Presidential role for Contour XO in-ear headphones
- Details
Following an initial meeting in which Jerry Harvey travelled to Paris to meet Christian Heil, the two companies’ teams collaborated remotely to build Contour XO, which incorporates the massive L-Acoustics line array sound into JH Audio's multi-driver portable in-ear monitors (IEMs).
The design of Contour XO incorporates 10 drivers and covers the full frequency spectrum down to 10Hz. They also feature bass adjustment of up to 15 dB so you can control how much low end you need.
Contour XO was given a crucial role at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden and Vice President, Kamala Harris.
With over 30m people watching in the US alone on 20January 2021, Lady Gaga delivered a moving performance of the US National Anthem.
Chris Rabold, live engineer for Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, and Beyoncé, represented Gaga at the mixing console as she serenaded millions of viewers. While mixing and monitoring the broadcast feed, Chris Rabold relied upon Contour XO to deliver detailed, clear sound. Rabold comments, "I’m glad my Contour XO in-ear monitors came along for the momentous occasion and served as my mix reference."
The performers themselves sparkled in customized JH Audio IEMs. Lady Gaga wore an opulent gold set of JH Audio 16V2s, while Jennifer Lopez, performing excerpts of This Land is Your Land and America the Beautiful stunned the crowd in a silver set of JH Audio 13V2s.
Just days after the inauguration, Rabold moderated a panel discussion via Zoom for NAMM 2021. The discussion, titled Contour XO IEM Origins Story: Dr. Christian Heil & Jerry Harvey, allowed both pro audio innovators to reveal the details of how the collaboration unfolded. Rabold talked with Heil and Harvey about their shared passion for sound, their mutual respect for each other’s work, and their ultimate goals for the Contour XO.
Dr. Christian Heil described what pushed him and Jerry Harvey to create Contour XO. “When you are preparing to mix a live performance, you are often in transit, in an airport or hotel room. We wanted to make a tool to match the frequency response of an L-Acoustic PA so that the transition from setting up a mix to engineering a live show is seamless."
Regarding the tuning process and naming of Contour XO, Jerry Harvey explained, "I had to contour the low frequencies steeper to match the massive sub bass of an L-Acoustics line array. That's why we named it Contour XO: because I was trying to match the contour. I must have heard the word 'contour' a thousand times in a week!"
