Leona Lewis, who first sprung to fame while winning the 2006 edition of British television's biggest talent show, The X Factor, has taken her success to new heights. Her debut album, ‘Spirit’, has leapt to the top of the charts in North America, reaching Number One on the Billboard Pop 100 and Hot 100, and the Canadian Hot 100. This follows the success of the album at home, where ‘Spirit’ became the fastest-selling debut album in the UK and Ireland. The album has also reached Number One in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Austria and Greece.

Success like this hasn't come without hard work. Lewis has just completed a whistle-stop visit to North America, singing on many prestigious TV shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. And she was accompanied all the way with a Sennheiser SKM 5200 radio microphone fitted with a Neumann KK105 capsule, and Sennheiser ew 300 G2 in ear monitors.

Dave Wooster has been Leona’s front of house engineer since the very beginning of her career. He was there at every step of the American adventure.

"From the outset of this project the brief has always been to use the best and to accept no compromise," he explains. "So we had no option other than to use the Sennheiser 5200 with the Neumann KK105 head and the G2 in-ear system. We had been using a KMS 105 in rehearsals so the transition to radio was an easy choice. The extreme dynamic range that Leona generates is quite phenomenal. I've used the 105 with other artists so I knew this was the only choice. Even so, it wasn’t until Leona started using it that I really got a true idea of what the 105 capsule was really capable of. Not only does it capture her true sound without colouration, it also handles the massive range of her dynamic output; from on-capsule whispers to full volume vocal within a phrase. Truly exceptional. Coupling this to the SKM radio system has seen no noticeable loss in quality with constant RF and no dropouts. And from an artists perspective it’s a well balanced unit to work with."

Both engineer and artist were also impressed with the monitoring system.

"With the G2 system," continues Wooster, "all I can say is the one time during the six shows that we were forced by a production to use another system was the only day Leona questioned what was so dramatically different and why we had to change. I think that says it all."

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Robert Collins, Sennheiser PR