Simon Fraser University (SFU), ranked one of the top universities in Canada, is recognized around the world for its excellence, innovation, and sustainability with campuses spanning three of British Columbia’s largest cities—Burnaby, Surrey and Vancouver. Last year, the university needed to replace a 10-year-old amplifier system to support a new learning environment for students.
For this installation, the learning experience of SFU’s students was the school's top priority. When some of the previous amplifiers powering classrooms began to fail, Adrian Bisek, AV system designer at SFU Surrey campus reached out to SC Media, LEA Professional's Canadian representative, to secure the right technology to support the university for the next decade. In his role, Bisek is responsible for the design and implementation of audiovisual systems for the school. His department supports all classroom learning, collaboration, interaction at distance, and communication to large audiences, as well as supporting university administrative and research objectives.
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After meeting with SC Media, SFU opted for a set of a dozen Connect Series 84D amplifiers from LEA Professional to provide the power ratings, frequency response, and connectivity options they needed at a price point that fit the university's budget. The amplifiers are currently being used to power the university's standard-sized classrooms.
Bisek did not hesitate in using the brand for the first time, mainly because he knew of LEA’s heritage and the world class engineers that are behind the product.
“After an introduction to LEA Professional, we were able to have our detailed questions answered about the products we were interested in,” commented Bisek. “We focused on the power capabilities, GUI interface, and networking security. Technical Support were very knowledgeable about how their devices worked and were able to get us all the information we required for our team. Afterward, we felt confident knowing how LEA Professional had come about, their products, and how they supported their customers.”
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The LEA Professional Dante Connect Series amplifiers are perfectly suited for small to medium-scale installations. This range of two, four, and eight-channel amplifiers feature direct HiZ (70V or 100V) or LoZ, selectable by channel. And with three ways to connect, system designers can engage the built-in Wi-Fi access point, connect to the venue’s Wi-Fi, or use the FAST Ethernet to connect to any local area network via Cat5 or Cat6 cable. The Dante Connect Series also features analog inputs and Dante inputs and external I/O control for remote on/off and fault monitoring.
“We haven’t implemented Dante on our campus network yet, however, as more AV devices are put on the network, we wanted to make sure that we have industry standard equipment with the latest technologies available,” said Bisek. “Dante helps simplify installations by configuring audio signal on the network, which may help us with future requirements for classroom overflow, or supporting student learning in a hybrid environment—we do what we can to install for today, and be prepared for tomorrow.”
Bisek, who did the installation himself with his team at the university, said the process went well. “The challenge is usually setting up the IP configuration on different private networks with most devices, but the LEA amps allow the setup to happen over Wi-Fi which makes it simple to configure with our phones.”
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“When we initially installed these devices, we contacted Technical Support with some configuration and PoE questions,” said Bisek. “LEA quickly resolved everything. We were able to easily setup the amps to have two or three channels in 8-ohm and the fourth channel in 70V high impedance. The straightforward browser-based GUI and network monitoring ability out of the box is a bonus. Overall, the communication and support with LEA Professional was top notch and we were very happy once everything was working perfectly.”
