NewBay Media’s Best of Show Awards are judged by a panel of engineers and industry experts from submitted nominations. Criteria include ease of installation and use/maintenance, performance, relevance, value/ROI, network friendliness, versatility, and reliability.
 
Clair Brothers C12-TrueFit
The Clair Brothers C12 represents not only the latest double 12" format midsize line array, but also an industry first in integration optimization. The Clair TrueFit technology is the first modular and fully custom waveguide available for venues. While portable versions may be ordered with standardized horizontal dispersions, venues looking for the best want to give this a serious look.
 
Gone are the days of considering which not-quite exact dispersion pattern to choose. While some companies offer variable horn waveguides that are hinged, that often only affects high frequencies. The C12 and C8 systems from Clair utilize a wider bandwidth component arrangement that allows the midrange and high frequency output to be waveguide loaded from the same point of origin. This means that the directivity enhancement offered by tweaking the horizontal waveguide affects more frequencies than most other products.
 
Beyond the hinge, the TrueFit technology is actually a completely unique waveguide tailored to a space. The customization that is TrueFit is designed collaboratively with the customer, consultant and venue staff through a few simple steps.
 
First the array type and location is determined in a conventional sense and signed off on by the customer. Then the Clair Brothers engineering team takes over and uses a proprietary 3D CAD software that was developed to take the venue dimensions as input for creating the sculpted geometry for the array waveguide. The final form is separated into parts that are machinable and are sent to the shop to be CNC milled from Baltic Birch, the great sounding material used on all Clair waveguides and horns. This reduces energy wasted on walls and effectively extends the stereo image over a greater audience area.
 
Less lateral reflections also mean greater focus and better intelligibility. System tuning is much easier as the acoustical problem of geometric divergence shading is solved with an 3D acoustical solution.