Peavey’s Intelligent Audio Design Transforms Leeds United F.C.

Leeds United Football Club, home to one of the most dedicated fan bases in the UK, has teamed up with Peavey Commercial Audio to install a powerful and fully integrated audio system to meet the intense operational demands of Elland Road Stadium.

Elland Road’s legacy audio system had long served the club, but as operational demands grew, it began to show its age. The new system had to support everything from voice alarm and emergency paging to background music and broadcast feeds, ensuring performance, reliability, and safety in every corner of the 40,000-seat venue.

Working closely with the club, Peavey Commercial Audio engineered a comprehensive, networked audio infrastructure that combines distributed DSP processing, centralized monitoring, and full redundancy — setting a new benchmark for modern stadia sound systems.

Lee Freer, Applications Engineer at Peavey Commercial Audio, commented: “Stadia is one Pro AV sector where audio often takes priority over visual. For communication, safety and crowd engagement, it is important to get the audio aspect of a stadium spot on. Stadium’s can be very noisy places, so crisp, clear and wholly controllable audio, in any circumstance, is essential for safety and smooth operation.

Matchday operations demanded a solution that could unify multiple functions — from emergency paging and general announcements to concert quality matchday entertainment and broadcast feeds — within a single, cohesive infrastructure.

The club required complete visibility and control over every critical component in the system, including amplifiers, DSPs, and Fire mics, ensuring that any issue could be identified and addressed immediately. The new setup also needed to simplify day-to-day operation for staff in the Match Day Control Room.

With tens of thousands of fans in attendance and strict safety regulations to uphold, the system had to remain fully operational under any circumstance, even in the event of a network fault.

First Team Management

Peavey Commercial Audio designed and delivered a distributed MediaMatrix NION DSP and centralized control architecture, deployed across a redundant fibre-ring and 1Gb copper network. The design was engineered to deliver maximum reliability, operational flexibility, and future scalability.

At the heart of the installation are two Peavey nCIE Pilot processors. These units continuously monitor the status of every connected device providing instant alerts and system health reports. They also manage Voice Alarm Control Indication (VACIE) to external units, guaranteeing safety-critical functionality under all operating conditions.

Audio routing and matrixing are handled by dual NION DSP processors, each configured with identical I/O to accommodate all input sources — Emergency Paging, General Paging, BGM, and LUTV feeds. Audio is distributed via Dante networking to a suite of Powersoft amplifiers, which drive multiple interleaved loudspeaker zones across both the Main Bowl and Back-of-House areas.

Each DSP “Edge” system is designed for stand-alone operation. Should a network fault occur, local units continue functioning independently, ensuring that emergency “All Call” messages remain active across the stadium — a vital feature for large-venue safety compliance.

Two MediaMatrix NION n3 Dante DSPs now reside in the West Stand, with four installed in the East Stand. They are joined by one MediaMatrix nCIE Pilot monitoring servers. The LUTV production studio is also home to a MediaMatrix sDAB 16i networked audio bridge.

Peavey’s core voice-alarm and control products are fully EN54-16 certified, meeting the highest European standards for life-safety communication.

Goal Achieved

The completed system provides Leeds United with an effortless level of control. As an example, feeding in crowd noise to areas of the stadium is possible via roof placed microphones that can be turned on or off depending on if the rooms are occupied.

The installation delivers uncompromised reliability through distributed DSP architecture and redundant control, giving operators complete visibility and diagnostics across all components, while Dante-based routing ensures pristine sound distribution to every stadium zone.

Lee Freer, concluded: “We are proud of our achievements at Leeds United and have built a long-term relationship with the club, who now have a cutting-edge solution that will serve them for many, many years to come, with future-proof capability when needed.”