Las Vegas House of Blues equipped with JBL VTX line array

The House of Blues in Las Vegas is one of the city’s premier concert venues, and has just had a set of JBL VTX Series line array systems installed.

Sound Image of Escondido, California, designed and installed the JBL VTX system under the direction of Jason Schmidlapp, with support from Dave Kaiser of Sound Marketing West – Harman Professional’s regional sales rep firm. The installation makes Sound Image the first company to install a JBL VTX system.

The set-up includes two 13-box hangs of ten VTX 25 line arrays and three VerTec VT4880A full-size arrayable subwoofers on each side of the stage, complemented by six ASB7128 subwoofers under the stage and six VerTec VT4886 subcompact line array elements for upper balcony fill. In addition, a JBL AC18 compact two-way loudspeaker and ASB6112 compact 12-inch subwoofer were installed in each of the VIP suites.

“The House of Blues had gotten to the point where it really needed to upgrade its sound system,” said Dan Schartoff, VP of Production for House of Blues Entertainment. “The VTX boxes were a bit larger than the previous system so the suspension points had to change, and we also had to work around the room’s upper balcony. We had to move the array stacks slightly upstage and offstage to keep the sight lines to the stage clear."

The upper balcony was a large hurdle to overcome, Schartoff noted. “The two array hangs are fairly close to the balcony, so we decided to install the subwoofers in the middle of both arrays. Six VTX V25s provide balcony coverage, with three VT4880As flown in the middle of the array and four V25s for floor coverage,” he said. “The 13-box arrays were carefully designed to fit the available space and the bottom V25 enclosure of the balcony section is at the same elevation as the first row of the balcony, providing excellent off-axis coverage."

The loudspeakers are powered by Crown IT 12000HD and XTi Series amplifiers. Loudspeaker management is performed via dbx DriveRack 4800 speaker management systems and a Soundcraft Vi1 digital live sound console handles some front-of-house mixing duties.

The venue will be home to a two-year residency by Carlos Santana, who will performing his Greatest Hits Live: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow throughout 2014.

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