- The arrival of system and sound engineer Laurent Delenclos at French HARMAN Professional distributor SCV Audio eight months ago has not only boosted the company’s technical support, but provided added reassurance to the growing network of JBL VTX users.
Although Delenclos is supporting all the represented HARMAN Professional brands, his primary focus has been on spreading the word about VTX, JBL’s new system, via demos and at the SCV Audio facility outside Paris.
Following the VTX system’s French debut in September 2012 at the summer festival, Foire en Scène in Chalons en Champagne, three companies—Pan Pot, Echo Animation and Audio Scène—have made investments in the platform.
As an existing JBL VERTEC user, Audio Scène (based in north-central France) was the first to commit, consolidating its rental fleet with 12 VTX V25, six G28 subs and four Crown VRack 2 complete touring amplifier racks.
Also based in the north, Echo Animation boosted its inventory with 12 V25, six S28 and four VRack 2 systems, while across in the French Alps, Pan Pot purchased 18 VTX V25, twelve G28 subs and six VRack 4 in a complete overhaul of its existing rental fleet. Since all companies specialize in the event and concert market, this provides JBL with a growing network of partners.
“Without this new generation of speakers, the breakthrough would have been much more difficult to achieve,” Delenclos said. “I joined SCV with the idea of overturning old preconceptions about JBL. In France, the mere fact of having a good PA system is not enough—users also want to work with competent partners, with complete support of the distributor—and I remain available for that. The system is easy to troubleshoot.”
Technical training is of paramount importance, he said. “It is the first implementation of the system, and I support this personally—carrying out duties such as hosting seminars and demos, as well as checking JBL Line Array Calculator (LAC) simulations for installations and supporting dialogue between the users — in other words acting as a link between them and JBL.”
Delenclos said the addition of Crown VRacks has also been particularly welcome. “This standardization of amplification and DSP is a plus for the VTX system,” he said. “The Crown I-Tech HD amps are powerful and reliable and they are fitted with an exemplary DSP resource. In addition, JBL HiQnet Performance Manager software is a flexible tool that facilitates the implementation of VTX and VRack systems.”
A number of high profile one-off events have already benefited from the power of VTX. These include Les Nuits de Frejus, Festival d’Hyères, Les Arènes de Frejus, Festival Amnésique and Jazzaramatuelle (all with Pan Pot), Jazz in Marciac (Antoine Crespin /SCV Audio) and of course Foire en Scène 2012 et 2013 (SCV Audio).
