In the world of audio equipment, finding a robust product, that delivers professional results, and offers ‘bang for your buck’, is a tall order for most audio professionals operating in the Bloemfontein region.
Nico Greyling, the manager at Toms Bloemfontein, recently had the opportunity to discover the HH Electronics brand. This UK-based audio manufacturer has been designing and manufacturing audio equipment for the professional market for more than 50 years and is distributed by ApexPro. In a recent interview, Nico shared his thoughts on the HH Electronics range, and shed light on who might find it most appealing.
The proof is in the experience
Nico’s journey with HH Electronics began when Neill Venter of ApexPro, the local distributor of HH Electronics in Southern Africa, visited him in Bloemfontein and supplied a demonstration of the gear earlier this year.
This hands-on experience left a lasting impression on Nico, and when asked about his first impression, Nico said he was instantly impressed.
With 31 years in the music industry, Nico’s perspective carries weight. He’s seen countless brands and products come and go, but what stood out to him about HH Electronics’ range was its solid build and, most importantly, its sound quality. He noted that it didn’t have that “over-processed sound often found in new active speakers.” Instead, it delivered a solid, unprocessed sound that audiophiles and industry veterans would appreciate.
So, who is the ideal user for this product? According to Nico, the HH Electronics catalogue caters to a diverse audience but shines brightest in the hands of those who appreciate high-fidelity sound. “Your typical HH Electronics buyer would be someone with extensive experience in different brands of speakers, someone hunting for quality and a high-fidelity sound,” he explained. “While it can work for anyone, those with finely tuned ears will truly appreciate what this speaker has to offer.”
Who is the ideal market for HH Electronics Solutions?
When it comes to markets, the HH Electronics range is versatile. It can find a home in bands, churches, schools, and more. Nico emphasized its suitability for the Houses of Worship market, particularly with the TNA series. “This speaker provides a fantastic sound quality without the need to push it to its limits. In many Houses of Worship environments, this is a significant advantage as it ensures clear and full sound without excessive effort.”
Ian Wright, International Sales Director for the Headstock Group adds: “It is great to see a range of our HH Electronics product being stocked by Toms, an incredibly well-respected retail chain in the African market. We appreciate the support from the group, and it’s great to hear that they are happy with the quality, value and performance of the range. We trust that HH Electronics will continue to fill a gap in the market for Toms, and result in many satisfied customers in the years to come, and we look forward to a long and fruitful association.”
In conclusion, Nico states: “All that I can say is come and experience it because, you’ll never really know what it sounds like until you experience it first-hand.”
About Toms – Bloemfontein
Since 1978, TOMS – The Only Music Shop has been a go-to destination for both budding and professional musicians, offering a wide selection of high-quality instruments and pro-audio gear from esteemed brands at competitive prices. The knowledgeable sales and management team are renowned for their exceptional service, catering to the needs of every customer with their deep understanding of music products. The TOMS store in Bloemfontein, which opened in 2009, has contributed significantly to the area’s vibrant music scene, earning patronage from well-known artists like Brendan Pyper and Zak Steyn, and upholding the company’s commitment to deliver the finest the music industry has to offer.
Toms Bloemfontein is open for business on Mondays from 8:30 AM to 5 PM and Saturdays from 9 AM to 1 PM. Nico and his team welcome everyone to their store, where they have an extensive range of HH Electronics gear available for test listening sessions.
If you’re in the market for high-quality audio equipment that’s both solid in build and sound, pay a visit to Toms Bloemfontein. Nico and his team can’t wait to introduce you to the impressive HH Electronics range and help you find the perfect audio solution for your needs.
With one million units delivered across the globe, ApexPro is proud to bring the ZLX, and Electro-Voice’s full range of products to Southern Africa.
Electro-Voice is celebrating 10 years of its most popular portable speaker – ZLX.
ApexPro is the premier distributor of Electro-Voice technology in Southern Africa, supplying retailers with the full range of Electro-Voice products, supported by our certified Electro-Voice technicians.
To celebrate, Electro-Voice is giving away:
10 iconic Electro-Voice products.
Every week. For 10 weeks.
Every Friday, a new prize will be announced – don’t miss out!
Newest Mic Captures Authentic, High-clarity Sound for Broadcasting Events
DPA Microphones, a leading manufacturer of high-quality miking solutions, has launched its new 2017 Shotgun Microphone. Designed to capture authentic sound with high directivity, clarity, and consistency, the 2017 excels in challenging broadcast scenarios. With its durable design and ability to withstand any environment or extreme application, DPA’s newest solution is ideal for broadcast and live events, from traditional news and sports to location sound or musical performances.
“In an industry with a variety of shotgun microphones, we built the 2017 to stand out from the crowd,” says Helga Volha Somava, Product Management Director, DPA Microphones. “Measuring just 184mm (7.24 inches) in length, the 2017 is more compact than many popular solutions and still offers impressive technological features. From its durable construction and ease of use to its leading acoustical properties, the 2017 can capture the energy of any event. Whether it is used in fixed positions at facilities or on camera systems and booms, our goal was to create a dedicated, optimized broadcast and live sound microphone that rivals the competition and provides exceptional value for professionals.”
Designed to endure extreme weather and mechanical impact, the 2017 will hold up to travel and repeated use in harsh environments. The microphone persists in humid conditions and direct rain showers, as well as dry, arid environments. It has been tested for use in settings with temperatures up to 40°C (104°F) with 90 percent relative humidity, and cold environments as low as -40°C (-40°F). With a consistent ability to easily withstand the effects of moisture, the 2017 ensures that any broadcast or event can go live with incredible sound, no matter the setting or forecast.
Featuring a specifically designed capsule that is perfectly paired with a cutting-edge interference tube and microphone grid, the 2017 offers outstanding performance, both on- and off-axis. It has a high degree of off-axis rejection which permits the main source to stand out. This heavily attenuated off-axis audio is authentic and extremely usable for mixing into the entire soundscape.
Audio professionals can now pick up accurate, clean sounds from even the most minute sources—the thud of a foot meeting a ball, the brush of a jostled jersey or a reporter’s voice against a crowd, as well as loud, ambient audio when preferred. For broadcasts that take place at quieter locations, the 2017’s low self-noise promises just as excellent a performance, even in the presence of many open microphones.
DPA has also prioritized versatility with the 2017, creating an easy-to-set-up mic that is ideal not only for fixed or booming applications in live sports and news broadcasts, but also in the theatre on a FOH boom or fly bar; for indoor or outdoor booming while capturing location sound; or to pick up a musician’s ambient blend for in-ear monitoring during live musical performances.
ApexPro is the sole distributor of DPA microphones in Southern Africa. If you would like to experience the DPA 2017 Shotgun Microphone, reach out to Keith to book your demo.
Direct Connection to Milan AVB Network Launched at 2023 Renewal Festival
The dizzying ascent of bluegrass guitarist Billy Strings from van-and-trailer gigs to A-level arena touring is a testament to his complete mastery of traditional styles as well as his expansion of the genre into new realms of rock-influenced extended improvisations.
On the current leg of his 2023 amphitheater and arena tour, Strings is enveloping his growing legions of jam-band fans through a robust system based on Meyer Sound PANTHER large-format linear line array loudspeakers. As with all recent tours, the system supplier on this outing is Nashville, Tennessee-based Major Tom US.
The regular tour schedule took a pause at the end of September for the third annual Billy Strings Renewal Festival in the mountain valley of Buena Vista, Colorado. Here, with the timely arrival of custom cabling and infrastructure from EMG, the tour’s complement of PANTHER loudspeakers became one of the first to connect all audio and telemetry directly to each loudspeaker cabinet via a Milan AVB network.
The manifold advantages of the latest Meyer Sound technologies were acknowledged by Charlie Bryson, who doubles as tour production manager and monitor engineer.
“In June we transitioned from the LEO and LYON system we had for the first part of the tour to the new PANTHER rig and it’s working out great on all fronts,” he reports. “Andy [Lytle], our FOH engineer, mixed on PANTHER at last year’s Peach Festival, and he loved it straight off the bat. Bluegrass is midrange-heavy by nature, which can be challenging with some systems, but with PANTHER the subtle tonal qualities of the instruments easily shine through. It doesn’t color the sound in any way.”
For Lytle, PANTHER hit the right note when he mixed his first set at the Peach Festival. “The main stage was under a tent enclosure, and that can make it really hard to mix instruments like banjo. But I immediately noticed how clean and clear the instruments sounded. Everything was distinct — never washy but cutting through cleanly.”
Walking each new venue during sound checks, Lytle has been impressed with PANTHER’s uniformity of coverage. “I walk up to the top levels and far corners, and the coverage has been awesome. Our systems tech, Jimmy Marsh, says it’s easy to get everything dialed in just right, which then makes it easier for me.”
In a typical arena configuration, the dual main arrays of 12-each PANTHER line array loudspeakers are bolstered on the low end by 12 1100‑LFC low-frequency control elements. Additionally, PANTHER loudspeakers are used as side hangs.
Putting on his production manager’s cap, Charlie Bryson appreciates the logistical advantages of the new PANTHER-based system. “Overall, the system is much smaller and lighter,” he observes. “The truck space for loudspeakers is close to half of what we needed before, and of course, the weight is drastically reduced. We are out on tour almost constantly, so the incremental savings on fuel consumption add up and make a significant difference.
“Also, it’s easier to rig in some challenging rooms, like the older large theaters with structural weight limits. With PANTHER, we can hang more boxes for better overall room coverage.”
The newly inaugurated complete Milan AVB connection incorporates primary and secondary networks using Luminex Gigacore 30i switches linked via Opticore trunk lines.
“The Milan network gives us easy control and information access to and from each box,” says Jimmy Marsh, the tour systems engineer. “And our cable looms are smaller while still having individual box tunings. Also, we are doing a wide range of venues over the year, so not being locked into a fixed number of zones per array really gives us more flexibility in array sizes.”
Billy Strings was just hitting his stride as a top-level touring act in 2019, following the release of his chart-topping album, Home, when the pandemic hit. Strings bridged the gap with a short series of drive-in parking lot concerts in 2020, deploying Meyer Sound LEOPARD systems provided by DBS Audio Systems of Coatesville, Pennsylvania.
For Andy Lytle, who has been mixing FOH for Strings since 2018, the relationship with Meyer Sound has been integral to the success of the band. “I remember in the earlier days when we did one-offs with Meyer Sound it sounded so good,” he recalls, “so it just made sense to continue. Every extended tour at this level has been with Meyer, and recently all from Major Tom US. They have been great not just with the Meyer rigs but the complete packages with console and other front-end gear.”
Bill Orner, Billy Strings’ manager, concurs. “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Meyer Sound, Major Tom, and our amazing crew. It’s not every day that manufacturers, vendors, and crew align in such a beneficial way. The shows have never sounded better. It’s like it was all meant to be.”
By blending bluegrass artistry with a range of rock influences, Billy Strings has extended the boundaries of the genre to become the most popular bluegrass artist in a generation. Home won a Grammy award for Best Bluegrass Album, Strings has been named Entertainer of the Year at the International Bluegrass Music Awards three times and twice selected as Artist of the Year by the Americana Music Association.
Billy String’s 2023 tour schedule extends through New Year’s Eve, with the final three shows at the Uno Lakefront Arena in New Orleans. In November, the tour jumps the Atlantic for 11 shows in Europe and the UK.
ApexPro is the premier distributor of Meyer Sound Solutions for the Southern Africa market, contact us to find out more.
Yumi Matsutoya — known as Yuming to her fans — has been one of the most popular musical artists in her native country of Japan for nearly a half-century. Her current in-the-round concert tour, entitled “The Journey,” has scheduled 54 arena shows and is expected to draw a total audience of 574,000. The tour’s ambitious staging centers around a pirate ship set, while the audio is powered by Japan’s first major touring deployment of Meyer Sound PANTHER large-format linear line array loudspeakers.
Audio systems for the tour are supplied by Arté (Acoustic Reinforcement Technology Co.) rental division of S.C. Alliance in partnership with Artwiz, Meyer Sound’s Dealer for Japan. The Meyer Sound system was designed by Arté audio designer and system engineer Shoji Yuzawa with assistance from Meyer Sound Director of System Optimization Bob McCarthy.
The audio production confronted the typical challenges of in-the-round staging with further complications from the unusual set design. “The pirate ship motif pushed the array up high, but PANTHER had enough vertical to get the coverage we needed,” says McCarthy. “And for the horizontal, we used the wider PANTHER-W for the floor seating and transitioned to the narrower PANTHER-L to minimize overlap and maximize intelligibility in the upper bowl.”
The choice of PANTHER for the tour was particularly satisfying for Artwiz CEO Keiji Shigeta as he had mixed Yuming’s concert sound on 14 tours between 1981 and 1993.
“Japan has some of the world’s strictest regulations for touring systems regarding safety and electrical requirements,” notes Shigeta, “and the introduction of PANTHER has made it possible to offer greatly improved performance within these restrictions. The reduced size and weight met or exceeded all requirements for the tour, especially regarding sound quality.”
The touring system is anchored by eight hangs of 12-each PANTHER loudspeakers, with 16 1100‑LFC low-frequency control elements contributing a solid bottom end. Fills are 16 LEOPARD compact line array loudspeakers along with four ULTRA‑X40 compact loudspeakers, with system drive and optimization from three Galileo GALAXY Network Platforms.
FOH engineer Norihiko Tango of Star-Tech, Inc., who has mixed Yuming’s concerts for the past 30 years, found that the PANTHER system faithfully reproduced his mixes. “It is my image,” he says. “Of course, with in-the-round, I hear only one part of the sound, but with the system engineers led by Mr. Yuzawa, I am confident that any variances are quite small.”
“The Journey” across Japan with Yuming commenced on May 13 in Kanagawa and will close on December 28 in Nagoya. In nearly all cities the tour plays two to four concerts, either consecutively or later in the schedule. Although she has the draw to play single shows in larger stadiums, she prefers the relative intimacy afforded by smaller arenas.
Yuming has a special connection to Meyer Sound as some of her earlier tours played a pivotal role in the development of the company’s industry-leading audio measurement and system optimization tools.
“Yuming’s team asked me to join them for shows starting in 1987,” recalls Bob McCarthy. “This was the birthing phase of FFT analysis when we were developing the earliest multi-channel versions of SIM [Source Independent Measurement]. Her shows benefited from the most extensive tunings with an audience in place ever done at that time. Over the years, many of the techniques now common in system optimization were pioneered on her shows. It was very rewarding to meet up with old friends like Shigeta-san, Yuzawa-san and Tango-san to carry forward our work on the latest generation of Meyer Sound systems.”
During his tenure as FOH engineer, Shigeta mixed Yuming’s concerts on several generations of Meyer Sound systems, with main arrays built around MSL-3, MSL-5, MSL-10, M3D, and MILO loudspeakers.
Yumi “Yuming” Matsutoya launched her career in her teens as a session musician and has been active as a singer-songwriter since 1972. She charted her first number-one record in 1975, and subsequently enjoyed enormous success with hit singles and albums, particularly in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Her musical style is strikingly original while also incorporating influences ranging from pop and rock to jazz and folk.
In early September, a small resort city nestled high in the Colorado Rockies was the center of the cinema world as scores of movie industry luminaries gathered for the 50th anniversary of the Telluride Film Festival.
Meyer Sound was again a key supporter of the festival, returning this year as a Signature Sponsor and Cinema Sound Partner. Meyer Sound cinema audio systems carried the soundtracks at four of the festival’s principal theaters, three of which were spaces temporarily repurposed for the weekend’s festivities.
“The Telluride Film Festival greatly appreciates our long-term partnership with Meyer Sound,” says Festival Director Julie Huntsinger, “as we continue to expand their extraordinary audio systems within our festival environment to support the artistic intentions of our world-class filmmakers.”
In recent years, the Telluride Film Festival has garnered a reputation as the “gateway to the awards season,” with an impressive list of Oscar-winning films making either their world or Western Hemisphere debut in this former mining town. Some films unveiled in Telluride that promise to take top honors on Oscar night include Rustin, Saltburn, All of Us Strangers, Poor Things, The Holdovers, and Nyad. The importance of the festival is underscored by the fact that all but two of the directors for the film premieres came to Telluride for the screenings of their films.
“We congratulate everybody at the Telluride Film Festival on their half century of success,” says Meyer Sound Executive Vice President Helen Meyer, “and we have been thrilled to be part of it for more than 10 years. Telluride gives us a rare opportunity to showcase our advanced cinema sound technologies to the global film community.”
Three of the large temporary theaters, the Palm (650 seats), the Galaxy (500 seats), and the Werner Herzog Theater (650 seats) are equipped with similar Meyer Sound screens and LFE systems. All three have Acheron cinema loudspeakers over Acheron LF low-frequency loudspeakers for the LCR channels, and all have X‑800C cinema subwoofers — ten each at the Palm and Herzog, nine at the Galaxy. The surround systems deploy HMS‑10 surround loudspeakers. The intimate (165 seats) Nugget, the only permanent cinema, also has Acheron screen loudspeakers, but without LFE units, and only five of the X-800C cinema subwoofers. Surrounds are the more petite HMS‑5 models.
For the Q&A sessions following many of the showings, three theaters offer temporary Meyer Sound PA systems with combinations of UPQ-1P or UPJ-1P loudspeakers with companion 750‑LFC low-frequency control elements or Amie‑Sub subwoofers. The Palm Theater — a transformed high school auditorium — has a permanent Meyer Sound PA system with M1D line array loudspeakers and 700-HP™ subwoofers.
Meyer Sound systems are permanently installed in other showcase venues for the film industry, including the DGA Theater in Los Angeles, operated by the Director’s Guild of America, and the Rose Theatre of Jazz at Lincoln Center, a preferred location for many New York film premieres. Also, Meyer Sound monitoring systems are in use at leading post-production studios around the globe, including Skywalker Sound and the Newman Scoring Stage at Fox Studio Lot in California; Warner Bros. De Lane Lea in London; Rotor Film in Potsdam, Germany; Semillero Estudios in Guadalajara, Mexico; Toei Studios in Kyoto, Japan; and Soundfirm in Melbourne, Australia.
“Meyer Sound is honored to once again be a trusted sound provider for the Telluride Film Festival,” says Meyer Sound Program Manager, Cinema and Residential Jay Wyatt. “Meyer Sound monitoring systems are increasingly the choice of film sound professionals when editing and mixing movie soundtracks, so it is only fitting that their peers in the broader film community — producers, directors, and actors — hear the films they have created with the same sound quality at the premiere showings.”
The lifelong commitment of Meyer Sound Co-founder, President, and CEO John Meyer to improving cinema sound was recognized when he was awarded the 2022 Samuel L. Warner Memorial Medal by SMPTE, the international society for media professionals, technologists, and engineers. According to SMPTE, the honor was bestowed “in recognition of his contributions to the design, measurement, and analysis of cinema speaker electronics for cinema mixing, review, and exhibition facilities.”
ApexPro is the premier distributor of Meyer Sound Solutions in Southern Africa, contact us for more information.
