Since selling the Czech Republic’s first JBL VTX V20 system to Brno-based Kletch,
enabling them to service the massive Pohoda Festival at Trenčin Slovensko,
HARMAN Professional’s territorial distributor, AudioMaster CZ, has ensured the rig
has been seen regularly at outdoor festivals throughout the summer.

The most recent of these was the Bohemia JazzFest 2015, for which AudioMaster CZ
fielded its own system to give it further exposure. The company’s business
marketing specialist, Jiri Tomašek, explained: “We bought the system this summer
in order to show it off to Czech sound engineers and investors at festivals.’

Started in 2006 by acclaimed jazz guitarist Rudy Linka, who wanted to present and
promote world-class jazz in the Czech Republic, Bohemia JazzFest takes place
around eight historic squares throughout the country—including the capital, Prague,
which became AudioMaster CZ’s VTX demo site.

For this event, AudioMaster CZ partnered with one of its best clients, AV Media.
Around 4,000 people attended the festival each day in Prague’s Old Town Square,
the historic center of the Czech capital, while other host cities included Plzen,
Domazlice, Tabor, Liberec, Brno, Pisek and Prachatice.

Reviewing the attributes of the V20, a smaller format version of JBL’s
groundbreaking V25, AudioMaster CZ technician, Marek Barabas, stated, “This
system is great for setting and tuning. I really like the step-by-step workflow in JBL
HiQnet Performance Manager™—it enables me to make the design offline at home,
then bring my laptop to the venue and add real values into LAC [Line Array
Calculator]. I can then make small changes in the setting before finally going to the
true measurement, for EQ, delays etc.

“Performance Manager is very intuitive—you can understand it very quickly, and all
changes you make, you can hear immediately.’

Walking the venue with his tablet to tune the system, Barabas added, “The most
superb function is the Live mode, as this provides a real time overview about what’s
going on with the system. I can see both RMS/Peak levels on all circuits and I can
see gain reduction if the system reaches limiter thresholds. These limiters really
work in the way they protect transducers, yet they are inaudible while in
operation.’

In Prague’s Old Square the installation team—with Vilem Komarek production
managing for AV Media — flew nine V20 tops per side, with six G28 subs in a center
broadside array, and two hangs of four S25 column subs. In addition, they had a
V20 per side as front fill and VTX F15 as out fill. The system was powered by four
Crown VRack 4x3500HD systems with a custom rack (comprising Crown I-Tech
5000HD and I-Tech 4x3500HD).

FOH mixing was performed on Soundcraft’s new Vi3000 digital console, with a Vi1
down at the stage.

As for the V20, Jiri Tomašek reports that it came through its test with flying colors.
“It survived the rain and everything else thrown at it from an eclectic program of
international musicians,’ he said. These included American genius Bill Frisell and
EWF Experience featuring Al McKay (from the US) as well as an assembly of
Europe’s finest.