Leading Australian distributor of sound, lighting and stage equipment, Jands announces the release of a new line of premium stage monitoring products designed to handle the most demanding applications.
Recently launched by HARMAN Professional Solutions’ Tour Audio Division, the JBL VTX M Series is a new line of elegantly designed stage monitoring products featuring a low profile. The M Series utilises JBL’s proven Neodymium Differential Drive woofers and D2 Dual Diaphragm high frequency drivers, along with a new high frequency Image Control Waveguide for excellent control and gain before feedback.
The new VTX M Series line comprises of two models: the VTX M20 features dual 10” woofers and a 3” D2 compression driver, while the VTX M22 features dual 12” woofers in addition to the 3” D2 compression driver.
According to George Georgallis, Product Manager, Tour Sound Amps, Speakers, & DSP, the M Series is the first dedicated tour sound stage monitoring line in JBL’s VTX family of products. A key objective during the product’s development was to create the best stage monitor products available. The company collaborated with some of the best monitor engineers in the industry, blending JBL’s proven technologies with several new components that were developed from scratch specifically for these monitors.
The M Series high frequency section utilises the proven D2430 Dual 3” compression driver, which is also found in JBL’s large format VTX V25-II Line Array system. The D2 driver is coupled with a newly developed 60x60 degree high frequency waveguide that has a unique shape, specifically tailored to M Series for stage monitoring applications. The new waveguide is based on JBL’s Image Control Waveguide, a technology originally developed for the JBL M2 Master Reference studio monitor. Coupled with the D2 driver, it delivers a coverage pattern that is spatially consistent, allowing M Series to reach excellent gain before feedback performance.
The woofers in the VTX M Series utilise JBL’s patented Differential Drive technology, allowing for excellent heat dissipation, low distortion and very high output. These Differential Drive Neodymium woofers feature dual 3” voice coils, more than doubling the voice coil area of traditional designs. The unusually low weight of the design makes the M Series monitors some of the most lightweight in their class at nearly half the weight of some competitors. The two woofers are supported by a bass-reflex enclosure with a large low frequency port, enabling the system to reproduce low frequencies down to 50Hz with minimal port turbulence and noise.
The M Series allows for both Dual-Channel (Bi-Amp) and Single-Channel (Passive) operating modes that can be set via the easily accessible selection switches. This significantly reduces the cost per mix, allowing M Series to apply to a much broader audience. When switched to Single-Channel (Passive) mode, an internal passive network is engaged that allows users to drive M Series monitors with a single amplifier channel, reducing overall amplifier requirements.
Unlike typical passively driven monitors, the M Series splits the speaker preset responsibilities between the amplifier DSP and the internal passive network. The external DSP is responsible for frequency response correction, phase response linearisation and component protection, while the internal network is only responsible for the component high-pass and low-pass filters. The combination of the internal and external processing recreates a typical Bi-Amplified speaker preset while only using one amplifier channel. The frequency, phase response and MAX output of the M Series are identical in both the Single-Channel (Passive) and Dual-Channel (Bi-Amp) modes.
Similar to all JBL VTX products, the M Series is powered exclusively by Crown iTech HD DSP-based amplifiers, allowing for excellent performance and consistency across the world. In Single-Channel mode, a single Crown Audio 4x3500HD amplifier can power up to eight M Series monitors (in four independent monitor mixes), creating a compact monitoring system with excellent value.
