Lab.gruppen powers Heineken Open?er Festival

GMB Pro Sound used Lab.gruppen’s flagship PLM 20000Q amplifiers to power the sound on the Main Stage at the recent Heineken Open’er Festival in Poland.

Featuring sets from Prince, Coldplay, Pulp and The Strokes, the festival hosted crowds of between 60,000 and 86,000 every day. GMB purchased numerous PLM 20000Qs specifically for the event, which makes them the first company in Poland to utilise the amps.

The firm has established itself as a leader in the Polish pro audio industry by successfully handling many of the region’s high- profile events, including the International Festival of Contemporary Music Warsaw Autumn, IRCAM concert, the Ad Livitum Festival in Warsaw, Chopin and His Europe Festival, and the concert of the Wien Philharmonic Orchestra Concert. The firm has working with the Heineken Open’er Festival for the past nine years.

Remigiusz Kasztelnik, director at GMB Pro Sound, said: “My colleague, the highly experienced Sound engineer Janusz Klimowicz, was instrumental in our purchase of our new inventory of Lab.gruppen’s PLM 20000Q. We had used fP and FP+ Series products before, but none of us had experience working with PLM Series.

“Initially, we considered three different brands, but as soon as Janusz tried the PLM, he made the recommendation that we move forward with the Lab.gruppen products. In his words, Lab.gruppen is the best, without a doubt.”

The PLM 20000Q features four discrete output channels (bridgeable), each rated at greater than 5000 W into 2.2 – 3.3 ohms (4400 W into 4 ohms) and integrated Lake Processing. It also incorporates several new developments to maintain rated performance in extreme program demands or under marginal operating conditions. A new universal power supply with power factor correction (PFC) allows extended bursts without sagging rails; and means that extreme low frequency beats will not affect mid and high-frequency headroom. An integrated differentiated load on the four outputs provides a higher wattage to the more heavily loaded channel while peak voltage remains accessible on all channels.

“For a relatively minimal current draw, it delivers extremely high output power across four channels, which makes the PLM 20000Q ideal for an event such as Open’er Festival.” commented Remigiusz. “For example, we integrated the new units into our existing JBL setup, with four PLMs on each side of the main stage powering the line array hangs and subs, and another two driving the monitors. With Lake Processing handling system optimisation, the end results were incredible.”

GMB also used the PLM 20000Qs on the Tent Stage, which played host to artists such as James Blake, Paulo Nutini and Chromeo over the four days.