The largest jazz festival in East Asia has selected Amadeus’ newest speaker Series including DIVA M², MAESTRO II, as well as bespoke stage monitors which are to be released in 2020. SSL Live L500 consoles were featured at the event as well—‘a superb sonic partner for Amadeus speakers.’ The Jarasum Festival has hosted over 2-million attendees since its inception in 2004 and featured performers from 55 countries on its stage. Over 200,000 spectators attended the 16th Jarasum Jazz Festival on October 4-6, 2019. Elan Tech is the South Korea-based production company in charge of both sound equipment and technical production for the Jarasum Jazz Festival.
Located in the Gapyeong region, northeast of Seoul, the festival site is an island surrounded by a beautiful city near the mountains and the banks of the Bukhan River. The yearly 3-day festival features all types of jazz including swing, fusion, bossa nova, bebop, as well as world music. This year’s festival featured Black String, López-Nussa La Familia, 4-Wheel Drive, Omar Sosa Quarteto Afro Cubano, Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen, and The Danish Radio Big Band & Marilyn Mazur, among many other musicians and groups.
“Because a recent typhoon had hit Korea, we started setting up the sound systems on-site only three days before the Jarasum Jazz Festival began,” recalls Yongwoon Jeong, CEO and Technical Director at Elan Tech. “The main speakers and subwoofers used for the Jarasum Jazz Festival were all made by Amadeus, for a total of 30 units of DIVA M², 12 units of DIVA M² SUB, and 12 units of MAESTRO II,” said Jeong, describing the FOH speaker system.
“We have also worked with Amadeus to develop new speakers – stage monitors – which will be officially released in 2020. A total of 50 of these new speakers have been used for the first time at the Jarasum Jazz Festival,” added Yongwoon Jeong.
The overall audio setup also featured 11-units of X8 DSP+DANTE amplifiers designed by Powersoft, as well as L500 Live consoles from England-based high-end mixing consoles manufacturer Solid State Logic (SSL).
Philippe Guerinet, Director of International Sales for SSL, offered, “We are used to seeing our consoles used in conjunction with Amadeus systems in world-renowned venues including Théâtre National de Chaillot, Philharmonie de Paris, Opéra National de Lyon, as well as La Gaîté Lyrique and here, at Jarasum Festival, where we had an SSL Live L500 on FOH. It is wonderful to highlight that we are also seeing some large-format Studio SSL Consoles in use together with Amadeus studio monitors – and whatever the application, we always have great feedback about the overall sound performance and the stunning transparency.”
The new Amadeus speakers, called C12R and C15R, will be a range expansion of the C Series, initially designed for the world-renowned Paris-based Théâtre National de Chaillot, in France. “We were all fans at Elan Tech of the newly-released Amadeus C12 and C15 point source speakers, which are mainly installation-oriented. We asked Amadeus to think about a more stage-oriented version to be used as stage monitors, optimized for the live field, and featuring the same transducers and waveguides. We worked closely with the R&D teams as consultants, to perfectly optimize the new models considering our technical constraints, as well as the market demands,” stated Yongwoon Jeong.
He continued, “A few specifications for the stage monitors were very important to us to optimize the sonic rendering for the performers, as well as the enclosure strength and product longevity. Being able to adjust the vertical beam by 2.5-degree increments, which was possible thanks to a bespoke and built-in rigging system as one of these requirements, was important and helpful. This all, among a lot of other acoustical, technical, and physical details, makes this new Amadeus Series very distinguished in the market in our opinion.”
At the Jarasum venue, a few C15R units were also set up for front fills, while others were used for wedge monitors. “The new C15R – as well as the original C15 – use the same MHF compression driver unit as the main DIVA M² line array speakers. So it has the same impulse characteristics and was much easier to match the sound for the different uses,” explained Yongwoon Jeong.
Yongwoon Jeong commented on working with Amadeus, “Amadeus offers customization to its users and customers. One of the great customizations on this project was the special finish. We requested a high-resistance finish for all the speakers, to increase their durability.”
“Amadeus invested in a new painting area at their factory, featuring new painting machines able to produce a high-resistance resin-based finish–making the new speakers highly resistant to scratches, shocks and water projections. This new optional finish is now available for all the other speakers and will be proposed on-demand,” added Jean-Noël Batisse, Production Manager at Amadeus.
“Our production company, Elan Tech, admires that Amadeus focuses on being a designer and manufacturer of speakers for targeted uses that are built and work extremely well—rather than just a company that tries to distribute products in large quantities,” stated Yongwoon Jeong.
He added how he likes using Amadeus speakers and Solid State Logic consoles together, “The SSL Live console is a superb partner for Amadeus products. It has natural feeling dynamic processors, EQs that offer minimal phase shift, transparent high-frequencies, and dense and solid low-frequencies. With this combination, Amadeus speakers sound very natural and detailed, they sound outstanding, especially the equal sound pressure and timbre presented to the audience anywhere in the listening area.”