Massive Adamson E Series system arrives in Australia for Hillsong

As Adamson loudspeakers continue their accelerated ascent to the top of PA system designer’s preferences, Australian distributor CMI Audio have committed to importing a substantial turnkey E12 concert system with associated amplifiers. The move comes as major Adamson customer Hillsong Church readies itself for its annual Sydney Conference in Qudos Bank Arena in July. The 2019 Conference will be staged in-the-round, a configuration that will require more Adamson PA than is currently available in the country.

Adamson is Hillsong’s preferred loudspeaker vendor for installations, with their Baulkham Hills campus already home to E12 arrays and other selected campuses running Adamson S10 systems. Last year’s Hillsong and Colour Conferences in Sydney saw Hillsong deploy Adamson for the first time on their major Australian external events, and the results spoke for themselves.

“The vocal clarity of Adamson systems is ridiculously good,” says Justin Arthur, systems engineer for Hillsong Conference. “The result we got at Conference in 2018 with Adamson was excellent. We were very pleased with the coverage, and the system performed exactly as it was predicted to. The clarity of both speech and music was much better than we have experienced at Conference previously.”

Justin has been designing and deploying PA for Hillsong Conference for six years and knows the acoustic environment of Qudos Bank Arena well. The challenge in 2019 is to present from a stage at the exact centre of the arena and create perfect 360-degree coverage for the audience.

“The design isn’t finalised at the moment, but we’re working towards a completely symmetrical system with eight hangs of 16 elements of E Series, with a round LED screen hung below the arrays. I’m anticipating six hangs of eight Adamson S10 elements under that to fill the floor area, with S10n for side fill. The subwoofer clusters will be four hangs of nine E119s, run as front-back-front cardioid, hung as central as I can get them before their coverage overlaps. Other Adamson loudspeaker models will be used for front fills and delays as necessary. We anticipate using up to 240 Adamson speaker elements in total.”

Above all, it’s the tonal performance that is driving Justin’s preference for Adamson “It’s all about the way it sounds,” he declares. “The spoken word is the most important element at Conference, and Adamson PA has proven it delivers the Word better than systems we’ve used previously. Adamson has what the mix engineers at Conference really need; mid-range clarity, and the depth it adds. A lot of the musical arrangements are really complex – there’s electric and acoustic guitars, tracks, synths, keys, and then eight or 12 vocals over the top. What we’ve found is that the amount of complexity can get messy in some PAs, but Adamson brings it together much better than the others.”

As the supplementary E Series boxes begin their journey from where they’re purpose-built in Canada, savvy production companies and venues should see a major opportunity. Adamson has now firmly cemented itself in the top-tier of PA systems globally and is as accepted and desired equally with its European competitors on riders. Closer to the beginning of its technology cycle than other more mature products in the market, an investment in a flagship Adamson PA at this point in the still under-serviced Australian market could prove lucrative.

CMI’s commitment to the product and the back-up from Canadian HQ is a big factor in Hillsong’s continuing relationship with the brand. “We get excellent support from Adamson; they really look after us,” confirms Justin. “I speak to the team regularly and they’re very supportive of what we do.”

Written by Jason Allan