NEW YORK, New York — When New York contemporary hit radio station Z100 throws a holiday party, it pulls out all the stops—Z100’s Jingle Ball 2012 was held in Madison Square Garden and hosted performances by Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, One Direction, Ne-Yo, Jason Mraz, Cher Lloyd and others. The sellout crowd enjoyed an immersive sonic experience, courtesy of more than 100 of HARMAN’s JBL VTX Series and VERTEC® line array enclosures and Crown I-Tech HD Series amplifiers.
“For Jingle Ball 2012 we needed a system that would provide plenty of power yet have clarity and presence even over an enthusiastic crowd of screaming fans,” said Mark Dittmar, Lead Design and Integration Engineer of Red Hook, New York sound reinforcement contractor Firehouse Productions. “We went all out with a VTX/ VERTEC setup that provided full 360-degree coverage to every one of the 20,000 seats in the Garden.”
Firehouse deployed seven line array columns—two main hangs of 18 VTX Series V25 fullsize line array elements each, two side hangs of 14 VERTEC VT4889 fullsize line array elements each and three rear hangs each comprising 12 VT4889’s. Sixteen VERTEC VT4886 subcompact line array elements were used for front fill and 24 VERTEC VT4880A fullsize arrayable subwoofers delivered the low end. All the speakers were driven by Crown I-Tech HD Series amps, with the new 4-channel 4x3500HD powering the center hang.
Firehouse has been relying on JBL VERTEC line arrays for more than 10 years especially in major arena situations. “Along with their superior sound quality and installation flexibility, their focused coverage pattern is ideal for concerts where there’s seating all around the venue and 360-degree coverage is required, yet where the sound has to stay clear, focused and intelligible,” explained Dittmar.
“That said, the JBL VTX Series is yet another sonic step up—the capabilities of the new VTX Series are really quite a step forward. The V25 has so much more low-end power that we didn’t have to fly subwoofers along with the main arrays as we did with the previous Jingle Ball—all the subs were placed on the floor, which meant that we had to hang two fewer arrays in the air, making the installation a little simpler and cleaner.”
“The JBL line arrays and Crown amps are made for each other,” said Dittmar. “The output of the amps can be precisely programmed to match the sonic characteristics of each of the VTX and VERTEC speakers. In particular, the inclusion of the newest VTX and VERTEC V5 preset tunings in the Crown amps really took the performance of the loudspeakers beyond anything we were able to achieve before in terms of coverage, coherence, tonal balance and overall clarity.”
“Jingle Ball 2012 was the first time we ever used JBL HiQnet Performance Manager™ software and we wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t have complete confidence,” Dittmar concluded. “Not that a job like this is ever easy, but Performance Manager made doing Jingle Ball 2012 noticeably easier than it had been in previous years.”
For more information on Firehouse Productions, please visit www.firehouseproductions.com
HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of audio and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets — supported by 15 leading brands, including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon® and Mark Levinson®. The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 13,900 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported net sales of $4.4 billion for year ended June 30, 2012.