bridging Channels 1 & 2 to drive a sub and using Channels 3 & 4 to drive a bi-amped wedge.

‘There’s so much you can do with the M series’ built-in DSP limiters and virtual crossover,’ he says. ‘And we never run out of headroom; I’ve seen the limiters come on now and then but you can push and push, and it stays clean all the way up. You don’t hear them working; it’s absolutely stunning. And if a client does have an issue, I can see when they had voltage spikes or anything like that and figure out what happened.’

More: www.linea-research.com