Firehouse Productions Finds the Pulse at 2013 iHeartRadio Music Festival with HARMAN’s JBL Professional VTX Line Arrays and Crown I-Tech HD Amplifiers

LAS VEGAS, Nevada – For the third year in a row, Firehouse Productions turned to JBL Professional and Crown Audio for the sound reinforcement system at the iHeartRadio Music Festival, deploying JBL VTX line arrays powered by Crown I-Tech HD amplifiers. The 2013 iHeartRadio Music Festival was held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and featured performances by Paul McCartney, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Muse and more.

This year’s system featured a total of 36 JBL VTX V25 fullsize line array elements (18 per side) and 24 VERTEC® VT4889 fullsize line array elements (12 per side), with 15 VTX G28 ground-stacked subwoofers. In addition, 12 VT4886 subcompact line array elements provided front fill. Crown I-Tech 12000HD amplifiers powered the system, which was controlled via JBL HiQnet Performance Manager™ software.

The 2013 iHeartRadio Music Festival marks the latest in a series of high-profile events in which Firehouse Productions has utilized JBL VTX line arrays and Crown I-Tech HD amplifiers, including the 2013 Global Citizen Festival, the 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and the MTV Video Music Awards.

“Throughout the summer, we have continued to rely on VTX and I-Tech HD for our largest productions and they have consistently provided reliable, top-notch audio quality for each event,” said Mark Dittmar, Lead Design and Integration Engineer at Firehouse Productions. “The controllability of the sound and the ease of setup make this combination our go-to option for any production, but particularly for the highest-profile events.”

For more information on Firehouse Productions, please visit www.firehouseproductions.com

HARMAN (www.HARMAN.com) designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of infotainment and audio solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson® and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. 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 14,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.3 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2013.

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Pick Of The Hits - JBL in Mix, October 2013

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Firehouse Productions Rocks the Nokia Theatre LA LIVE at 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony with HARMAN’s JBL Loudspeakers and Crown Amplifiers

LOS ANGELES, California – The 28th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony was held on the west coast for the first time in 20 years at the Nokia Theatre LA LIVE in Los Angeles. This year’s inductees included Public Enemy, Heart, Albert King, Randy Newman, Rush and Donna Summer, with Lou Adler and Quincy Jones each receiving an Ahmet Ertegun non-performer award. Sound for this year’s ceremony featured more than 50 of HARMAN’s JBL VERTEC® line array loudspeakers powered by Crown I-Tech HD Series amplifiers.

Red Hook, New York-based sound contractor Firehouse Productions had the Nokia Theatre’s impressive house JBL VERTEC sound system at its disposal, which includes 14 VERTEC VT4889 fullsize line array loudspeakers per side for the main left and right clusters and six VT4889 loudspeakers per side for left and right outfill. To pump out the low end, 22 VT4880A fullsize flown subwoofers are arranged in cardioid configuration, along with eight VT4880A subs per side stacked at the left and right sides of the stage in a cardioid arrangement. The standard house system at Nokia Theater also includes six VT4887A subcompact line array loudspeakers for front fill and even JBL AC2212/00 plus six PD5212/64 loudspeakers for loge and mezzanine delays, respectively.

For the Induction Ceremony, Firehouse Productions added three more hangs of six VT4886 subcompact line array elements each for left, center and right balcony delay clusters and additional VT4886 enclosures for distributed front fill. Audio networking and signal processing was provided by BSS Audio Soundweb London components.

Firehouse has provided the sound for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony before, but this was the first time the company did the event in a proper theater. According to Mark Dittmar, Firehouse’s lead design and integration engineer, Firehouse immediately benefited from a space with good acoustics and a world-class PA system already in place. However, he noted, “With this being rock and roll’s biggest awards night, we wanted a system that would completely blow peoples’ minds for the bands, but maintain good intelligibility for the speeches.” Knowing the Nokia Theatre LA LIVE was already equipped with VERTEC gave Dittmar a feeling of confidence going in, having used VERTEC line arrays for more than a decade for their superior sound quality.

Dittmar has depended on Crown amplifiers since Firehouse Productions began and finds that the I-Tech HD Series offers power and flexibility he can’t achieve with other products. I-Tech HD amplifiers were deployed for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies to power the additional VERTEC arrays, along with the original Crown I-Tech amplifiers which power the house PA.

“One of our favorite aspects about Crown is the ability to build a custom library of presets that enable us to control any speaker in our inventory with the proper power and optimize their EQ, delay and other parameters,” Dittmar stated. “In particular, the inclusion of the newest VERTEC V5 preset tunings in the Crown I-Tech HD Series 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."

For more information on Firehouse Productions, please visit www.firehouseproductions.com

HARMAN (www.HARMAN.com) designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of audio, lighting and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson®, and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. 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 14,300 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.4 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2012.

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Firehouse Productions and HARMAN’s JBL VTX Line Arrays Help Global Citizen Festival Raise Poverty Awareness

Firehouse Productions recently provided a
JBL VTX line array system for the
Global Citizen Festival in New York City’s Central Park. 

NORTHRIDGE, California – The Black Keys, Foo Fighters, Neil Young and Crazy Horse and many others rocked out recently in New York City’s Central Park for the Global Citizen Festival, a free concert highlighting the effort to combat poverty around the world. New York-based Firehouse Productions provided the live sound reinforcement system for the event, which featured HARMAN’s JBL VTX line arrays.

While the Global Citizen Festival was free, the estimated 60,000 concertgoers were only allowed to attend after accumulating points by watching videos on globalcitizen.org about various issues dealing with poverty. In addition to the musical performances, celebrities including K’Naan, John Legend, Katie Couric and economist Jeffrey D. Sachs delivered speeches during equipment changes.

For the main PA system, Firehouse provided 36 (18 per side) JBL VTX V25 fullsize arrayable line array loudspeakers, 32 (16 per side)VERTEC® VT4880A fullsize arrayable subwoofers, with two VT4888 midsize line array loudspeakers for front fills. In addition, 48 (four clusters of 12) VT4889 fullsize line array loudspeakers provided delay fill along with 24 (12 per side) VT4880A subwoofers. Crown I-Tech HD 12000 amplifiers powered the entire system.

“This event was straightforward from a sound design standpoint, as with outdoor concerts many of the obstacles of filtering sound are eliminated, since there are no columns or walls that we have to worry about,” explained Mark Dittmar, Lead Design & Integration Engineer at Firehouse Productions. “The VTX line arrays continue to give us the sound quality and smooth coverage that we rely on and we’ve never had a problem.”

“The light weight of the VTX made the load-in and setup process a breeze,” Dittmar added. “The combination of VTX with the Crown I-Tech HD amplifiers is the best solution out there for live sound applications of all sizes and scopes.”

For more information on Firehouse Productions, please visit: http://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.

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