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HARMAN’s JBL Professional Intros Control HST Wide-Coverage Indoor/Outdoor Speaker

Harman-control-hst-0215Marking the introduction of an new loudspeaker design, HARMAN’s JBL Professional today announced the debut of its Control HST wide-coverage loudspeaker featuring patent-pending HST Hemispherical Soundfield Technology. The indoor/outdoor Control HST claims extremely wide horizontal coverage approaching 180° and uses the wall it’s mounted on to its advantage.

The JBL Control HST is designed for a wide variety of applications including retail stores, restaurants, educational facilities, leisure venues, hotels and other music and music/paging uses. The Control HST is IP34 water-resistant rated, enabling its use as an outdoor loudspeaker.

The Control HST uses something JBL is calling HST Hemispherical Soundfield Technology to achieve its extremely wide coverage of nearly 180 degrees and eliminate the primary wall reflection that tends to cause inconsistent sound when loudspeakers are mounted to a wall. With most on-wall loudspeakers, the baffle of the loudspeaker is some distance from the wall. It is the nature of low- and low-mid-frequency sound waves to wrap around the loudspeaker, where they reflect back out from the wall and recombine with the original sound. Some of these are in phase with the output from the drivers and some are out of phase, causing reinforcement and cancellation and peaks and dips in the loudspeaker’s frequency response.

By employing a wall-facing woofer, two horizontally splayed tweeters, a bracket that spaces the loudspeaker at the required distance from the wall and a tapered cabinet that provides proper loading and dispersion of the sound, the JBL claims the Control HST substantially reduces these inconsistencies to deliver a flatter frequency response and a more even sonic character throughout the room.

The 5 1/4” woofer is constructed from CMMD Ceramic Metal Matrix Diaphragm material, which bonds a ceramic material outer surface to an aluminum core for a lightweight yet rigid and durable cone that delivers exceptional clarity and detail. In addition, the CMMD material provides moisture resistance. The loudspeaker’s dual 1” CMMD tweeters feature a neodymium magnet, a polyurethane surround and ferrofluid cooling for high output with low distortion. The Control HST is capable of handling up to 100 watts and is equipped with a 4-pin phoenix-type removable locking connector that includes loop-through terminals for parallel connection to another loudspeaker. In addition, the Control HST provides a 60 Watt 70V/100V multi-tap transformer for use in distributed audio applications.

Measuring approximately 14” wide by 10” tall and just 7¼” deep, the JBL Control HST comes with a weather-resistant powder-coated U-bracket with four M6 mounting points. The loudspeaker must be installed using the bracket to ensure correct spacing from the wall and proper acoustic performance. The loudspeaker should not be mounted in a corner or on a pole. The Control HST’s durable sealed, fiberglass-reinforced ABS enclosure, painted aluminum grille and weather-resistant drivers ensure reliable operation even under harsh environmental conditions. The Control HST is available in black or white finish and can be painted.

Here are all the specs.

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