ESP chooses CODA Audio ViRAY for Libera Awards at Gotham Hall, New York
Gotham Hall is an extremely reverberant space, so the highest quality loudspeaker system is imperative. The CODA Audio system was the best choice because it has no distortion, is extremely clear with extended response, and is very phase coherent. The accuracy in frequency response on and off-axis is a major advantage, allowing us to focus the audio on the audience and keep it away from reflective services. It’s quite clearly better than any other system we’ve tried in the room over the last twenty-five years!”
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Produced by the Foundation for Independent Music, with support from the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), the annual Libera Awards honor independent musicians as well as the teams that support them. The Awards exist to recognize the powerful, unique voice of the independent sector and have now been in existence for fifteen years.
The 2026 edition of the Awards, took place recently at the renowned Gotham Hall in New York City and featured performances from Mdou Moctar, Valerie June, Dawn Richard, and Aaron Maine of Porches. With a combination of live performances, screened contributions, speeches and presentations, a premium audio system was essential to provide consistent clear sound across different media in what is a notoriously reverberant space. Experienced production specialist Eastern Stage Productions (ESP) of New York is the exclusive audio provider for Gotham Hall and chose a CODA Audio system for the event based around the German manufacturer’s ViRAY line array.
CODA Audio ViRAY is a compact 3-way symmetrical line array designed for small to medium sized venues where high fidelity sound and outstanding intelligibility is required, making it the ideal system to tackle the challenges presented by the Awards event and its spectacular location.
ESP provided a ground-stacked system comprising 5 x ViRAY units per side with 4 x CODA Audio SCV-F compact 18” sensor-controlled subwoofers in cardioid per side. 2 x CODA Audio CoRAY column line source units were added as side-fills, with 4 x CODA Audio HOPS8 8” high output point source units as front-fills. The system was powered by 2 x CODA Audio LINUS14 and 1 x LINUS12C DSP amplifiers with loudspeaker management.
ESP owner Bill Danilczyk was unequivocal in his praise for the CODA system:
“Gotham Hall is an extremely reverberant space, so the highest quality loudspeaker system is imperative. The CODA Audio system was the best choice because it has no distortion, is extremely clear with extended response, and is very phase coherent. The accuracy in frequency response on and off-axis is a major advantage, allowing us to focus the audio on the audience and keep it away from reflective services. It’s quite clearly better than any other system we’ve tried in the room over the last twenty-five years!”
