The Isle of Man is awash with finance institutions, but Kevin Dean, Managing Director of AXA Isle of Man redefines the role of Director, when each and every year he conceives and stages a spectacular event as a thank you to his staff.  This year was no exception, with a Phantom of the Opera themed night, complete with West End performers and an extensive light show.

At Kevin’s request, Mark Cleator of Manx Sound took a new approach when specifying the sound arrangements for the AXA event held at the Viscount Suite in one of the Islands premier hotels, The Mount Murray. Being primarily a party, it was important to Kevin that the sound be evenly distributed around the room, whilst remaining relatively discreet. Upon advice from Ian McDonald of Ivysound Ltd , Mark acquired six EM Acoustics EMS-81 loudspeakers for use at this event. Supplemented with four generic subs and powered using 5 lightweight QSCs amplifiers, a stereo, double delay system was built, incorporating the Tannoy TDX1 controller.

Given the diminutive appearance of the little EMs, there were certainly a few questioning stares from the various interested parties when the loudspeakers were unveiled and distributed at 6.5m intervals down each side of the room, until the time corrected system was fired up!

Mark comments:

"These units simply defy science. They graciously accepted everything that we threw at them – soaring operatic vocal peaks, fat piano chords, detailed playback of pre-recorded material. A full rock band finished the night and still there was level to spare. At no point did we ever experience even a hint that the speakers were struggling and it was a joy to mix with such a clear, true sounding system. I expected them to be good but not this good!  They are quite simply one of our wisest investments yet and I would recommend them without hesitation to anybody looking for small footprint, high quality sound with minimum fuss. One of the main advantages of the EM Acoustics speakers is that they sound great with no controller required. As confirmed Nexo enthusiasts we are accustomed to the necessity for a system controller in the signal path, but with our new loudspeakers we simply used the amplifiers’ built in 100Hz shelving filters to tailor what the EMS-81s, and the subs received, reducing the amount of cabling required and eliminating the slight risk of controller/crossover failure completely. I feel this is a major benefit in itself."