Welcome to FlatPanel Audio!

Thanks for choosing FlatPanel and LEA - together one of the most simple professional audio + loudspeaker combinations in the industry.

If at any time you require assistance, feel free to reach out to your FlatPanel Channel Manager, or reach out to us directly:

For specific FlatPanel Loudspeaker settings and information

 support@flatpanelaudio.com / +1 (408)-516-0024, Option 2

For LEA Amplifier general information and DSP connectivity:

support@leaprofessional.com / +1 (574) 345-0474

FlatPanel Audio Best Practices w/3rd Party DSP

FlatPanel Audio combined with LEA Amplifiers delivers one of the simplest (and safest) professional audio product installations. We would like to call attention to just a few items of interest to insure the best results possible.

Keep loudspeaker tunings in the LEA Amplifier

We strongly recommend that you continue to use your 3rd party DSP solution for control and monitoring, but configure the loudspeaker processing (X-Over, EQ, limiting) within the LEA amplifier, and send signal out of your DSP flat. This provides several benefits:

  1. Guaranteed sonically consistent performance - utilizing LEA's high quality DSP. We have A/B'd with other DSP systems placing the loudspeaker processing in the 3rd party DSP vs. internal LEA DSP, and we find it's truly tough to beat the 96Khz processing in the LEA hardware.
  2. Provides maximum protection via properly set limiting (limiter settings don't often translate well between brands - and using the limiter settings included with our preconfigured Speaker Tuning Files for LEA eliminates the risk of incorrect configuration. 
  3. Processing is offloaded from your 3rd Party DSP, conserving precious DSP resources.
  4. It's Fast! Just load the files and go, with any wifi enabled device! Speaker Tuning Files are available from FlatPanel here or from LEA here

Use our FlatPanel / LEA Speaker Tunings files

Using the Speaker Tunings files (available here) guarantees the proper crossover points (critical on DML loudspeakers) as well as well established EQ that works well in most instances (DMLs don't suffer from much negative room interaction.) In addition, you insure that proper SmartBridge settings are in place for any of our subwoofer products. And finally, the FlatPanel Speaker Tuning Files contain the proper limiter settings. This is important for two reasons:

  1. Limiting by voltage can only be done in the device that can monitor the output voltage directly, which is the amplifier itself. 3rd Party DSP usually does not have that granular level of integration with the amplifier directly, and so the best the limiter settings can be is estimations using dB.
  2. Translating limiter settings from one brand to another can be challenging as each brand approaches limiting slightly differently.
  3. Full 6 year warranty on FlatPanel loudspeakers when driven with an LEA Amplifier using our Speaker Tuning Files which contain proper limiter settings.

Notes about current draw with LEA 1504/1504D amplifier?

You may have discovered that your LEA 1504/1504D amplifier comes with a 30 Amp Nema L6-30P plug. Unless you are running a night club at max effort, driving all subwoofers with the amplifier, you will not see 30 Amps. In that max effort configuration, you might see peaks at 22 amps. Used in a FlatPanel configuration driving a combination of DMLs and Subwoofers, in our experience, you will never even get close to drawing 20 amps - the 1.5kw/ch is there only for the transients, that are handled well by LEA's built-in capacitors, and as of this writing, we've not discovered a FlatPanel situation where 1504/1504Ds could not be used on a 20 amp Circuit with a NEA 5-20P plug. Please see this article for more information.

Control your LEA amplifier with LEA Cloud or your 3rd Party DSP

LEA Amplifiers are "Network Connected" amplifiers. If you are not using a 3rd party DSP solution, please connect your LEA amplifiers to the LEA Cloud (simple network cable to the house network) so that you can remotely access and maintain it, as well as share with us if you need remote assistance. Integrators can create a dedicated Cloud account per location, or a master cloud account for your organization (LEA Cloud allows for creation of sub "venues")

If you are using 3rd party DSP, check to see if your DSP solution has LEA drivers - many do, including QSys, Symetrix, Xiica, and others - allowing you some control and monitoring of your LEA amplifier from within your DSP solution.

 

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