TruSource Technology DL2 Integrated Digital Mixer

UP-CLOSE
By Jonathan Widran
In 2011, legendary Northridge, CA-based audio electronics company JBL
(http://jblpro.com) launched the most sweeping brand marketing and fan
initiative campaign in its 60-plus year history. The multi-year Hear The
Truth campaign features an evolving roster of top international musicians
challenging listeners to “hear the truth” about the power and accuracy of
JBL equipment. JBL’s parent company Harman launched TV commercials
(directed by Academy Award-winning director Barry Levinson), print advertising,
radio clips, online programs, social media engagement and concert
venue promotions designed to resonate with JBL’s long-time fans and
music lovers through the artists and songs they support.
The JBL heritage reaches back more than 65 years, as founder James B.
Lansing designed the speakers for the first talking motion picture industrystandard
sound system. In its distinguished history, JBL has received
numerous awards, including a Technical GRAMMY Award, presented by
the Recording Academy for “continual mastery and innovation…” JBL was
an innovator for ground-breaking music festivals, as its loudspeakers were
used at Woodstock in 1969, and today JBL sound systems are fixtures in
top concert and performance venues around the world.
Among the highlights in JBL’s extensive product line are its professional
studio monitors, which are used for music recording and mastering. In
music studios, artists, producers and recording engineers rely on JBL
speakers to ensure their art hits its mark when heard in homes, cars, on
personal music players, in the club and in the theater.
“There’s a lot of feeling, soul and nuance involved in making a great
music performance come across,” says JBL's Peter Chaikin. “The end goal
is for the listener to hear what the artist is feeling. At JBL, we stop at nothing
to achieve our objectives. If a design tool doesn’t exist, we create it.” With
this spirit, JBL takes on the challenge of bringing “truth” to the environment
where art is created. Chaikin continues, “The ideal studio monitor is
enjoyable to listen to but at the same time neutral, imparting no color of its
own. When your mix is right, you know it. At the same time, if the speaker
is doing its job, it doesn’t lie to you. It lets you know when the track you’re
working on needs more work!”
Studio monitor design leverages a range of skills, technologies and expertise
JBL has developed over its 65 year history. JBL employs sophisticated
speaker measurement systems that reveal opportunities to
perfect each design. The anechoic chamber is an essential tool for performance
measurement. Without it, all you can do is predict. While
anechoic chambers are very expensive and some manufacturers have
none of their own, JBL has several anechoic chambers on its campus.
In an effort to eliminate bias that comes with standard “sighted” listening
evaluations, JBL’s subjective evaluation facility allows true “double-blind”
speaker comparisons. Behind an acoustically transparent, visually opaque
curtain, a computerized “speaker shuffler” randomly swaps up to four pairs
of speakers, giving an evaluator time to listen to each pair and register his
or her preference. The shuffler plays a key role in the impartial evaluation
process that ensures a new speaker design wins approval and will be
successful in the market.
Driven by years of research and development, JBL meticulously designs
its transducers (devices that turn electric impulses into sound) and system
components to give each model industry-leading performance. Since room
acoustics play a significant part in what the listener hears, JBL uses LSR
(Linear Spatial Reference) design criteria which requires 72 separate
measurements that help predict the speaker’s performance in the listening
room. JBL offers three studio monitor lines: The flagship LSR6300 Series,
the revolutionary LSR4300 Series and the affordable LSR2300 Series.
Harman (http://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 JBL, AKG
(microphones and headphones), Studer and Soundcraft (mixing consoles),
AKG (mics and headphones), DBX and BSS (signal processing), Crown
(amps), Digitech (guitar effects) Infinity, Lexicon and Mark Levinson.
Contact JBL Professional, 818-894-8850
16 September 2012 www.musicconnection.com