The national charitable organization ISSO (International Swaminarayan Satsang Organization) established a newly built Community Center in Auckland, New Zealand. The organization built the facility to accommodate its rapidly growing numbers. Additionally, it provides vital resources to the ISSO group. This allows them to cater to the needs of the local community through health and wellness classes, music productions, weddings, large events and seminars. Local integrator, Audio Connect, utilized LEA Professional amplifiers as part of the audio equipment solutions for ISSO.
Formation of the Installation Team
Audio Connect, an Auckland-based business, specializes in the hire, sales and installation of professional sound systems, lighting, staging, and DJ equipment. For this new project, Raj Morar, manager at Audio Connect, worked with local distributor Jansen to source the solutions. Jansen representatives recommended the LEA Professional Connect Series amplifiers to address the challenges of the installation.
Meeting the Challenges
For Morar, a project like this was initially straightforward. However, like similar projects during COVID-19, time was of the essence. “Being able to access the amplifiers and address all six zones from our phones via Wi-Fi, made the whole process a lot easier and quicker, ensuring we met our deadlines,” comments Morar.
The LEA Professional Web UI allows users to get a clear status check and monitor the performance of every channel and every amplifier on the network. Additionally, the platform gives users the capacity to view and adjust channel settings. These include input settings, signal generator, crossover, equalizer, limiter and load monitoring.
Features of the LEA Professional Amplifiers
The two-story center by ISSO uses five LEA Professional amplifiers in total. These comprise a Connect Series 168D, three Connect 354, and one Connect 704 — all configured to drive a mix of 150 in-ceiling and surface-mount Martin audio speakers. As the installation continued during the lockdown, the team used the LEA Professional Cloud platform to program the system off site. Thus, when they finally returned in person, they weren’t under the same time pressure.
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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. Additionally, the team can access and control individual amplifiers or entire amp systems securely, from anywhere without requiring a VPN into a Local Area Network.
Ensuring Longevity
Another challenge of this project was ensuring the future-ready state of the venue. The organization adds that the center will be used later on to accommodate up to four to five different events at once. Thus, it needed the ability to matrix everything for any possible scenario.
“Giving the user the flexibility to be able to do whatever they wanted to do with the system was challenging,” says Morar. “We needed to ensure it would accommodate all their future needs and give them the channel configuration for any scenario. For this, the LEA technology, including the Smart Power Bridge, was fantastic, very friendly and easy to use.”
To remedy the channel loss found in traditional bridging, LEA Professional developed a proprietary Smart Power Bridge technology. This technology creates a better way to bridge channels without sacrificing channel count. First, the amplifier uses the voltage headroom available from the 70V/100V direct capability. It also automatically adjusts the current capabilities of that channel. Next, it applies it in a controlled manner to the low Z mode. As a result, it effectively doubles the power of any amplifier channel of the installer’s choice.
Overall Results
While this was Audio Connect’s first experience with LEA Professional at ISSO, it won’t been its last. The team now specifies LEA Professional amplifiers on all future projects.
“The connectivity and flexibility of the LEA amplifiers allowed us to make this all work,” remarks Morar. He adds that the company is now the preferred amplifier manufacturer. “And as soon as we turned on the system and heard the sound quality, we and our customers were all blown away. We now routinely use LEA amplifiers on all our installs.”
Click on “View Slideshow” on the upper-right corner to view the LEA Professional technology installation at ISSO.
