LEA Professional’s Connect Series amplifiers, alongside loudspeakers from Fohhn, are supporting Ghanaian-born British artist John Akomfrah’s large exhibition Listening All Night To The Rain at the 61st International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, which runs until November 22.
The LEA models are used as part of a technical setup standardised on by integrator ArtAV, which specialises in audio for galleries and museums. The set-up includes 104 audio channels distributed across a basement gallery, flanking side rooms and a main hall, all required to play in precise sync.
Each space carries a distinct soundscape: 18 loudspeakers set a foreboding tone in the basement, voices thread through a suspended sculptural cloud of tape players and vinyl records, and 20 loudspeakers shape a sphere of sound in the main gallery’s immersive eight-projection wrap-around installation. ArtAV’s team installed several Connect Series 168 amplifiers to power the exhibit, an 8-channel amplifier providing 160 watts per channel. All amplifiers in the Connect Series support both Hi-Z (70V or 100V) and Lo-Z outputs, selectable by channel, and include 96kHz DSP as standard.
Simon Weightman, project manager at ArtAV, said: “Usability can be every bit as important as amplification power and sonic performance. In addition to the built-in DSP capabilities and speaker tunings, LEA amplifiers offer an absolutely fantastic web GUI that simplifies day-to-day operations for front-of-house staff. That is a huge benefit and a significant part of the reason we standardized on LEA for amplification.”
Weightman added: “With over 100 channels of audio in the installation, LEA’s metering and control enabled fast fault-finding and responsive level tweaks during the exhibition, but it wasn’t just a case of ‘set and forget’. We could monitor and manage the system remotely from the UK during operation, as well as during the installation.”
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