Crypto.com Arena Upgrades JBL Sound System for Venue's Renovation Crypto.com Arena is not simply one of the top sports and entertainment venues in the US, it is one of the best known throughout the world. As the home of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers, NHL's LA Kings, and WNBA LA Sparks, sporting events are a constant, something that will get even more focus in 2028 when the arena hosts men's and women's gymnastics competition for the upcoming 2028 Olympic and Paralympic games. But Crypto.com Arena is also the home of the most popular music concerts and a multitude of other special events, including the annual GRAMMY Awards. The arena's seating capacity of 20,000 (depending on the event), puts Crypto.com Arena above the average size for its class. It's big and it's busy. Opened in 1999 as STAPLES Center, the flagship venue of AEG is the anchor of the LA LIVE sports and entertainment district in downtown Los Angeles residing adjacent to the Los Angeles Convention Center. Shortly after changing its name to Crypto.com Arena in late 2021, AEG embarked on a three-year major renovation to every public facing element of the venue, including a complete upgrade of its JBL loudspeaker system. "Everything, top to bottom, is getting made over: private spaces, premium offerings, public areas, concessions, locker rooms, our scoreboards and video screens with an emphasis on our technology," explains Armen Dembekjian, the arena's senior vice president for projects and event productions. "There's something for everyone." JBL's newest-generation VTX A-Series loudspeakers replaced the JBL VerTec Series system installed more than a decade earlier. But the venue went considerably further in improving audience experience by adding upgraded and additional speakers to cover the top of the arena's bowl. The new system was the result of tight collaboration between HARMAN Professional and consulting firm Anthony James Partners (AJP) for its design, and HARMAN, AJP, and 3G Productions for its installation. "We did a very similar design to what was in the arena previously," reports Jack Covert, AJP's vice president of audio engineering. This allowed cost and structural work to be reduced by reusing rigging points and infrastructure originally installed for the VerTec system." The main system consists of 120 VTX A12 Dual 12" line array loudspeakers, powered by Crown I-Tech 4x3500HD four-channel amplifiers. VLF content is supplied by 36 VTX B28 arrayable dual-18" subwoofers driven by 18 Crown I-Tech 12000HD two-channel amplifiers. Speaker tuning and optimization are performed by DSP onboard the Crown amplifiers. "A big change was the upper balcony system that had not existed before," Covert reveals. "I went to an NBA game prior to designing the system and the place was jumping, but I went on the upper bowl and it was quiet up there. We put in a nice delay ring using JBL Precision Directivity boxes and it really made a big difference. We made sure the folks sitting in that area were getting their money's worth." Covert's design used 36 JBL PD6322/95-FRP Dual 12" three-way horn-loaded speakers powered by more I-Tech 4x3500HD amps. "One of the most interesting and significant aspects of the job was its constraints," muses Jerrod Cring, director of systems integration at 3G. "There was no scenario in which the arena could shut down for a month or even a week to facilitate a full-scale integration of the new sound system. So, everybody knew going into the project that working around the arena schedule was a prerequisite, and that we were all going to have to partner and collaborate to do it." Cring points out that, even with strong cooperation between all of the project's contractors, the time crunch heightened the impact of dependencies. "There was electrical work that had to be done, there was low voltage work that had to be done, there was structural work that had to be done to support amp racks in the catwalks," he lists off. And then there was the biggest hurdle of all: availability of the equipment. As the renovation got underway the audio industry was still in the throes of supply chain delays caused by COVID, but JBL was able to deliver. To thread this complicated needle, 3G drew on their production company roots and extensive experience working in the building on numerous concerts by touring music artists. Wiring harnesses and racks prepped at the company's Las Vegas headquarters were transported to its LA office so they could be quickly loaded onto a truck, taken to the venue, and installed on short notice. "Going in and hanging a PA in the round in a couple of days, I mean, that's not an event for us, that's just your typical Wednesday," chuckles Cring. The ramifications of Crypto.com Arena's packed schedule were further accommodated by one other difference between the VTX and VerTec systems. "From a maintenance perspective, if an amp went down in the old system, we had to lower the entire speaker cluster to access that one amp and fix it," Dembekjian relates. "But there are periods where we're going from event to event to event to event, and there's no time to bring that array down. We want to be 100% operational safe at all times, not 97 or 93 or 90%." The issue cropped up because the old system employed an onboard amplification option, but VTX speakers are purely externally powered. "So AJP's proposal changed the onboard amps being piggybacked on the speakers in the VerTec system to putting amps in racks on a catwalk. If an amp goes out, we can just go and troubleshoot or replace it without needing to wait for a day when the arena is dark to lower the cluster." The substantial extra weight of these racks necessitated the structural work to the catwalk mentioned by Cring. External powering also meant that, instead of running power and signal cables to the clusters it was now necessary to run loudspeaker cables. Again, the earlier install was able to be repurposed. "The challenge there was how to change to that heavier loudspeaker cable; there's a lot more copper involved, compared to just the power for the amplifiers going up and down," details Covert. "It turned out that the existing cable catch structure that the line arrays were suspended from was able to be reused. Not only did that work really well for the cable management, but it also brought some cost savings because it had been built right the first time." All hurdles overcome, the fully installed system successfully debuted at an NHL preseason game between the LA Kings and the Anaheim Ducks. "As big and important a venue as Crypto.com is, it was daunting when the project first landed on my desk," Covert admits. "But all of the people involved pulled together as a good, solid team. Armen was on top of everything; he was one of the nicest and most knowledgeable people I've ever worked with in an arena like this, and the guys at 3G showed their stuff and did a good job on the integration side. Once we dug in and started working on it, it really, really came together and was a smooth process." 
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