HARMAN’s JBL VTX Line Arrays Support BMW China’s Olympic Festival For Nation’s Athletes

NORTHRIDGE, California  – Filling the Bird’s Nest National Stadium in Beijing with fans, athletes, country representatives and musicians, BMW China held a festival to cheer on the Chinese Olympic Delegation before the 2012 games in London. The event featured more than 100 BMW vehicles throughout the venue, with multiple performing artists and Chinese Olympic figures including Lang Ping, Yang Wei, Wang Liqin and Li Xiaoshuang.

Bejing TianYin CaiYun International Culture & Media Co., Ltd deployed HARMAN’s new JBL VTX line array system and VerTec® line arrays to provide uniform sound coverage throughout the nationally-acclaimed stadium. Mixing the event were Jin Shaogang and Ma Xin, who were responsible for mixing the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic games and therefore already familiar with the venue and its demanding coverage requirements. Additional technical support for the event was provided by Advanced Communications Equipment (ACE), the largest HARMAN distributor in China. 

The sound reinforcement system design featured four ground-stacked JBL VTX line arrays each consisting of four V25 line array elements and two S28 subwoofers for main VIP area coverage. Twelve additional ground-stacked

VerTec line arrays, each containing three VT4889-1 line array elements and two VT4880A arrayable subwoofers, provided supplemental coverage for the lower seating areas and to cover the upper tribune of the stadium, eight line array clusters were hung, each consisting of eight VerTec VT4888 midsize line array elements and two VT4882 arrayable subwoofers.

Crown I-Tech HD series amplifiers with built-in DSP processing powered the PA system. With Crown and its industry-leading flexibility, delay and equalization was easily adjusted during the event. At the front of house position was a Soundcraft Vi6 digital console, while Vi6 and Vi1 digital consoles were utilized for monitoring.

System design engineer Joe Rao of Bejing TianYin CaiYun International Culture & Media Co., Ltd commented, “This was the biggest production in the Bird’s Nest since the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Preparations for the one-night show took two weeks and it was a great event with superb sound quality and excellent coverage.”

HARMAN (www.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 AKG, Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon and Mark Levinson. The company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 20 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 13,400 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported sales of $4.4 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2012.