The Chinese New Year race meeting at the Hong Kong Jockey Club's Shatin racecourse is a key fixture in both the sporting and social calendar of China's special administrative region. The 2013 meeting saw Coda Audio's Airline LA8 system given a high profile, head-to-head trial against another system, with Coda emerging as the clear winner.
As well as the racing, the event featured a lavish opening ceremony at the racecourse's parade ring, featuring entertainment including performances by African and Chinese drummers, vocalists and the famous Chinese Lion dance. Wright Click Production & Engineering were contracted to provide sound reinforcement for the ceremony and took the opportunity to compare two different audio systems.
"Our client wanted to compare the Coda LA8 system with that by another manufacturer," says Wright Click's Sugar So. "Using both systems was an excellent way to see how both performed in a production scenario."
The system comprised 24 flown, dual eight-inch line array loudspeakers - 12 Coda LA8s in passive mode and 12 from the other manufacturer in biamp mode, plus four ground-stacked Coda LA8-SUBs.
"Our customer was very impressed with the Coda system," says Sugar. "The LA8's high frequencies were clearer and they have the advantage of being physically smaller. Yet despite the compact size, they have more punch in the low frequencies. Given the size and the fact that they were was in passive mode, they were very impressed with the power of the LA8 units.
"They also highly praised the LA8-SUBs. Only four units were needed to cover the entire parade ring and the sound had as much punch as using 15" speakers, but with the low frequency advantages of using 18" units."
