The RAH is one of the UK's most galvanising venues for sound, and with it also being one of the most prestigious, the audiological ante is upped even further. Entec's innovative system design was a collaboration between their own Tristan Johnson and d & b's Ralph Zuleeg.

The pair designed and flew the PA and set up the system, before leaving the running and day-to-day tweaking to Entec's crew chief Ritchie Gibson.

Johnson explains that the RAH was the ideal venue to put the C3 through it's paces in terms of throw distances, which can be deceptively large! Their goal was to reduce the centre cluster size and improve sightlines, whilst still getting a clear sound image everywhere in the glorious Victorian space. The result was a resounding success.

Bands ranged from Madness to Eric Clapton, Coldplay to Supergrass and The Doves to Richard Ashcroft .. All of whom brought their own FOH engineers. So another key element to the audio set up was in ensuring total system flexibility and the ability to deal with a huge diversity of musical - and engineer's mixing - styles.

The main system was configured in two elegant left and right centre clusters, each a mixture of d & b C3s, C4 tops and subs - the C4 sub works well in the Hall, C7 tops and B2 subs, with Max's for front fills. A further eight C7's were flown stage left and right to cover the rear of the choir stalls, and four E3s covered the front. Johnson reckons they saved at least 8 boxes and 2 ft of space per cluster by using the C3's.

Apart from the acoustic conundrums of getting even coverage into all the nooks and crannies of the Hall's cavernous interior, the get in time on the Monday was very tight. Starting at 6 a.m. and having to get Coldplay's show on that night, the pressure was on to get it right first time!