d&b audiotechnik’s CCL Series lands in Australia

(Pic: NAS’s Tommy Blum, Max Hedrich, Doug Pringle, and Anthony Murdoch)

NAS have debuted the new CCL Series compact cardioid line array from d&b audiotechnik with two listening sessions at NAS HQ in Melbourne.

Held on Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 May, the NAS team invited customers and engineers alike to be the first to hear the CCL8 (the smaller of the two CCL top boxes) and CCLSUB.

The CCL8 houses two 7″ and two 5” woofers, plus two 1.75″ high frequency drivers. With two of everything and some very clever industrial design, this means there’s directivity control over the entire operating bandwidth of 62 Hz to above 18 kHz. It also means almost nothing comes out of the back of these speakers. This is one of the first listening tests where we’ve been encouraged to start listening behind the speaker.

Clocking in at a modest 209 x 593 x 355 mm and weighing just 17.6kg each, it’s easy to see CCL8 arrays going almost everywhere in Australia; they’re small enough for almost any modest gig or install and big enough in sound to cover larger concerts and events.

NAS had thoughtfully set up a comparative array of the now quite venerable Y Series as a comparison. While smaller in size, the CCL is totally comparable in SPL and tonality, but comes with the added advantage of the amazing rear rejection and economical footprint. You can also pair CCL with KSL and GSL arrays as fill or side hangs.

While subs don’t get a lot of attention, I was very pleasantly surprised by the CCLSUB. Again, it’s natively cardioid, with a 15” and a 10”. Its one of the most musical subs I’ve ever heard, and power-wise, its punching way above its weight (literally).

In usual d&b fashion, rigging, software, control, and everything else is the same as for any other d&b product. They’ve even got a thoughtful chart of which of their amps, both current and legacy, that you can run CCL on. They obviously care about their customer’s ROI.

The CCL system on demo at NAS is just about to head down to Tasmania to work on Dark Mofo, and another CCL system is already on its way to its new owners at Sightline Productions in Sydney. NAS are planning a full demo tour with CCL later in 2025, most likely across September and October.

To find out when CCL will be on demo in your area, subscribe to NAS’s ‘Watts Up’ newsletter at https://nas.solutions/newsletter/subscribe