The Winter NAMM Show had a decidedly new and different feel this year. This past summer, the Anaheim (Calif.) Convention Center opened a new $190-million North Hall. With the addition of AES@NAMM (Audio Engineering Society) Pro Sound Symposium: Live and Studio, a high level education and training program, the show organizers promptly invited all of NAMM’s pro audio exhibitors to move to the new 200,000-square-foot building.
It’s a fabulous new structure, officially called Anaheim Convention Center (ACC) North, with a light, modern architecture that contrasts sharply with the dark, industrial feel of the old building. However pleasant, the change was a bit disconcerting for those of us who have attended Winter NAMM long enough that we could navigate the old show floor from muscle memory.
Over the last few decades, NAMM has grown into one of the world’s largest pro audio shows, and it had simply outgrown the West Coast’s largest convention center.
Winter NAMM is strategically scheduled as the first major pro audio show in the world each year. As such, it is fabulously well-attended and attracts over 100,000 attendees from 125 countries. With the addition AES@NAMM, attendance may have increased substantially over recent years.
We saw hundreds of church techs on the show floor, which is not surprising. Church Production Magazine has more subscribers in southern California than any other region of the country.
So with the help of a few mystery shoppers and a lot of legwork on the part of our own staff, Church Production is pleased to announce, in alphabetical order, the Top 5 Products for Churches from Winter NAMM 2018:
Allen & Heath Series, Compact Digital Mixing Consoles
Introduced late last fall, Winter NAMM was the first large-scale showing of the new SQ Series consoles from Allen & Heath. Available in two frame sizes with 17 and 25 faders respectively, the new compact console line sports 96 kHz audio resolution and a wide range of other features that offer diverse functions for live sound reinforcement, playback and recording.
Both models support up to 56 input channels via remote expanders, and both feature a networking slot for optional Dante, Waves and other options.
Allen & Heath’s new SQ Series consoles start at $2,999.
For more information, please click here.
Audinate Dante AVIO Network Adapters
Despite the rapid growth of digital audio networking and the meteoric rise of Audinate’s Dante protocol, the company recognizes that there are millions of legacy products in use that don’t inherently have the capability to connect to an audio network. Enter Audinate’s new Dante AVIO, a fleet of small line-in and line-out analog adapters, a bi-directional AES3/EBU adapter and a bi-directional stereo USB adapter. Prices start at just $129.
Dante AVIO adapters enable audio professionals, including those working in churches, to extend the value of their non-networked equipment, making it interoperable with any of the more than 1,250 Dante-enabled products on the market.
For more information, please click here.
Audio-Technica 3000 Series UHF Wireless
Entirely new from the ground up, the folks at Audio-Technica considered giving this wireless system an entirely new name. In the end, they decided to simply call it the fourth-generation 3000-Series wireless.
With a 60 MHz tuning range, this new system offers more than twice the channel flexibility of previous 3000-series systems. Available in two frequency bands¾DE2 (470–530 MHz) and EE1 (530–590 MHz), these new wireless systems steer well clear of the 600 MHz and 700 MHz frequency splits that are now off limits due to FCC action.
A new automatic squelch feature also aids in producing maximum range with minimal interference.
Ten different configurations of body pack and hand-held transmitters with a variety of different microphone options are available with prices ranging from $549 to $849.
For more information, please click here.
Mackie MP Series Professional In-Ear Monitors
After a year or so focusing on the recording market, Mackie is turning its attention back to live sound with several interesting product introductions at Winter NAMM 2018. The most surprising and most applicable to the church market was a new series of in-ear monitors called the MP Series. The target is most certainly Shure’s SE Series universal in-ear monitors that dominate the church market. While the Shure line up is larger and broader, with prices ranging from $99 to nearly $900, the Mackie MP Series is clustered toward the bottom of that range¾the segment that’s most accessible to churches and where the company can turn the most product volume.
With three models ranging from $139 to $279, the MP-120, MP-220 feature dynamic drivers, while the MP-240 includes a mix of dynamic and balanced armature drivers for improved sound and better reliability.
For more information, please click here.
PreSonus EarMix 16M AVB-Networked Personal Monitor Mixer
In an announcement that had been rumored about the industry for several months, PreSonus introduced the EarMix 16M AVB-Networked Personal Monitor Mixer system.
Each EarMix 16M accepts 16 mono channels of input via AVB digital networking—and multiple units can be networked together with a StudioLive Series III mixer.
Each EarMix 16M mixer features a high-powered headphone amplifier that can drive low-impedance devices such as professional-caliber in-ear monitors. Channel grouping and stereo channel linking let users create custom mixes for each musician. Limiting and three-band EQ with a sweepable midrange frequency can be applied to each channel, as well as to the main mix.
PreSonus says the expected street price for the EarMix16M is $399.00.
For more information, please click here.
Be on the lookout for Church Production's "Top 5 Products for Churches from the NAB Show 2018" coming in mid April.
