A recent upgrade of the existing sound reinforcement system at the Norwegian Academy of Music’s 365-seat Linderman Hall in Oslo is headed by new JBL Professional VTX A8 line arrays in a project under the direction of HARMAN Norway distributor LydRommet.
The Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH) is the largest university-level music conservatory in Norway. Officially founded in 1973, NMH has academic origins dating back to 1883, when Ludvig Mathias Lindeman and his son Peter Brynie Lindeman founded a historic school for organists.
Lindeman Hall is the academy’s main concert hall, with a quality acoustic design and a stage big enough for a full symphony orchestra. It hosts large acoustic ensembles, amplified jazz bands and chamber orchestras as well as solo performers.
“NMH is the top music university in Norway, and they strive to offer the best in terms of education and equipment alike,” says Jan-Stefan Hansen, director of pro audio sales, LydRommet. “To complement the beautiful acoustic design of Lindeman Hall, we implemented JBL VTX A8 speakers. The coverage of the VTX A8 speakers is perfect for the size of the hall, and its flat frequency response sounds very natural, yielding versatility for different music styles.”
In 2014, LydRommet outfitted the venue with a system incorporating 16 JBL VT4886 line arrays and four VT4883 subwoofers for the main left-right hangs joined by an array VT4886 enclosures for a center cluster and four F18 subwoofers for added low end. Nine Crown ITech 4×3500 amplifiers drove the loudspeakers.
In the upgrade, the mains have been replaced with 25 VTX A8 array enclosures suspended 10 per side, with five in the center cluster. The team also added two more F18 subwoofers to a total of six. LydRommet elected to integrate the new loudspeakers in the hall’s existing infrastructure of ITech Series amps.
“An important element of the procurement has been to follow up NMH’s environmental profile in practice,” says Stig Gunnar Ringen, technical manager, NMH. “LydRommet’s JBL VTX solution utilizes pre-existing amplifiers and infrastructure — completely in line with the sustainability goals of the Norwegian Academy of Music. We thank LydRommet for a solution-oriented process with sustainability in focus.”
“The Crown ITech amps have speaker presets for all JBL speakers, including the A8,” Hansen. says “I used JBL Line Array Calculator and Performance Manager software to fine-tune the system. It’s very accurate and precise. When I measured the system in-action, it was incredible how close it was to the software predictions. The rigging system is also really good, making it easy and fast to stack and deploy the arrays — it’s a brilliant system.”
