Stanford, Kentucky, is a small yet charming city in the southernmost part of the Bluegrass region. Founded in 1775, Stanford is one of the oldest settlements in the state and boasts a rich history with landmarks like the William Whitley House, the first brick house west of the Allegheny Mountains, and a key site in the early days of horse racing in Kentucky. Just off Main Street lies Stanford Baptist, a quiet and unassuming church with seating for more than 300 people. Although open and airy, the vaulted ceilings in the sanctuary compromised the speech intelligibility of liturgical services. Amplifiers from LEA Professional were the perfect solution to help solve the church’s audio challenges.
Church staff contacted Alex Peake, an integration specialist at JCA Media, to design a new audio system for the sanctuary. Peake recommended LEA’s Connect Series amplifiers to meet the church’s goal of high intelligibility. The Connect Series of two-, four-, and eight-channel amplifiers are the most full-featured in the industry, and their Smart Power Bridge technology made them the best choice for a venue like Stanford Baptist.
“The biggest thing that excited us about LEA amplifiers was the Smart Power Bridge function,” said Peake. “I can’t count how many times we’ve been able to save an amp channel or not have to install another amplifier because we could use Smart Power Bridge and feed a small sub rather than taking up two channels. That has been a big financial saver in projects, not having to install another amplifier but still having enough power for everything.”
The main loudspeakers are a flown left-right configuration with a Martin SXCF118 cardioid subwoofer. A unique feature of the subwoofer is that it features a forward-facing driver and a rear-facing driver and requires two amplifier channels, which is where LEA’s Smart Power Bridge comes into play. Smart Power Bridge allows an integrator to double the power on a single channel without sacrificing other amp channels.
JCA Media used the LEA Connect Series 1504 to power the main loudspeakers in the sanctuary. The IoT-enabled 4-channel 1504 provides 1500 watts per channel into 2, 4, and 8 ohms, and 70Vrms and 100Vrms. It also supports Hi-Z (70V or 100V) and Lo-Z selectable by channel and features Smart Power Bridge technology. JCA’s team doubled the output on one amplifier channel to power the front-facing subwoofer driver while another channel powered the rear-facing driver. The remaining two channels fed the left and right loudspeakers.
Two balcony delays and six wedge loudspeakers were used for the musical worship service, so JCA deployed the LEA Connect Series 168 to power them. The 168 is a 1U, 8-channel amplifier offering 160 watts per channel, which was an excellent fit for the wedges, as well as two delay speakers mounted midway along the sides of the sanctuary.
JCA utilized LEA’s free SharkWare software to fine-tune the system while walking around the sanctuary. SharkWare includes amplifier grouping, offline design, granular user access control levels, locked speaker tunings, and a graphical EQ. SharkWare also allows users to monitor the status of every amplifier connected to the network and the status and performance of individual channels. In addition, the software gives users the ability to view and adjust channel settings such as input settings, signal generator, crossover, equalizer, limiter, and load monitoring for all LEA Professional Connect Series amplifiers.
The Connect Series delivers an industry-first professional amplifier family to feature cloud connectivity, so for long-term remote monitoring, JCA utilized LEA Cloud. With LEA Cloud, AV teams like JCA can remotely control and monitor the amplifiers regardless of the location or time of day, helping teams work more efficiently, reducing travel, and saving time and money.
“We’ve found that a lot of other manufacturer’s amplifiers are not the easiest to connect to,” said Peake. “I know that sounds like a small thing, but LEA proves it doesn’t have to be hard. Just pop out the access point, connect to it, and roll on. It’s so easy to get connected to their amps. Between that, the Smart Power Bridge technology, SharkWare, and LEA Cloud, they fit the bill perfectly for a lot of our installations.”
