Maryland Sound International recently became the first company in the United States to add the new JBL VTX Line Array Series loudspeakers to its inventory.
Maryland Sound was founded in 1966 to serve Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons on a national tour, growing over the decades to become one of the industry’s foremost sound contractors, with a resumé spanning presidential inaugurations to Times Square New Year’s Eve broadcasts to major concert tours.
“We built our business on offering our clients the very best, and we are purchasing more than 300 of the new JBL VTX V25 line array loudspeakers,” states Bob Goldstein, president of Maryland Sound. “We will be using them for large-scale events, smaller productions and everything in between.”
The company first deployed its VTX system at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll on April 9.
The JBL VTX Series is the next generation of JBL line array loudspeaker design. “VTX represents an evolution of JBL’s industry-standard VERTEC that heralds a new era in performance, system integration and user-friendliness,” says Paul Bauman, senior manager, Tour Sound, JBL Professional. “The VTX Series features JBL’s legendary sound quality coupled with the most advanced sound reinforcement technology and support available.”
“When you start with outstanding components and put them into a well-designed enclosure, you can’t help but end up with outstanding results,” Goldstein continues. “I have to say that the technology behind the V25 is amazing. I’m a guy who likes to experience high-frequency reproduction all the way out to 20kHz. The D2 drivers handle a ton of power with no breakup modes and no measurable distortion. Having the D2 drivers in the V25 makes a huge difference and I wanted to have that kind of sound quality in our inventory.”
The JBL VTX Series V25 full-size, 3-way high-directivity line array element features two 2,000W, 15-inch Differential Drive woofers mounted in die-cast aluminum baffles, with four 8-inch Differential Drive midrange transducers and three D2 dual-diaphragm dual-voice-coil compression drivers mounted on a third-generation waveguide and patented Radiation Boundary Integrator assembly.
“The new JBL D2 high-frequency driver is fantastic,” Goldstein adds. “There is virtually no distortion, and designer Paul Bauman and his team came up with a new waveguide that takes full advantage of its performance to distribute extremely smooth frequency response with even coverage.”
In addition, Maryland Sound will continue to use its existing VERTEC VT4889 inventory. “I think the VT4889’s with the V5 software tunings are world-class and we will not stop using them anytime soon,” Goldstein notes. “That said, the VTX V25 is simply a step up in its ability to resolve musical detail.”
“Our clients want to know that we’re always on the leading edge of the technological state of the art,” he concludes. “Having the best technology like the JBL VTX V25 means we can provide the best service AND the best sound. Our clients don’t have to ask us to upgrade—we do it on our own because we want to stay on the cutting edge.”