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What's the difference between analog vs. digital amplifier? (1 Viewer)

WaterEC

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My 7 year old Sony receiver is dying, I don't quite like it from the beginning and will never buy any Sony audio products any more. I'm looking into a new receiver with 7.1 capability and without HDMI (I never connect video through receiver). Panasonic XR55S came into mind with its digial amplifier technology. The description says:"With this sleek silver receiver Panasonic has coupled the benefits of digital technology with a high-quality amplifier. Digital amplifiers are much more efficient than traditional analog amplifiers, generating less heat and taking up less space while delivering an even larger amount of clean output power. Sound quality improves with the elimination of digital-to-analog conversion when connecting a digital source device (such as a DVD player) to an analog amplifier." I noticed that the size is significantly smaller and weight is significantly lighter than the so called traditional analog receiver, but I still don't understand the mechanism and physics of what's digital and what's analog. So if digial amplifier uses a digital chip to process the signal, what does analog amplifer use? Why digital amplifier generating less heat? Could someone explains this in plain English and plain physics? Thanks a lot
 

Jacob C

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sorry this wont answer your question but you will want HDMI to deliver audio to your reciever. HDMI 1.3 can pass data that spdif cannot.
 

JohnRice

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Maybe someone else can go into this with more detail, but I have always understood "digital" amplifiers to be essentially a refined version of "switching" amplifiers, where energy is used more efficiently, resulting in less heat and smaller housings. The bit about no digital to analog conversion sounds like total marketing crap to me. The audio MUST be made analog at some point before it goes to the speakers, so there has to be digital-analog conversion somewhere.

I would pay less attention to this marketing garbage. You'll likely end up with something that looks like a miracle on paper, but is junk.
 

FeisalK

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WaterEC

http://www.psaudio.com/articles/sdat.asp
this is a layman's explanation of class D (so-called digital) amplifiers. Note that D does not stand for digital but just happens to be the next letter after amplifier classes A, B and C.

Get the XR57 with HDMI, or XR700 with two HDMI inputs

JohnRice


Why? do speakers understand analog? what speakers are getting on the speaker cable is power. How much power, varying with time translates to the drivers moving in such a way to produce sound. Proper application of power produces pleasant sound i.e music, improper application produces noise. What determines how much power the speaker is fed when - is the amplifier.

In the TI PurePath (or Equibit) amplifiers a PCM signal is converted to the PWM that controls the power output of the amplifier (see SDAT article linked above).

Other class-D topologies derive the PWM from an analog signal (called analog controlled class-D) requiring a digital to analog conversion but the Equibit doesnt.

There's quite a lot of fans of te little Panasonic - so it may not be junk after all.
 

WaterEC

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Sure that Steinway & Sons looks elegant. I though they only make pianos. Googled it and found the price tag for the Model D system is 150,000, and fewer than 100 models will be manufactured. I don't think I will be one of the fewer than 100 owners. On the other hand, I can't say I like the appearance too much.

Thanks FeisalK for your explanations. I quickly read through those articles and now I have a better idea. I'm going to print them out for fine reading later.

I also found a good article on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_d_amplifier
But of course, this is after you pointed out it's called class d amplifier, and d not for digital. Before that I didn't even know what to search for when I wanted to look for more information.
 

FeisalK

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the nice thing is that the Lyngdorf is born out of the same technology thats in the Panasonic, which can be had for relative peanuts. check out JeremyErwin's link to the review of the original 1998 TacT Milennium that had the first Equibit (before TI bought Equibit) Of course the TacT/Lyngdorf are high-end compared to mass produced Pannys
 

WaterEC

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Yeap, I read that article too. While the Tact Milennium is "only" a fraction of the cost for the Lyngdorf, it still sells for $9800, way beyond my budget. I really like the article from your link to psaduio, it's indeed a good explanation for the layman, exactly what I need.

Anyway after I read your posts and all the above posts, I made up my mind and placed an order for the Panny XR55, the one without HDMI, I think I can live without HDMI for the next 10 years or so, before my next upgrade. Right now I'm still using DVD player instead of HD or Blu-ray, no plan in the near future to do this upgrade, not until the format war ends, price goes down, selections increases, etc.

I like Panasonic quite a lot. My parents and I have quite a few Panny products and they have been very liable over the years. My current home theater has a Panasonice PTAE900 projector, so this will be a perfect addition to it. I just bought a pair of Polk RM101 surrond speakers to expand from 5.1 to 7.1. Can't wait to hook up everything!
 

FeisalK

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congrats on your purchase!

I don't know nowadays about 10years - things move fast, and already the XR55 is considered obsolete (so is the XR57 with HDMI 1.1). perhaps you'll bypass all the HDMI stuff and go straight to all wireless
 

Bobpaul

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The Pannny 55 does great on my children's system with Polk 5.1 setup and biamped fronts, but nothing to brag about.

IMHO digital amps are very nice, they are very compact and give a decent sound, but when i want to enjoy uncompressed audio i still prefer my Sherbourn 5 channel monoblock and Adcom monoblocks with biwired front stage. My Paradigm Reference system shines when fed through 10AWG-silver-goldspades.
MPCM from my PS3 to Yamaha 2700 sounds fabulous on this RatShack SPL calibrated system.
 

LanceJ

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Well.......the only thing that HDMI can deliver audio-wise that regular digital inputs cannot is the multi-channel hi-res audio from dvd-audio, sacd and Blu-Ray & HD-DVD players. Dvd-audio and sacd are basically dead, and unfortunately the HD video formats aren't exactly flying off the shelves.

Regular ol' optical and coax can handle hi-res PCM stereo signals all the way up to the 192kHz/24bit format.
 

JeremyErwin

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Buy an amplifier with HDMI-Audio ant you won't have to worry about finding a hd-dvd or bluray player with analog outputs. The cheaper ones (HDA2, PS3) don't have them.
 

Iwittenb

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My 7 year old Sony receiver is dying, I don't quite like it from the beginning and will never buy any Sony audio products any more. I'm looking into a new receiver with 7.1 capability and without HDMI (I never connect video through receiver). Panasonic XR55S came into mind with its digial amplifier technology. The description says:"With this sleek silver receiver Panasonic has coupled the benefits of digital technology with a high-quality amplifier. Digital amplifiers are much more efficient than traditional analog amplifiers, generating less heat and taking up less space while delivering an even larger amount of clean output power. Sound quality improves with the elimination of digital-to-analog conversion when connecting a digital source device (such as a DVD player) to an analog amplifier." I noticed that the size is significantly smaller and weight is significantly lighter than the so called traditional analog receiver, but I still don't understand the mechanism and physics of what's digital and what's analog. So if digial amplifier uses a digital chip to process the signal, what does analog amplifer use? Why digital amplifier generating less heat? Could someone explains this in plain English and plain physics? Thanks a lot
Here (https://www.dosupply.com/tech/2017/05/21/what-is-the-difference-between-analog-and-digital/) is a discussion of the difference between analog and digital signals. It should help you understand the difference and why the analog amp gets hotter.
 

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