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As you equip your listening rooms with today's finest speakers, amplifiers and outboard gear, you must remember that the cables you use to connect your system are equally important, and can affect your audio in a profound manner. Simply put: Cables are audio components. And when you focus inward, down to the atomic level, to the heart of the cables' center conductors, differences in the capabilities of various metals used in audio cable construction actually become visible. Deep inside Zaolla's Ultra Pure Solid Silver center conductor, the reasons that some cables sound better than others becomes crystal clear.

To create our Ultra-Pure Solid-Silver conductor, pure molten silver is poured into specially heated molds which allow precise control of the annealing process. This exclusive process yields a molecularly superior, unidirectionally solidified silver, as opposed to the conventional cast ingot with its haphazard internal crystallization. That is why our center conductors exhibit signal-transmission characteristics that are demonstrably freer from artifacts present in transmissions through copper and even through ordinary silver conductors, putting Zaolla cables in a separate class altogether from many other premium-cable brands currently available. In fact, the silver used in these Silverline cables is 99.9997% Pure Solid Silver!

So, what is it about silver that makes it a far better conductor than copper for audio signal? The answer lies in the atom itself: Current flows through a conductor when electrons are released from the atom's "incomplete outer shell" (the outer-most layer of orbiting electrons). Copper, with its Atomic Weight of only 29, holds 29 electrons in its orbit, but silver is a "fatter" atom, holding 47 electrons in its orbit. Those outer-shell electrons in the Silver atom are much more easily knocked out of orbit. Silver's relative "willingness" to let those outer electrons escape is the reason it makes such a good conductor. In fact, silver is the most conductive metal on earth.

Most of us have spent a lifetime with copper as the standard material for making electrical conductors. There is a large and impressive pool of anecdotal listening results based upon blends of copper and various cable geometries and dielectrics, and it teaches us that substantial differences in the sonic performance of these differing approaches do exist. But these various approaches all have one thing in common: They are attempting to mitigate the signal degradation caused by the passage of that signal through copper. When solid silver is used (especially our Ultra-Pure Solid Silver) you can throw out those esoteric approaches and get back to the basics, because solid-silver conductors like these approach, much more closely than copper cables can, the ideal of pure energy in/pure energy out.

SOUNDCRAFT COMES TO THE DARKSIDE

MARIETTA, Georgia - September 2005 -- Sidelines, a popular sports bar and grill in the northwestern Atlanta suburb of Marietta, has now converted its former 350-capacity special events room into a full-on heavy metal concert venue known as The Darkside. The room’s ‘metalmorphosis’ comes as the result of a deal between Sidelines owner Joe Ahn and Infernal Machine singer/guitarist Shain Stewart who books the acts and owns both the Darkside name and sound and lighting gear.

To properly equip the new performance space, Stewart turned to Atlanta’s Guitar Center, which evaluated the venue’s needs and recommended, among other things, a new 40-channel Soundcraft GB8 mixing console. He then brought in Fred Jacobson and Todd Magee of local systems integrator FSJ & Associates (www.fsjusa.com) to make some final equipment specifications and perform the sound reinforcement system installation.

“Having been a long-time Soundcraft fan, I was excited to learn that Shain was having us install a new GB8,” says Magee, who now also serves as The Darkside’s primary house sound engineer on weekends. “I basically grew up mixing on Soundcrafts, so even though we were installing this desk unheard, I knew that it would sound great – and it does. The new mic pres and EQs on the board are absolutely top-notch. There’s lots of headroom and a nice crisp definition on the high end, and yet the GB8 still very much retains that classic British sound.

“As far as features go, man, what a console! The GB8 has individual-channel phantom power, phase reverse, 100Hz low-cut filters, four-band EQs that are incredibly responsive, eight aux sends, four stereo channels, four stereo returns and an 11x4 matrix, which is awesome considering how affordable this console is. There’s no doubt that a lot of thought went into how the GB8 was laid out and what it was equipped with. This is a quality desk.”

For now, Magee is using the console to mix both the house PA system and monitor wedges, which, he notes, has been working out very well. “I’ve already had so many musicians tell me that this is the best club to play in the Atlanta area and that they had the best monitor sound ever on this stage. And, of course, I guess I have to share at least some of that credit with the GB8,” he laughs.

LEXICON 960L MULTI-CHANNEL DIGITAL EFFECTS SYSTEM PLAYS A KEY ROLE FOR TOMMY VICARI IN MAJOR MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACKS

— Acclaimed film music engineer relies on 960L in films like Jarhead and
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, as well as special events
including the recent Disneyland Hong Kong opening gala —

119th AES CONVENTION, NEW YORK, NY, October 7, 2005 — Acclaimed film scoring engineer Tommy Vicari has filled a critical role in his recordings and mixes of major motion picture soundtracks with the Lexicon 960L Multi-channel Digital Effects System. In recent months, Vicari has used the 960L for a range of successful projects, including the forthcoming Jarhead, based on Anthony Swofford's best-selling 2003 book, and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Vicari, whose filmography includes Cinderella Man, Ladder 49, Angels In America and Finding Nemo, as well as credits mixing the Academy Awards broadcasts for the past several years, has also turned to the Lexicon 960L for special event audio, such as the rolling opening last July and August of the new Disneyland theme park in Hong Kong.

Jarhead, for which Vicari recorded at Sigmet Sound in Los Angeles and mixed last month at Sony Music Studios in New York City, is a perfect example of how the Lexicon 960L Multi-channel Digital Effects System helps enhance the sound of a major film’s score. He describes the character of the score, composed by Thomas Newman for the Sam Mendes-directed film, as “atmospheric, ambient and abstract, with a lot of environmental types of cues. There are rhythmic cues, elements that suspend the viewer in the film. We used a lot of types of instruments, so it’s a very complex-sounding score. There are orchestral sounds, but after they were recorded, they were sampled and played back in a variety of different ways. The sounds are used to establish themes and moods within the film.

“The 960L has diverse numbers and types of reverb programs that really help bring out the uniqueness of a score like this,” Vicari continues. “For highly percussive sounds, I can choose from different types of rooms and vary their size and other parameters until I have exactly the effect I’m looking for. On string pads, I can use a variety of chambers and halls to enhance and elaborate on the effect we’re going for. It really helps add depth and dimension to the mix.” Vicari further notes that the 960L has subtleties that make it critical in the underscoring role. “The music can often tend to disappear as you pull it back to let the dialog and effects in a scene stand out,” he explains. “The 960L has the ability to play to the nuances in a piece of music and give it a presence that remains clear even when it’s mixed into the background. It’s a great processor and I use it on much of the work I do.”

AKG C 414 B-XLS & C 414 B-XL II Win 2005 TEC Award for Studio Mic Technology

Mix magazine readers have awarded the latest generation of AKG’s world-renowned C 414, the C 414 B-XLS and C 414 B-XL II, a 2005 Technical Excellence & Creativity Award in the Microphone Technology/Studio category
The “NeXt Generation” C 414 microphones have already received honors from M.I.P.A.(MusikMesse International Press Association) , Radio World/IMAS and Mix magazine editors
Altogether, Harman Pro won three TEC Awards in 2005 – Crown Commercial Audio Series took the Amplifier Technology trophy, while JBL Pro’s VT4888DP VerTec/DrivePack won in the Loudspeaker Technology/Sound Reinforcement categoryWorld/IMAS and Mix magazine editors

C 414 B-XL II, C 414 B-XLS, TEC Award

The readers of Mix magazine voted AKG’s newest generation of the legendary C 414 condenser microphones the Outstanding Technical Achievement of 2005 in the Mic Technology/Studio category. The honor was accepted by AKG Vienna Product Manager Norbert Sobol and AKG Nashville Market Development Manager Mike Torlone during the 21st Annual TEC (Technical Excellence & Creativity) Awards in conjunction with the 119th Convention of the Audio Engineering Society.

About JBL Professional:
Headquartered in Northridge, California, JBL Professional is the world’s leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of professional loudspeakers for recording and broadcast, musician, cinema, touring sound, commercial sound and contracting applications. Celebrating its 60th Anniversary in 2006, JBL Professional is the proud recipient of the 2005 Technical GRAMMY® award. JBL Professional is part of the Harman International network of professional and consumer audio companies. For complete product and company information, go to the JBL Professional website at www.jblpro.com.

About The Harman Pro Group:
Headquartered in Northridge, California, the Harman Pro Group is part of Harman International Industries, Incorporated (www.harman.com), a leading manufacturer of high-quality, high fidelity audio products and infotainment systems for the automotive, home and professional markets. The Company's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol: HAR. Harman Pro Group companies include AKG Acoustics, BSS Audio, dbx, Crown International, JBL Professional, Lexicon, Soundcraft, and Studer.

the newly revived proctor’s theatre gets a new lease on sound with bss soundweb london

— The Soundweb creates the potential to handle everything this beautiful,
classic and newly renovated theater venue can offer —

WINTER NAMM SHOW, ANAHEIM, CA, January 19, 2006 — Proctor’s Theatre is an icon of Art Deco beauty in upstate Schenectady, NY. Built in 1926 as a cinema and vaudeville venue, Proctor’s Theatre recently completed a total renovation that included a reconstructed stage house that can now accommodate modern touring shows, such as The Phantom of the Opera, which will play the venue soon. As part of the $20-million refurbishment, Proctor’s Theatre, which reopened December 3, 2005, also received a new sound system, one that takes it to even greater heights, thanks to a BSS Soundweb London system.

“Because the theater can now host such a wider variety of programs and shows, it needed a considerably more complex sound system,” explains Michael Cusick, President of Specialized Audio Visual, the systems designer and installer based in nearby Clifton Park, NY. “The system has LCR clusters, front fills, stage subs, delayed under-balcony speakers, rear lobby subsystem, and because they have a quantity of box seats, they also needed separate fill speakers. Altogether, this system has 32 separate zones! Plus it also has to interface with Dolby and dts formats for cinema sound. It’s a very complex system.”

Six Soundweb London units — three BLU-80 and three BLU-32 units — were the solution. Cusick and company created a matrix that would accept input from the FOH console and the film audio outputs that ranged from a simple mono signal to as many as 32 discrete feeds. “The Soundweb London functions as a 48x48-input matrix that holds up to 32 separate inputs as well as a dozen foldback sends, plus additional feeds for L-R and mono programs sent to the distribution amps for applications such as assisted listening devices, backstage monitors and press feeds,” Cusick continues. “On top of that, we needed a configurable matrix that could also handle delays, EQ and level control for each output zone. By programming the Soundweb London system, we could give the client a choice of venue presets that covered the entire range of possibilities. A single mono input is matrixed through the entire system properly balanced. From there, we go to more complex configurations, such as LCR, LCR with sub, 5.1 and so on. Every possible configuration has the same high level of control and flexibility from the FOH console position. It’s as simple or as complex as the user wants. The Soundweb London platform gives you that kind of flexibility. It’s one of the best things that ever happened to digital signal processing.”

Crown Introduces XTi Series

Elkhart, IN – January 2006 -- Crown International unveiled their all-new XTi Series amplifiers with the introduction of the XTi 1000, XTi 2000, & XTi 4000. Brian Divine, Director of Marketing for Portable PA at Crown commented on the introduction: “We are excited about the opportunity to deliver XTi to the market, we feel the combination of world-class sound, light weight and ease of use will help make this an extremely successful product line. Not only is XTi a world-class product in terms of features and performance, it is also a world-class product in terms of value due to Crown’s ability to offer this amazing technology at an exciting new price."

The XTi Series amplifiers provide users with Crown’s extremely light and efficient switch-mode power supply. All three models, even the XTi 4000 providing 1200 watts per channel, use a 15-amp plug. DSP is also integrated into each of the amplifiers providing users with all the tools necessary to setup their system.

The power ratings per channel for the XTi Series are as follows:

XTi 1000 is 500 watts per channel at 4 ohms
XTi 2000 is 700 watts per channel at 4 ohms
XTi 4000 is 1200 watts per channel at 4 ohms

The new line also provides computer connectivity via USB, allowing setup of the amplifier using a computer with the included HiQnet software. Built-in DSP allows users to set crossover points, graphic EQ, a limiter, and delay for time aligning loudspeakers.

Like all Crown amplifiers, the new XTi Series is backed by the manufacturer’s industry-exclusive Three-Year, No-Fault, Fully Transferable Warranty.

ABOUT CROWN INTERNATIONAL
Crown International manufactures amplifiers, microphones, and systems control products for professional audio markets worldwide, with corporate headquarters located in Elkhart, Indiana. For more information, visit Crown online at www.crownaudio.com. Crown is a member of the Harman Professional (HPro) group of Harman International companies. Other HPro brands include AKG, BSS Audio, dbx Professional, Lexicon Pro, JBL Professional, Soundcraft, and Studer. Harman International Industries, Incorporated (NYSE: HAR; www.harman.com) is a leading manufacturer of high-quality, high fidelity audio products and electronic systems for the consumer and professional markets.