Category: LEA Professional

Hazelwood turned to LEA Professional for the audio technology that fits the unique set of needs of Barista Parlor. Since Hazelwood performs lots of custom work, he looked for a solution that was flexible and that he could adapt to his own specific needs. LEA Professional has an open API where he could develop equipment around its platform, allowing Hazelwood to build a system that perfectly fits his and Barista Parlor’s needs.

“I worked with the LEA team directly, and they were extremely accommodating in answering my questions about development,” said Hazelwood. “They were just really supportive throughout the process, and I found LEA’s products to be amazing and effortless to use but still flexible for my needs. The adaptability truly pushes the LEA amplifiers ahead. No matter how specific my needs are, I know they’ll live up to the task.”

Hazelwood specified the Network Connect Series 702 and worked with the LEA Cloud to deliver impeccable quality that can be controlled from near or far. The CS702 is a 2-channel amplifier with 700 watts per channel. As part of the Connect Series, the world’s first Internet of Things- (IoT) enabled professional-grade amplifiers, the CS702 features the flexibility and power needed for this installation.

“The LEA Cloud service is a huge benefit to me and Barista Parlor. The fact that I can log in from here in Nashville and troubleshoot issues or make adjustments for them if they need, it’s game-changing,” said Hazelwood. “There’s very little that we can’t access remotely, and it saves our customer money in the long run because we don’t have to dispatch the local technician, or we don’t have to drive up there.”

Hotel staff contracted Ron Lorman of Busy Puppy Productions, as an audio consultant, to design a robust audio distribution system for the hotel’s common areas and meeting rooms. Lorman specified LEA Professional amplifiers based on a recommendation from Doug Asher of Essential Communications. To minimize disruptions to guests and staff, the existing loudspeakers would remain in place for the foreseeable future.

“We discovered the existing loudspeakers were low impedance speakers; some were wired in series and other sets in series-parallel,” said Asher. “They were running at less than two ohms because they had so many eight ohms speakers on a line. That can tax normal amplifiers quite a bit, leading to burnout. Lorman re-designed the wiring schemes to achieve more balanced operational loads. We felt that the LEA amplifiers were the best solution because we knew they could handle a two-ohm load and operated at very reasonable temperatures. Add in all the other advanced features like the web interface, ease of setup, and control of the amplifiers, and it was a no-brainer.”

Asher’s team decided to use an LEA Connect Series 704D to power the loudspeakers in the   Ballroom. The 704 is a Dante-enabled 4-channel amplifier with 700 watts per channel, perfectly suited for small to medium-scale installations. The 704 supports high-Z (70V or 100V) and low-Z selectable by channel, giving the hotel excess capabilities for possible future expansion.

For the meeting rooms and remaining common areas and hallways, several LEA Connect Series 168D amplifiers were installed to run the remaining speaker lines. The larger ballroom is divisible, so care had to be taken to set the zones up properly, given the possible various room combinations. The 168D is a Dante-enabled 8-channel amplifier offering 160 watts per channel, which was an excellent fit for the common areas, hallways, and meeting rooms. Like the 704D, the 168D also supports high-Z (70V or 100V) and low-Z selectable by channel.

While all the loudspeaker processing happens in the LEA amplifiers via the built-in DSP, hotel staff wanted complete control of background audio throughout the building. Essential Communications deployed a Symetrix DSP in the rack room to control the system. Control pages were created in the Symetrix software that could be accessed via a web browser. Hotel management was provided with two iPads — one for the common areas and the other for the meeting rooms — that allow staff to manage all the zones, select the music, and control volume levels.

The venue management team’s broad vision for immersive exhibitions meant the new RXP AV system needed to be flexible enough to meet the most demanding, highest-quality audio needs for immersive musical and visual performances, plus more basic productions, including corporate events and DJ shows. “The multidimensional nature of the events held in the RXP venue meant we needed to recommend a system that we could scale and adapt as needed,” said Eugene Yeo, Owner of Acoustic & Lighting System. “We’ve had a lot of success with LEA products and felt they were a perfect fit for RXP because they could provide the power, performance, and reliability needed.”

Set in a former movie theater, RXP reimagines the legacy of the Rex cinema space by bringing in a new, cutting-edge digital art experience. As the first immersive venue in Malaysia, the venue team wanted to get the details right and spent over a year planning, working with the participating visual artists, and designing the spatial audio tracks. The immersive environment includes 18 projectors mapping visual elements on the walls and floor, while the spatial audio design required that the venue be fully modeled in 3D.

Eighteen compact two-way loudspeakers, backed by four subwoofers, are strategically located throughout the RXP to provide the spatial audio listening experience. To help meet the range of audio needs, Acoustic & Lighting chose a combination of two of LEA Professional’s Connect Series 1504D and five Connect Series 704D for the digital art experience. The 1504Ds power the subwoofers, while the 704Ds support the two-way loudspeakers. Both models include 96 kHz-capable Dante and AES67 connectivity options.

The REXKL team recognized the invaluable advantages of leveraging the LEA Cloud for this installation. Whether operating within the confines of REXKL or remotely from another continent, the ability to control the Connect Series amplifiers from a distance will significantly enhance the team’s efficiency. This not only minimizes the need for extensive travel but also results in substantial time and cost savings.

To set the ambiance for each zone, DIOSA needed amplifiers that would supply reliable and sustainable connections. The Pearl West Restaurant Group contacted manufacturer’s reps Geer Tech to provide an audio system compatible with its high-energy needs that would provide flexibility throughout the venue. After a tour of the Geer Tech Experience Center in Huntington Beach, Pearl West decided that LEA Professional’s technology would be an exemplary fit for DIOSA’s audio needs. After being connected with local integrator Gridworks, the final pieces were put into place for DIOSA’s grand opening. 

Account Manager at Geer Tech, Kenny Miller, was responsible for the installation. “The Pearl West Restaurant Group was looking for a system that would produce granularity and control,”  Miller explained. “LEA Professional’s technology was the ideal solution, as it had both remote controllability and the capacity to adjust different sound settings. Everything this project required was built into this one LEA Professional package.”

Gridworks deployed the LEA Connect Series 354 and the LEA Connect Series 704. The CS354 is a 4-channel amplifier with 350 watts per channel and powers the ceiling and exterior loudspeakers. The CS354 supports HiZ (70V or 100V) or LoZ selectable by channel, which was perfect for DIOSA since they wanted to use a mix of low-  and high-impedance loudspeakers.

The Pearl West Restaurant Group wanted the ability to monitor and control the restaurant’s amplifiers remotely, so the security and functionality of the remote connection were essential. SharkWare, LEA Professional’s advanced amplifier control software, was installed to facilitate remote connectivity  and onsite commissioning. SharkWare works to monitor the status of connected amplifiers and allows users to adjust several system settings from anywhere. In addition to SharkWare, DIOSA is also utilizing the magic of the LEA Cloud to control their amplifiers and solve connectivity issues.

When the AV Engineering team at the College of LSA realized that flexibility was key when deciding which route to go with their audio system they looked back to a familiar project where the University had used industry-leading, high-quality, cloud- and IoT-based pro-audio amplifiers from LEA Professional. After seeing the performance and dynamism of the amplifiers in the relatively new School of Kinesiology Building they knew LEA would be a good fit.

Jeremy Gerick and Christopher Elly, Senior AV Project Engineers on the project, installed 20 LEA Professional Dante Connect Series amplifiers for maximum coverage, a mixture of 354D, 704D, 84D, and 702D. Designing an audio system based on Dante-connected devices offers many benefits, including nearly limitless system flexibility and scalability, allowing a small AV team to operate as a much larger one, as well as the ability to decentralize system processing, set various zones and presets, and easily reconfigure the system as necessary.

“This project was quite expansive so we chose to install only Dante enabled components, including the Dante version of the Connect Series,” said Gerick. “This gave us the utmost flexibility, ensuring all elements of the system could ‘talk’ to each other, avoiding any connectivity issues.”

When it came to the installation of the amplifiers, the LEA Professional Web UI proved extremely useful to the team both as a time saver and a cost saver. The Web UI is LEA Professional’s browser-based interface which allows local monitoring of every amplifier connected to the network from any phone, tablet, or PC. In addition, it allows users to view the status of every channel on any given amp. This allowed Gerick to constantly monitor the system during install so if there was an issue it could be immediately flagged and dealt with.

With safety protocols being front of mind, the build-out of any large audio system at the university needs to incorporate a fire alarm cut-off system. This ensures that when the fire alarm is sounded, the amps power down so announcements can be heard. In this case, a fire inspector needed to evaluate that function on the amps before the rest of the system was installed. To do this the team utilized the Web UI, getting the amplifier toning and then connecting it to the relay control power supply to showcase the fire alarm cut-off capability. This function saved the fire inspector an additional trip to the university after the system was built and saved the team significant time during the installation process.

Outside of the Web UI, the amplifiers, which are used to drive the PA system, as well as the main speakers for lecture content etc., had many features that Gerick and team were very impressed with.

“The amps themselves have a good user interface, the ability to switch between 70 volt and LowZ is extremely valuable to us, as well as the ability to do impedance measurements on the speaker loads,” explained Gerick.