In the marketing silliness running up to Anya’s debut at the Coachella Festival, we said, “There is no datasheet. There can never be a datasheet. It’s all very Zen.”

While, of course, we will have a datasheet very soon, the reality of adequately documenting Anya is proving difficult. In order to understand what an “Anya datasheet” means, we need to review what these documents represent to the market and how they are created.

Long story short: they don’t tell you a lot and may well be misleading.

Even within our own hallways, even with our rigorous S3 process, high-level executives recently had a conversation about positioning the JF213 vs. the JFL210. How could we say that the JFL213, with its lower HF section maximum output, delivered more HF compared to the JFL210? The answer is that the JFL213’s HF section delivers more even broadband response, especially in the top octave but at a slightly lower average level compared to the JFL210′s HF section, which is a little “peakier” and rolls off a little faster through the…

All operations are go. Rogue protocol ends at zero hour. Maintain deniability. Prepare for declassification.

The agent organizes assets and reports to control. Control provides operational parameters. On command, the agent carries out the operation. During the operation, continuous communication ensures that control achieves maximum effect from the agent.

Anya™ is the agent.

What is Anya?

Anya is not a product, not a thing. Or if she is a thing, she is many things.

The module is not Anya, but Anya is the module. Resolution™ software is not Anya, but Anya is Resolution.

Anya is neither the module nor Resolution, but she is both the module and Resolution. Anya is the intelligence that connects these two things and makes them something new.

As we said before, it’s all very Zen.

Anya Knows Who She Is

As soon as you give her power, Anya organizes the modules in all the arrays and presents them to Resolution software as complex but unified entities. Through Anya, each module, each transducer understands its location in relation to all other modules or transducers.

Except by user choice, Resolution only addresses Anya arrays as unified entities. Anya identifies and addresses individual modules. It is, amongst other things, her job.

Anya Can Self-Assess

Each module carries a set of self-diagnostic tools, both electronic and acoustic….

Infiltrators discovered preparatory materials. Redaction has occurred, but the exposure is serious.

It’s true. Her name is Anya™, and you are about to fall in love.

Falling in Love

Everything about Anya is designed to make you fall in love with her. She is everything you could possibly want. Smart, beautiful, tough, a little bit dangerous but loyal and a hard worker.

When you work with her – like when you fall in love – you will experience a strange familiarity; you’ll immediately know what to do. But it will also be new and amazing. Like falling in love.

You will fall in love with Anya because she returns your affection by making your world a lot simpler.

What is “Simple”?

On the back of an Anya module, there’s a touch pad. No lights are on. One of the lights is marked “Test”, and it is connected to a button that says “Press”.

1. What do you do?
2. What are the two most likely outcomes?

(3 minutes. Show all work.)

Every single aspect is like this – spectacularly simple and familiar. Anya is amazing, but she’s not baffling. She’s mostly a normal PA, except that she’s not. Her normal components, though, are completely normal.

Normal connectors. Normal transducers and horns, or at least “EAW…

Rogue Protocol is now in effect. Encrypt all messages. Operational directives will come from a contact known to you but not from within your own cell. Use red cipher.

It’s no secret that EAW has a secret or that EAW has had a secret for quite a long time. I hate to disappoint you, but it’s still a secret.

EAW Admits to Product Development

For the better part of three years, EAW Engineering has been working on a very “EAW” kind of idea. And by “EAW”, I mean crazy. It’s the kind of idea that sensible companies discard immediately as an impractical R&D nightmare.

But if you’re reading this blog post, you already know that impractical R&D nightmares are the very life blood of EAW. EAW President Jeff Rocha is himself an engineer, as is LOUD Technologies CEO Mark Graham. How could we _not_ do it, right?

Thanks to fantastic support from Mark and the new team at LOUD, we have been able to complete this impractical R&D nightmare to stunning result.

So, yes, it’s all true. We have made a very interesting machine.

Further Confession: It Makes Sound

This one you probably guessed already from Dave Rat’s post on…

 On Day Two, we brought in our Avalon by EAW system for DJs and EDM performers, comprising a pair of SUB.two’s and a pair of CLUB.three’s in Polar white and Machine grey. We also spent some more time tuning the main KF740 PA. That night we enjoyed some great sets by Tall, Tall Trees and Kishi Bashi. (Photo at left shows Kishibashi with Tall Tall Trees (at right).)

But this still wasn’t South by Southwest.

South by… For Real

The real SXSW events started on Day Three with a massive party thrown by local arts and entertainment website Do512. Four bands, mostly new folk acts, played the main stage with DJ Kidslyce covering the changeovers.

The photo at left can’t express the degree to which everybody everywhere was having a wild-good time. The line stretched around the block for hours and still had 20 people at midnight. And when those Avalon subs got to thumpin’…well, you know what can happen.

Day Four Preview

Tonight’s party, thrown by interactive marketers MRY, features only two DJs on the main stage, so we brought the…

Load-in, Part 1

Even though the first part of South by Southwest – the Interactive Conference – doesn’t start until Friday, the first wave of EAW staff and our associated partners are already onsite at The Belmont. The first order of business is to strike the existing PA so we can fly the temporary KF740 rig supplied by our long-standing partner Gemini Light, Sound & Video from Dallas. (Photo at left: Gemini’s Chad Cain cables the stage right array.)

Our regional factory representative firm Aldridge Marketing pitched in with some NTS250 powered subwoofer systems they had in their inventory as well as a wicked cool matrix to help us manage signal flow amongst the three separate PAs we’ll have set up.

Local riggers Shur-Rig have supplied new, safety-rated rigging points to set the main arrays as far to the corners of the stage as possible, opening up sightlines for the large numbers of video cameras that will record and potentially televise some of these events.

Austin-based Big House Sound, who installed the existing PA and have worked with the venue for years…

Jennifer Lopez aka J.Lo performed in Belgrade, Serbia this past November, as part of the Dance Again World Tour 2012. The Dance Again World Tour was Lopez’s first ever worldwide concert tour.

Sky Solutions used a range of EAW KF Series line array systems to make sure this concert sounded great. Main left/right arrays comprised KF760s over KF761s to cover the nearfield. KF761s provided side fill and front fill coverage.

They hung KF730s as delay systems to reach the back of the 25,000 capacity arena. To fill out the bottom end, Sky Solutions brought in several BH760 and SB2001 subwoofers.

In an interview with Ognjen Amidzic immediately after the show in Belgrade Arena, Jennifer Lopez shared that her performance in Belgrade was one of the three best from the 75 total concerts she had so far. 

We send a big “thank you” to Sky Solutions for providing the inside info and great concert photos.

Yesterday, we posted to Facebook about a story we saw announcing that DJ Magazine has moved their Winter Music Conference pool parties to the Delano Hotel. Again for 2013, EAW will supply the Delano with a world-class Avalon by EAW™ sound system. (Photo: Benny Benassi at WMC 2012)

Unlike last year, we will have four SUB.two hybrid subwoofer systems to power the dance floor. And, unlike last year, the Delano will run programming for the entire WMC event. Keep any eye on DJ Magazine for more info on their events.

South by Southwest

Before we can get to the Delano, however, we will spend the better part of two weeks in Austin, TX, where we’ll bring a KF740 systems and a separate Avalon by EAW system to The Belmont for their South by Southwest events.

The Belmont is a “buy-out” venue, meaning that client organizations book the venue for one or more days to produce their concerts. One client that has already announced their line up is The Warner Sound. They will be showcasing acts…

Based on the traffic we’re seeing, many of you are already digging into our new website. After nearly a year of development, we launched without fanfare at around midnight eastern USA time on Friday, February 8^th, just as the blizzard was approaching.

The key benefit for our long-suffering web community is that the platform on which we’ve built the site allows core EAW staff to continuously and instantly update any page at any time from any Internet –connected computer. Thus, users will notice that product pages reflect the most recent revisions, such as the QX “i” revisions.

Users should expect frequent and continuous changes and additions to the content. Indeed, important parts of the Application, Support and Technology sections remain in development. Check back frequently to see what’s new. We will announce important additions here on the Front Row blog.

Other Changes

As we transitioned to the new site, we deactivated both the blog and the discussion forums. As you can see, the blog returned after about a week. The discussion forums, however, will remain deactivated until we complete work on the _NEW_ discussion forums.

Now that we have launched the main site, our web…

February 15th from 2pm – 5pm

Event Cost: FREE

EAW Marketing Director John Speck will lead a workshop session in which participants load in a band, bring signal to the mixing console, run sound check, set monitors levels and mix a brief set. Introductory material – PhDs not required.

Registration for this event by clicking this link: Sign Up.

For more information or if you have any questions, please email booking@as220.org