Name: Ralph Mastrangelo
Title: Director of Sales, Live Sound
Company: PK Sound/ACT Entertainment

rAVe [PUBS]: Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do at PK Sound.

RALPH MASTRANGELO: My name is Ralph Mastrangelo. I’m based in Nashville and have worked in the pro audio and live event business for a few decades now — primarily in the touring world.

I joined the team at PK Sound back in 2022 to lead global business development. I was intrigued by this Canadian company that was actually doing something new and innovative in the line array segment, and after meeting the team and getting to hear their solutions in real-world deployments, I knew this was something I wanted to be a part of.

When PK Sound signed ACT Entertainment as their exclusive North American distributor in the fall of 2023, I joined the ACT team to help launch their Live Sound division with PK as the flagship brand. Our teams have been working hard to get this technology into more people’s hands ever since.

rAVe [PUBS]: How does your company approach product development and innovation to ensure your audio solutions remain at the forefront of technology?

RM: There are a lot of great loudspeakers and loudspeaker manufacturers out there just in terms of acoustic performance. I’d confidently put PK Sound up against any of them, though, a lot of it comes down to personal taste.

But PK doesn’t just make loudspeakers; we make solutions that address real problems, whether it’s the touring and festival world, corporate AV or fixed installations.

PK has several patents for what we call “Multi-Axis Robotics.” This technology gives users complete mechanical control of their system’s acoustic coverage in both the vertical and horizontal planes — something no other manufacturer can do. So in indoor applications, for example, we can tailor coverage to the room to maximize intelligibility and impact by avoiding walls or reflective surfaces and focusing energy only on the audience. Outdoors, it means keeping sound away from points of sale on a festival site, or out of nearby communities.

We have one case of a big outdoor festival on the edge of a city in Canada that went from over 100 noise complaints their first year with a conventional line array system to just three after deploying a PK Sound robotic system and mitigating bleed into adjacent residential communities, so the results can be pretty staggering.

So that’s where we focus our development efforts: solutions that have tangible benefits for live sound professionals and the artists and clients they serve.

rAVe [PUBS]: In what ways do you prioritize user experience and ease of integration for ProAV professionals when designing your audio equipment?

RM: We’re always thinking from the software out. PK .dynamics is our system control software and it’s unlike anything else currently on the market. Our goal was to combine every stage of the modern live sound workflow in one application, and then empower users to customize that workflow in the way that works best for them, whether they’re flying the system in a different venue from night to night or configuring the best possible coverage for a range of use cases in a fixed installation.

.dynamics handles everything from system design and simulation to live control, tuning, monitoring and even diagnostics. Combine that with Multi-Axis Robotics and you have remote, real-time control of virtually every parameter of your system, while it’s in the air. It saves time when flying or reconfiguring arrays, gives the user far more detailed control when it comes to tuning and optimization, and basically eliminates any acoustic or architectural challenges that would otherwise compromise a performance.

rAVe [PUBS]: What is the greatest challenge audio professionals currently face and why?

RM:People at every level of our industry — and pretty much every other industry — are constantly asked to do more with less, whether that’s time, money or other resources.
PK Sound has had a lot of success in recent years by directly addressing those hardships, and empowering audio professionals with tools that will not only make their work easier and more streamlined, but more importantly, deliver a better final product.

Robotic systems make for faster, safer and more accurate deployments in virtually any setting. In a multipurpose venue, for example, having remote and real-time control of your system configuration and coverage can potentially save dozens of labor calls over a 12-month span, not to mention acoustic performance that’s precisely and mechanically tailored to deliver the best possible results in each scenario.

rAVe [PUBS]: In your opinion, what is the number one trend shaping the future of pro audio right now and how is PK Sound positioned to capitalize on this trend?

RM: It’s been a trend for several years now, but I think our industry’s collective efforts to develop universal standards and push towards brand-agnostic interoperability is the one most shaping the future. Having the freedom to spec the best possible solutions for the project at hand and not being beholden to whether it works within a certain manufacturer’s ecosystem or uses a given network protocol benefits all of us.

We’re an Avnu Alliance Associate Member and typically find opportunities to collaborate with other manufacturers and professionals very rewarding.

Again, it goes back to there being a lot of great products out there that do certain things really well. PK Sound offers solutions that are otherwise unavailable, so empowering more users and venues to take full advantage in tandem with other technologies or tools that meet their needs is definitely an ongoing focus for us.

rAVe [PUBS]: What are some new audio initiatives or innovations coming up from PK Sound?

RM: Following InfoComm in June, you’ll start to see our Tx Series networkable multipurpose point source modules in select applications.

Beyond that, we’re still a relatively young company, and are working hard to share the technological and operational advantages of Multi-Axis Robotics with a wider swath of our industry.

Our product roadmap is focused on robotic solutions that appeal to a wider range of users and applications, and then supporting those solutions with a complete product offering from the software out that grants seamless operation and, ultimately, the best possible sound wherever it’s being deployed.