A small, rural Christian congregation in a community where faith and tradition maintain deep significance, Greensburg, Kentucky, is home to the Bethlehem Baptist Church, where the installation of LEA Professional amplifiers has solved longstanding intelligibility problems.
A modest, brick building with a steeple, the church interior is follows a traditional Baptist style, with pews in rows facing the pulpit. Although open and airy, parishioners struggled to hear and understand the sermon at times. In response, church staff recently contacted Alex Peake, a project manager at JCA Media, to design a new audio system for the sanctuary. Peake recommended LEA’s Connect Series amplifiers.
‘Most amplifiers are being commoditised and sold at almost the same price,’ he says. ‘But then, LEA adds in DSP capabilities, a control system [WebUI], and remote connectivity [LEA Cloud], essentially all for free. Those are huge benefits and a lot of the reason LEA is the primary amplifier I’m installing these days.’
Peake installed Connect Series 354 amplifiers to drive new monitors as well as existing mains. The IoT-enabled 4-channel 354 provides 350W/channel into 2Ω, 4Ω and 8Ω, and 70Vrms and 100Vrms. It supports Hi-Z (70V or 100V) and Lo-Z selectable by channel, and features Smart Power Bridge technology. The integrated 96kHz DSP effectively eliminated the need for unnecessary equipment in the rack, ensuring the overall job cost was kept to a minimum.
With LEA Cloud, A/V companies like JCA Media can remotely control and monitor amplifiers from anywhere, at any time, and with no subscription model or hidden costs. WebUI functions as a simple on-site control interface, offering integrators and end users a platform to view and adjust channel settings, ranging from load monitoring to EQ adjustments, through any standard web browser.
The difference between the old and new audio systems at the church was readily apparent, as parishioners no longer struggled to understand the sermon, and musical worship reproduction was crisp and clean.
‘Being able to mix and match 4Ω, 8Ω, 70V and 100V on the same amplifier is great,’ Peake says. ‘And my favourite fact is that you don’t lose channels when you want to do that. Top it off with cloud connectivity for remote support, and that’s why I use LEA amplifiers every chance I get.’