JBL VRX932LA-1

The VRX932LA-1 is a true full-range speaker with a frequency specification of 75Hz to 20kHz (±3dB), and it delivers an acceptable amount of bass output for background music and speech-based applications when used without a subwoofer. The all-important coverage pattern is 100 degrees horizontal by 15 degrees vertical, and power handling (in passive mode, using the internal 1.2kHz crossover) is 800W continuous or 1600W ‘program’, which represents the sort of amplifier rating that would normally be used to drive one of these cabinets, and equates to the power rating of the LF driver.

Inside the VRX932LA-1 is one of JBL’s new generation of super-light, efficient, cast LF drivers: the 2262H is a Differential Drive woofer with dual voice coils (two independent coils wound on the same former) and a neodymium magnet assembly, which produces a super-strong magnetic field and good heat dissipation to reduce power compression and increase reliability. These neodymium speakers have to be felt to be believed, especially after you’ve listened to the amount of level they can produce. When I first bought my own SRX118 subs last year, I removed the 18-inch driver from one of them just to see what it looked like, and I found it hard to believe that something that weighed so little and didn’t look as if it even had a magnet could handle so much power and kick out so much sound.

Anyway, back to the box in hand, and it’s worth commenting on the construction details too. The latching hardware is very good quality and makes fastening the cabinets together extremely easy and secure. Generous side handles are mounted at either end of the cabinet, and these are good-quality cast fittings with a sensible grip bar and a deep recess to protect hands. I’ve mentioned the light weight of the internal components, and the enclosure itself isn’t all that heavy (21kg for a 1600W cab!), but it has a feeling of utter solidity about it. There are wide, low-profile rubber feet on the bottom of the box, and these mate with recesses on top of the cab below and are useful for making sure everything is properly located before trying to fasten the side latches. If keeping up appearances was important, I’d be tempted to fasten some extra feet on the narrow end of these cabs, as it’s natural to carry them one-handed and stand them on end; this is the easy way of moving them around and removes the need to bend down when lifting from floor level.

With all its distinguished lineage, you’d expect the VRX932LA-1 to sound pretty good, and in my opinion it sounds very, very good. It can handle a huge amount of power and is one of those designs that just seems to sound better as the level goes up. I only had time to hitch these up to my bread-and-butter amp racks, which meant that I was driving each pair of VRX932LA-1s in passive/full-range mode with a bridged QSC PLX 2502, and controlling them via the appropriate downloaded tunings in my DriveRack 260. For most of the time, I married the VRX932LA-1s up with two SRX718 subs each side, running off a pair of bridged PLX 3102 amps, and the result was one stunning sound system, which seemed to like it more the harder I drove it. The top-end clarity was absolutely all there and sounded exactly the same some 20m back. If anything, I felt the need to back the HF off a few notches, especially indoors, but I also experimented with tweaking the sub tunings and I’m convinced that there is more performance to be had from this setup given time to tinker.

A must-have with line arrays is the ability to use some form of shading within the coverage, and the VRX932LA-1 has rear-panel switching to accomplish this. There are two slide switches labelled Array Configuration Selector, which between them alter the output of the HF section by ±3dB. When a single speaker is used, proper balance is achieved with the HF at -3dB, and when multiples are used, the close-coverage (downward-pointing) boxes would have their HF reduced and the long-throw units either flat or boosted, depending on how many were being used and the coverage required. A more extreme method, if needed, is to run a cluster of VRX932LA-1s in passive mode, but switch the lowest box to ‘bi-amp’, which uses a four-wire connection at the input Speakon socket and thereby disconnects the HF drivers altogether.

After spending quality time with four VRX932LA-1 boxes, I have come to appreciate why so many sound companies are going down the portable line-array route. There’s only so far you can go with traditional wide-dispersion speakers, particularly in the great British outdoors, and now that I’ve proved to myself how versatile these excellent speakers are, I can’t think of many live-sound jobs where they wouldn’t now be my first choice.