Category: LEA Professional

At the time when these new projects were getting underway, Platinum AVL was still sourcing another amplifier manufacturer but was on the lookout for a lighter, more compact amp with DSP. Paul Mar, system designer and engineer at Platinum AVL, explained that the team was nervous at first about trying a new brand when they began their search for fresh options. But their concerns quickly vanished as soon as they learned about LEA Professional’s team of industry veterans and their 200 years of combined experience. 

“I had heard a lot about LEA Professional, having seen them at Infocomm. Once I understood the brain trust that exists within the company, it gave me a huge amount of confidence in the product and, as a result, the project,” said Mar. “With multiple systems we install around the country, LEA amplifiers are perfect to meet that need with their reliability, feature set, technology, size, and weight.

The Grandscape location, the larger of the two, is split over two stories, with a bar and rooftop patio, plus 6,500 square feet of outdoor seating. The audio system provides a lighter background music mix at a lower volume level during the day, while building in the ability to crank things up during higher-capacity happy hours and livelier special events. Since the amps in Thirsty Lion are on 24/7, Platinum AVL and the team at the Thirsty Lion both agreed that a reliable amp with remote monitoring via the Cloud was a huge priority for them. With Texas being infamous for power outages, the team didn’t need to take any unnecessary risks, which made the LEA Professional Cloud Platform the most practical choice. 

“The Cloud has come to be crucial for us,” said Mar. There have already been instances where a power cut occurred that I wasn’t aware of and the Cloud allowed us to see the issue and resolve it. Without this, we would have had to contact a local technician at an extra cost to try to get someone down there before opening time.” 

Not only did the Cloud provide critical support, Platinum AVL also spoke highly of the customer support LEA Professional offered them. “When I need tech support, I have no problem feeling confident that I will get my answer right away or within a quick amount of time,” said Mar.  

For Mar and Platinum AVL, a Crestron integrator, the ability to integrate the Connect Series amplifiers into the AV system with the Crestron LEA Plugin was a major benefit. The Connect Series Crestron Control Module allows integrators to utilize the Crestron software platform to control and monitor essential functions and features within the Connect Series amplifier family.

Understanding that the restaurant was looking to achieve good quality sound distribution within a flexible system, Assafiri and his team chose four LEA Professional 704 Network Connect Series amplifiers to cover the entire space. The restaurant encompasses three audio zones, two indoor and one outdoor —which presented some acoustical challenges for the team.

“The venue has high ceilings and reflective materials so we needed to be very considerate when it came to loudspeaker placement,” explained Assafiri.

One of the restaurant’s requests was to have a flexible system that, if needed, would allow them to eventually transition the space into a nightclub. Considering this, Venuetech’s team confirmed it was confident that the amps from LEA would be flexible enough and have enough headroom to accommodate the future expansion without needing to add more amps.

“The Connect Series amplifiers provide us with everything we need, from the intuitive user interface, the SPL headroom, to the ability to integrate with an endless list of loudspeaker manufacturers,” said Assafiri. 

The team chose two Connect Series 354, one Connect Series 702 and one Connect Series 164 to power the studio. Studio Manager Jeremy Williams said that for him, sound clarity is the reason why LEA Professional amplifiers pair so well with the Dolby Atmos system. 

“What you need to have with Atmos is pinpoint precision,” explained Williams. “In a studio of our size we are dealing with potential phase issues and frequencies bouncing a lot and so between the Lipinski speakers and LEA amps we barely touched our EQ. These are some of the clearest sounding amps on the market.” 

As an experienced sound engineer, Williams explained that one of his biggest worries with amps is having a passerby make unwanted adjustments. So, in a busy studio, frequented by different parties every week, this was not something he wanted to face. With LEA Professional’s clean external interface and lack of visible power button there is no chance of this happening. Not only this, Williams also has full control over amp settings via the LEA Cloud platform.  

All LEA Professional amplifiers leverage the built-in Amazon Web Services (AWS) IoT Core. This cloud platform allows integrators to control and monitor critical operational data points for maintaining system health securely and remotely. Users simply create a cloud account at www.lea professional.cloud, then individual amplifiers or entire amp systems can be accessed and controlled securely, from anywhere in the world, without the need to VPN into a Local Area Network.

“The network interface is beyond anything I have seen, and the fact that I can see all four amps on a single page is a massive time saver,” said Williams