Martin Audio MLA Compact

MLA Compact brings award-winning Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array [MLA] technology to medium-scale touring and premium fixed installations ranging from musical theatres and concert halls to Houses of Worship and auditoriums.

The Multi Cellular Revolution

Every so often a new technology emerges that overtakes previous technologies — and in time replaces them. Just as line array took over from point-source clusters over 20 years ago, Martin Audio’s revolutionary award-winning Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array [MLA] technology is reinventing the way loudspeaker arrays are configured and controlled delivering unsurpassed audience coverage and consistency without compromise to fidelity.

MLA Compact brings this revolutionary technology to medium-scale touring and premium fixed installations ranging from musical theatres and concert halls to Houses of Worship and auditoriums.

The versatile and scalable MLA Compact has received multiple awards for innovation and delivers performance, control and coverage consistency that brings the sound engineer and audience together in a more powerful, involving experience.

Advanced Sound Control Technology, that’s easy to use

Some describe it as magic, but in its simplest terms each MLA Compact array has up to 120 individual acoustic elements [cells], each with its own onboard amplifier and DSP, which can be optimised by software to deliver the sound across the audience to meet the sonic goals required for any space.

MLA technology is the only technology on the market to allow multiple sonic goals to be prioritised and optimised accordingly. For example, not only can MLA Compact generate an even sound field over the audience, it can contain it as well — significantly reducing the influence of the room.

Hard Avoid® areas ─ such as behind and below the array, ceilings, balcony edges and beyond the venue perimeter ─ can also be programmed in. Vertical coverage can even be fine-tuned electronically in-situ to cope with changing environmental conditions and last-minute changes in rigging height, without having to re-rig.

With incredibly easy-to-use and highly accurate predictive software [DISPLAY] doing all the grunt work with the system, the engineer retains full artistic control and can enjoy mixing the show in the full knowledge that the sound created at the mix position will be heard everywhere throughout the audience.

Such is the confidence that MLA Compact can bring, that significantly less time is spent setting up the system and less time is spent walking the room to verify results.

Audio Perfection

MLA Compact’s ultimate accolade is its audio perfection. Pristine fidelity, vocal clarity, sonic impact and high output capability brings the sound engineer and the audience together in a powerful, involving experience.

Put simply, MLA Compact is a sound engineer’s delight. It is incredibly clean and transparent and responsive to the smallest EQ changes. With no large-format compression drivers to harden the sound, it presents the engineer with a neutral canvas whatever the artist or music genre.

The Noise Pollution Solution

In reproducing sound for many venues and outdoor festivals, there is often a conundrum: how can audience sound levels be delivered at a sufficiently high level for an immersive and rewarding experience, while at the same time respecting surrounding areas and residents?

In the past, sound levels for the audience have often had to be held down in order to safeguard surrounding areas, but this can leave audiences and the FOH engineer unhappy and threaten the ongoing viability of such events.

MLA’s unique ability to control noise escape beyond the site perimeter, while maintaining pristine fidelity and high sound pressure levels for the audience, means that FOH engineers don’t have to constantly worry about sound levels. So they can focus on what they do best — mixing — translating to a better audience experience too.

• Numerically optimised, fully-integrated, compact touring sound system
• Cellular array format with built-in amplification, DSP and digital networking
• 5 dedicated Class D amplifier channels per enclosure for individual powering and DSP control of individual cells
• Industry leading DISPLAY2.2 intelligent software interacts with onboard DSP for highly accurate array optimisation Eliminates trial-and-error array preset library approximations
• “Fly-by-wire” software adjusts vertical coverage electronically to cope with changing environmental conditions and last minute changes in rigging height. “Hard-avoid” areas, such as on-stage, ceilings and site perimeter, can be programmed in
• Switched mode power supplies with PFC (Power Factor Correction) and global mains voltage operation
• Three-way design delivers LF/MF/HF peak SPL’s of 135/135/135dB @ 1m from a single, compact enclosure
• Fast, integral flying system for suspension of up to 24 enclosures
• True 100° (-6dB) horizontal constant directivity, mid and high frequency pattern control. Consistent and usable out to 130° (-10dB)
• 65Hz–18kHz ± 3dB full bandwidth frequency response