Renaissance man of rap, multi-platinum solo artist and Fugees co-founder Wyclef Jean has performed at the world’s most prestigious venues, through the finest concert-quality sound systems. Now the Dynacord Cobra can be added to the list: at a recent special event at a large Miami Verizon wireless store, Wyclef Jean was so impressed with sound of Cobra system that he extended his set, turning a brief public appearance into a free concert. Miami, September 2006 Bayshore Sound of Tampa, FL, handles sound for Verizon in-store events across Florida. For Wyclef Jean’s outdoor appearance at the busy Miami location, Bayshore wanted to take the sound reinforcement spec to the next level. Having recently demo’d and ordered a Dynacord Cobra system, they felt Cobra would be perfect for the job. That said, their EV & Dynacord dealer pointed them in the direction of Miami-based Drummer Boy Sound, who supplied Bayshore with an interim Cobra rig, complete with EV QRx monitors and RE-1 wireless mics, a Midas Venice console and Klark Teknik EQs. “Once heard, word spreads fast about the Cobra, and a growing network of Cobra users is helping keep sound reinforcement standards high at small to medium sized events like this,” Harold Cummings of Drummer Boy Sound explained. “We were happy to help Bayshore deliver the Cobra sound for this date: once you hear what it can offer for shows like this, nothing else will do! “Wyclef Jean usually performs a couple of songs with his DJ and signs autographs at these appearances,” Cummings added. “The Cobra helped make this a special event: the sound quality was so good that Wyclef kept going, bringing his guitar player and bass player up on stage for an eight-song set. Usually people pay a lot of money for a show like this—it was Wyclef’s gift to the fans that came out to see him, and it sounded fantastic. “Darcy Kahn, Wyclef’s longtime engineer, was particularly impressed with the combination of small size, long throw and sonic definition the Cobra offered, with just two tops stacked per side. This was coming from a pro used to hearing the biggest and best systems out there. Darcy was also very impressed with the QRx monitors, which he thought had clarity and output you’d hear on monitors five times the price. We ran six biamped QRx monitors on EV CP3000S and Dynacord L2400 amps. It all added up to concert-quality sound, and at a price and footprint that made it viable for a gig like this. Cummings continued: “During soundcheck, the guys from Bayshore and I walked across six-lane Biscayne Boulevard to a large shopping plaza. This is a busy, noisy part of town, and, even at 500-feet away with six lanes of traffic between us, we could still hear the Cobra rig clearly with great intelligibility. It’s nothing short of amazing for a ground-stacked system. We could even hear the bass on the front-loaded subs. There was so much headroom, and no circuits tripped. Needless to say, Bayshore were very pleased they already had a Cobra on order— even though they demo’d the rig already, they still couldn’t believe what they were hearing!” |
