Spectera takes over Kygo's in-ear mixes
Sennheiser reports that its Spectera system supplied wireless in-ear monitoring for Kygo's 8 August outdoor performance at SparkassenPark Mönchengladbach. The setup included 24 Spectera SEK bodypacks for performers and crew (opens in a new tab).
- Works with
- 24 Spectera SEK bodypacks, three DAD antennas, monitoring console
- Connections
- MADI over coaxial BNC point-to-point cabling to the monitoring console; DAD antennas linked to the Base Station by conventional network cables
- Formats
- UHF band operation, 96 kHz sampling rate, 1.1 ms latency in Live Low Latency mode
- Price
- Not stated
- Available
- Not stated
The 1U Spectera Base Station occupied a 19-inch rack beside the monitor desk, with an interface panel providing the rack's main connections at the rear. Power came redundantly from the grid and a UPS, and the audio reached the console over MADI using coaxial BNC point-to-point cabling.
The system ran in the UHF band with the Audio Link Mode set to Live Low Latency, and the Base Station's two RF wideband channels occupied two 8 MHz blocks at centre frequencies of 546 MHz and 578 MHz. Sampling ran at 96 kHz with 1.1 ms latency in the Extended Range, SeDAC mode. Spectera WebUI software gave the crew a system overview and remote control.
What the crew had to set up
Three DAD antennas were used, two on stage and one backstage, with a fourth added when the stage design includes a long catwalk. That backstage antenna covered the area where a camera accompanied Kygo on his route to the stage. Ross James Mulhare, founder and owner of Studio 89, set up the Spectera system and also handled the front-of-house mix for the Mönchengladbach show. He has worked for Kygo for four years, and the equipment was supplied by UK companies Studio 89 and Pulse PA Limited.
Mulhare first learned about Spectera through Angus Price, managing director of Pulse PA Limited, and attended a UK trade fair demo of the system in January 2026. He previously used wireless systems from another company for touring, and says configuring a ready-to-play setup is faster with Spectera than with conventional wireless. He has not yet tried the SoundBase Pro software.
Kevin Flasza operated the monitoring console in Mönchengladbach and used the Spectera ecosystem for the first time there. Flasza, who lives in Berwyn, Illinois, in the Chicago metropolitan area, is a full-time employee of Production Resource Group (PRG) and has toured with Kygo in sound engineering roles since 2018. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Audio Arts from Columbia College Chicago and has worked with Sennheiser wireless equipment many times before. Flasza says the previous show, at UNTOLD Festival in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, used competitor wireless. He notes that the SEK bodypack's on/off switch sits under a cover, and that the pack has an endless rotary encoder and an e-ink display.
Mulhare says the tour covers Europe, North and South America, and Asia, with an A set and a B set of the touring package sent by air freight. At the DJ console, the side stacks held two top speakers and one subwoofer per side.
For anyone weighing a wireless IEM rig, the Mönchengladbach setup shows a single 1U base station covering a full show's worth of stereo mixes, with the antenna count changing when the stage grows a catwalk.