Maybe I am just easily amused, but I keep being surprised with what manufactures are able to do with seemingly mundane pieces of technology. Take the audio amplifier for example - you would think the natural evolution for it would simply be to provider louder sound, right? The other pieces in the equipment chain are really where you typically see the technological advances, things like better preamps and analog to digital converters being added to the console, or in new and unique speaker designs. However often times one the most overlooked pieces of good audio quality is the amplifier.
One of the latest products in the amplifier world that recently caught my eye was the D80 from d&b audiotechnik. It is a four-channel amplifier that fits nicely into a 2U rack space. It was officially rolled out in January of this year and while it is packed full of features the big selling point d&b audiotechnik feels is that it incorporates the new Open Control Architecture (OCA). This communication protocol was developed by the OCA Alliance which is made up of companies like Yamaha, Bosch, and d&b audiotechnik. The idea is to create a way for equipment to communicate over ethernet using a common language. Up to this point, the d&b primarily used CAN-Bus, while other manufacturers had their own protocols.
As technology progresses the amount of information being transmitted back to remote monitoring stations was increasing and the bandwidth limitations of protocols like CAN-Bus, while reliable, were bogging down making real-time changes ineffective. Through the OCA setup, a user can remotely adjust the amplifier's EQ in a live setting across all channels more efficiently.
The OCA integration is only one factor in what makes the D80 a stand out to me. The TFT touch screen and rotary encoder on the front panel add the the sleek design and ease of use. They even put the screen on a slight angle to aid in viewing when the amp is racked below eye level.
The DSP is packed with presets for all current d&b loudspeakers (as would be expected.) It has two 16-band equalizers providing parametric, notch filtering, shelving, or asymmetric configurations. Each of the four outputs can also be assigned it's own delay settings up to 10 seconds. There is also a built in Pink noise and Sine Wave generator for testing and dialing in your system.
The LoadMatch system built into the D80 is probably what excited me the most (besides the fact it can produce 4 x 4000 watts at 4 ohms.) The LoadMatch feature allows for electrical compensation of the speaker cable. This aids in producing a more accurate reproduction of the audio signal on long cable runs. The D80 also has a Power Factor Correction power supply that helps regulate the incoming voltage.
Overall d&b has packed quite a bit of power into a 42lbs unit. While I didn't have a physical unit to demo, I do know d&b's reputation and believe anyone looking to replace their current system or upgrade it, should give the D80 a close look. Remember it's a four-channel amplifier so right there you're already winning over traditional two channel models. Who doesn't like to win?
