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BIG SOUND
Nexo STM
New Nexo concept
has big launch
By Julius Grafton
French audio firm Nexo
have started a comeback.
via distributor Group
Technologies, they
launched an assault on the
wallets of the Australian
live audio community this
spring. After a development
lag that saw various GEO
line array products (GEO-T,
GEO-S, GEO-D) fall off in
sales, a Yamaha investment
and some fresh thinking led
to the Nexo STM.
STM is a reasonably compact line array design that
attempts to recapture the glory days of Nexo Alpha, the
point source 2 box system that sold boatloads in the late 90’s
and is still on sale today. They say the STM allows modular
deployment so one design could be used for a small show,
and scaled right up to arena coverage.
The selling proposition is that an audio rental firm now
only need one model of line array, instead of several. Some
firms have small, medium and large format line array
elements and subs. Nexo says STM does all these tasks.
While the theory is sound, the practicality is that the
system ‘appears’ expensive to acquire – a fact CX could not
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verify due to continual evasiveness as to prices. Despite the
insistence of importer Group Technologies that prices had
not been established, a complete system was already sold to
local firm Monitor City in Melbourne.
Hopefully CX is incorrect, and the price points are
affordable. But the evasiveness is uncommon in our
experience, since all other system distributors are
generally open to us about price. We all know this kit can
be expensive, and that audio rental firms buy with an
expectation of five good years and then more to come as the
gear is downgraded from A list to B list.
“They are asking us to buy a house”, one of the invited
audio guys at the STM launch said, which is true of any top
end line array, rigging and electronics package these days.
But he didn’t actually know the prices, because as Group
Technologies boss Mark Ladewig says, it is ‘POA’.
INSIDE STM
Key to the promise of STM is the two box combination of
M46 main module, and B112 bass module. Generally you’d
fly or ground stack a column of main modules, and match
them one-to-one with the bass module in a second column.
But Nexo says a second column of bass modules could be
arranged, so you’d have three vertical columns where extra
bass projection is the objective.
There is an additional S118 sub module that can also be
flown, or ground stacked. In common use, the main and bass
modules alone should suffice for most forms of music.
Cabinet loading has the not-wood-but-composite M46
loaded with 4 mid/low drivers of 6.5 inch diameter, and four
high frequency devices. The also comosite and equally sized
B112 bottom box has a 12” driver inside. The S118 (taller
and made of wood) has an 18” in there, as you’d guess from