The Leeuwin Estate concert site is largely a natural amphitheatre, with a stage positioned at the “front” of a large clearing that sweeps gently up and back, all of it surrounded by some fairly dense woods. The coverage area is all lawn seating; the audience brings their own lawn chairs and blankets. Depth from the stage to the winery building is approximately 125 meters (410 feet), with the width measuring up to 500 meters (1,640 feet). And, at the top of the rise, another grassy area accommodates more audience, about 135 meters (443 feet) from the stage.

Audex Concert Systems provided much the same PA that’s worked exceptionally well for this event over the past several years, consisting of 12 EAW KF750 concert loudspeakers stacked per side, joined by 10 proprietary Audex subwoofers with a single 18-inch-woofer in a horn-loaded cabinet.

At first look, I had concerns about getting even coverage across this extremely wide venue, but this proved to be unfounded. The KF750’s were stacked on scaffold towers to the left and right of the stage. Starting at a height of three meters (about 10 feet) off the ground, each tight-packed KF750 array was four boxes high by three boxes wide, with the subs positioned below each array, about a foot from the ground, in two-high by five-wide sets.

The KF750 has always been one of my favorite cabinets; to this point it’s very effectively dealt with every situation I’ve used them. As a point-source system, it’s less affected by wind than line arrays, always a plus in these large outdoor situations. And, it’s also a great “rock n’ roll” box, going very loud when needed while taking up very little real estate for the output.

As noted, this was also the first live show ever to utilize the new EAW UX8800 digital processor, and in fact, we deployed two of these 1U, four-input by eight-output units to serve as loudspeaker processors (both units for the gig are shown above). The first time using any new technology there’s some trepidation, largely the sense that the “safety net” (largely bred of familiarity) is not there, along with the reality that everything changes when going from “lab setting” to the much more unpredictable realm of the real show.

The week prior to the Leeuwin Estate concert, I’d heard the UX8800’s on EAW KF760 and KF730 line arrays during a soundcheck for a large show at Acer Arena in Sydney, where the rig was provided by Norwest Productions. Based upon the impressive results I heard there, I was very confident that the KF750’s would sound just as great – a prediction that proved to come true, and then some.

The difference was astounding. Not only were the mids and highs of the KF750’s smoother, there was much more consistency through the entire venue. The clarity and intelligibility resulting from the Gunness Focusing technology was far superior to the previous DSP parameters, which, by the way, were provided by top-quality units and refined to a very advanced degree over time.

Previously I had noticed that the boxes produced a vertical “seam” - a somewhat perceptible lobe that was audible as you walked across a venue. Now, the seam is virtually non-existent, and looks to have shifted to the horizontal, making it only noticeable if you’re walking directly away from the system up raked seating, or in my case here, up the hill of the amphitheatre. (By the way, that's Mr. Millkan pictured below/right, in the Highlands of Tasmania, where he spends as much time as possible chasing wild brown trout on the fly rod.)

The best way I can describe the difference between previous performance and that provided by the UX8800: cup your hands around your mouth and listen to your voice, essentially turning your mouth into a horn-loaded driver, then take your hands away from your face and speak again. That’s pretty much what Gunness Focusing does to harmonic distortion created from the cone and horn flare. The mids and highs are truly transparent and very smooth.

All in all, the two Leeuwin Estate shows went quite well. Gary Bradshaw, the Audex crew, and the band were all happy, so my work was complete. I didn’t get a chance to tell Gary that he was the first sound professional in the world to use Gunness Focusing with a live PA; there just wasn’t time. But his comment at the end of the gig was “very tasty, very nice - thank you.” For any system engineer, myself included, that’s exactly what we want to hear.

As I reflect on this new EAW technology and what it means, I’m struck by the fact that not only will large production companies benefit from the UX8800, but so too will smaller owner/operators who don’t have the clientele to warrant purchasing line arrays. Many of these companies might very well have an EAW point-source system in their inventory that can be easily outfitted with significantly upgraded audio performance without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Literally, we’re talking about the same level of quality that one would expect from an entirely new system. In my world, it doesn’t get much better than that.