I was using 3 Panasonic SA-XR7-'s in a tri amplified 3-way system.
My crossover was purely digital. So the sound was digital from source PC all the way to the Panasonic's.
I was also using only digital toslink inputs.
The headphone amp on them is quite good considering the cost.
I've also used the same amp in a Home Theater system with NHT ST4 speakers.
I admit to being a person who was hyping the sound of these amps along with the crowd on htguide.
They seem to do well on simple lower order crossover 2-ways.
And they don't drive larger speakers and subwoofers with much authority.
UCD amps on the other hand sound as good as good Class A/B with small size and high power.
In order I prefer from higher preference to lower I prefer...
Threshold T-200 Class A
UCD 180
Aleph30
Rotel multichannel
Tripath (would be higher but I was using 15-watt variety)
Panasonic
The Panasonic does have small size, almost zero DC offset, no turn on or turn off thumps going for it.
DA conversion has to happen somewhere. That the Panasonic does it in the amplifier section doesn't give it any advantage over other quality amplifiers. I used to think that it would magically have better sound because of this.
My crossover was purely digital. So the sound was digital from source PC all the way to the Panasonic's.
I was also using only digital toslink inputs.
The headphone amp on them is quite good considering the cost.
I've also used the same amp in a Home Theater system with NHT ST4 speakers.
I admit to being a person who was hyping the sound of these amps along with the crowd on htguide.
They seem to do well on simple lower order crossover 2-ways.
And they don't drive larger speakers and subwoofers with much authority.
UCD amps on the other hand sound as good as good Class A/B with small size and high power.
In order I prefer from higher preference to lower I prefer...
Threshold T-200 Class A
UCD 180
Aleph30
Rotel multichannel
Tripath (would be higher but I was using 15-watt variety)
Panasonic
The Panasonic does have small size, almost zero DC offset, no turn on or turn off thumps going for it.
DA conversion has to happen somewhere. That the Panasonic does it in the amplifier section doesn't give it any advantage over other quality amplifiers. I used to think that it would magically have better sound because of this.
Thanks Daveis for your analysis,
My speakers will be crossover free full range Jordan JX92S, the same as t-head, so when you say they "do well on simple lower order crossover 2-ways" would this mean they are even better on above speakers?
Would this fact change your preference order? Is this order based on speakers with higher order crossovers?
What speakers & DAC are you using with your preferred stereo system?
My speakers will be crossover free full range Jordan JX92S, the same as t-head, so when you say they "do well on simple lower order crossover 2-ways" would this mean they are even better on above speakers?
Would this fact change your preference order? Is this order based on speakers with higher order crossovers?
What speakers & DAC are you using with your preferred stereo system?
Nope - I never even tried the analog in on any of the XR's - always used Digital inputs - and never tried the XR45 "Party" mode for biamping the maggies
I am currently building a Krell KSA-50 Clone, and an Aleph 60 and expect either one of these to best my current "reference fav - UCD
My preference -
UCD400AD - ESP P-101 (biased into Class A) very close tie
P to P Gainclone (but not on maggies)
Homebuilt 6L6/6SL7 Tubeamp
Tripath TA3020
XR45
XR50
Hi.
@ DAVEIS: AFAIK the Panas are full digital PCM2PWM converters.
There is no DA conversion in the chain before the signal hits the output filter.
The Panas are using the same chips as they are used in TACT
and Lyngdorf amps. Though AFAIK TACT is getting selected quality chips.
The key is to drive them digital on the input and bridged on the ouput. As far as I read they need the PS to be tweaked.
As we all know - the key for a digital amp to deliver best performance is the power supply, which can't be high quality
at the price the Panas sell.
Of course you'd better make sure that you got low jitter digtial source.
I believe full digital amps are the (near) future. I don't think that
many of the players in the industry will be happy about it.
Think about it - All the traditional DACs and Amps would be obsolete!
For the time being my choice of amps are battery-powered Triptah 2020modules on a 100db SP speaker and ICE-Power for the subs.
Cheers
@ DAVEIS: AFAIK the Panas are full digital PCM2PWM converters.
There is no DA conversion in the chain before the signal hits the output filter.
The Panas are using the same chips as they are used in TACT
and Lyngdorf amps. Though AFAIK TACT is getting selected quality chips.
The key is to drive them digital on the input and bridged on the ouput. As far as I read they need the PS to be tweaked.
As we all know - the key for a digital amp to deliver best performance is the power supply, which can't be high quality
at the price the Panas sell.
Of course you'd better make sure that you got low jitter digtial source.
I believe full digital amps are the (near) future. I don't think that
many of the players in the industry will be happy about it.
Think about it - All the traditional DACs and Amps would be obsolete!
For the time being my choice of amps are battery-powered Triptah 2020modules on a 100db SP speaker and ICE-Power for the subs.
Cheers
I've been looking at this one as well, but for my purposes the price alone is a clincher. I'm building a second HT room in my house and wanted it to be low budget. Combine the price with a decent sound, if not universally praised, it has to be a winner. It would be driving my old Spica TC-50s, very inefficient IIRC.
I was at J&R just yesterday looking at it. The thing that struck me the most was the weight, or lack of weight. I guess without the need for huge heat sinks and transformers the thing doesn't weigh all that much. It also didn't have pre-amp outs, which means it can't be used with a separate power amp. This would be a problem for me in my main HT setup as I have a tube amp connected to my main speakers. My original HT receiver has lost 2 amp channels so I thought of replacing that as well, but the 57 doesn't have the flexibility I want. For $80 plus shipping I can get my Outlaw fixed, but that thing weighs a ton and costs $$$ to ship.
I was at J&R just yesterday looking at it. The thing that struck me the most was the weight, or lack of weight. I guess without the need for huge heat sinks and transformers the thing doesn't weigh all that much. It also didn't have pre-amp outs, which means it can't be used with a separate power amp. This would be a problem for me in my main HT setup as I have a tube amp connected to my main speakers. My original HT receiver has lost 2 amp channels so I thought of replacing that as well, but the 57 doesn't have the flexibility I want. For $80 plus shipping I can get my Outlaw fixed, but that thing weighs a ton and costs $$$ to ship.
jkeny said:
I've choosen a 12 V SLA (Northstar NSB90) - it works great with the Tripath. My Icepowers do sound much worse even though I tweaked the whole mains path heavily.
Most of the normal Class-D amps run with powerrails starting at
+/-36V to +/-60V. I wouldn't recommend to set this up with batteries. That's gonna be quite some effort if you want to cover this with high quality batteries. There are quite some thready around here on great SMPS supplies for these kind of amps.
I am not sure though if a good DC/DC converter would do the job. I'd happy to try e.g. a UCD180 over a DC/DC converter.
Perhaps something like that could even work for the Panas.
I am wondering what kind of DC/DC transformer the guys in the car-audio arena are using.
Cheers
I picked up the service manual & schematics for SA-XR55 & SA-XR57 today. From a quick glance it looks like the PS board is delivering +/- 15V DC. Could this be so - 7*100W amp from 30V rails?
If so 2-3 * 12V SLA batteries would probably do but I need to study how PS vol control is implemented!
If so 2-3 * 12V SLA batteries would probably do but I need to study how PS vol control is implemented!
Hi jkeny,
I plan to get a XR-55 too but having the same problem as u and not sure how to import from US. The Panny AV amps are not sold here in HK.
I think I'll ask one of my friend to bring it to me from Canada when they come to HK.
But I am really interested in the XR55 service manual. Is there anyway u can take some digital image of the schematics and email to me.
I am using same but older version of the digital chip inside XR55 (Ti eval board), I found the sound to be pretty good but I don't think it is enough (without biamp) to drive my 4 ohm speaker.
BTW, I had the Jordan JX92s in a tall cab, I couldn't get it to sound good, it is a very difficult speaker to drive. I sold it in the end. The Visation B200 is a much much better fullrange IMO. Even my FE103 sound better than the JX92s.
I plan to get a XR-55 too but having the same problem as u and not sure how to import from US. The Panny AV amps are not sold here in HK.
I think I'll ask one of my friend to bring it to me from Canada when they come to HK.
But I am really interested in the XR55 service manual. Is there anyway u can take some digital image of the schematics and email to me.
I am using same but older version of the digital chip inside XR55 (Ti eval board), I found the sound to be pretty good but I don't think it is enough (without biamp) to drive my 4 ohm speaker.
BTW, I had the Jordan JX92s in a tall cab, I couldn't get it to sound good, it is a very difficult speaker to drive. I sold it in the end. The Visation B200 is a much much better fullrange IMO. Even my FE103 sound better than the JX92s.
What no SA-XR's in HK! Yea, Panasonic must have a weird global marketing plan.
I just dropped into a Panasonic retailer looking for the SA-XR55 & it's no longer sold - the 57 he could specially order in for €529 ($786), no home trial given or possibility of auditioning! This was not a massive retailer mark-up price it was the RRP from the panasonic e-biz web-site. When I told him the same model was <$300 in US he said it was all due to cost of European electrical CE approval, some story eh!
This is why he doesn't stock the receivers - they're not competitive at that price!
Hi ChuckT, if you PM me your email I will send on the full service manual.
I got it from Sharefx.com - great site for uploading & downloading service manuals for all electricl gear, amps, Satellite receivers & car service manuals! See my post here: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1400966#post1400966
What amp(s) did you try to drive the Jordan's with? t-head seems to like his with the panny amp!
I just dropped into a Panasonic retailer looking for the SA-XR55 & it's no longer sold - the 57 he could specially order in for €529 ($786), no home trial given or possibility of auditioning! This was not a massive retailer mark-up price it was the RRP from the panasonic e-biz web-site. When I told him the same model was <$300 in US he said it was all due to cost of European electrical CE approval, some story eh!
This is why he doesn't stock the receivers - they're not competitive at that price!
Hi ChuckT, if you PM me your email I will send on the full service manual.
I got it from Sharefx.com - great site for uploading & downloading service manuals for all electricl gear, amps, Satellite receivers & car service manuals! See my post here: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1400966#post1400966
What amp(s) did you try to drive the Jordan's with? t-head seems to like his with the panny amp!
jkeny,
The panny works with the Jordans. There is no question that there may be better choices if you have more to invest. I first heard the Jordans in a similar enclosure to mine using mono-blocked Altec PA amps rated at 160w, one to each driver. They sounded incredible. The Jordans work best with high powered, current-source amps. They are not flea-power SET friendly. They have a 5ohm dip in the LF. Despite this, dual-amped into 2 channel, the SA XR55 can drive them to acceptable SPL. If you need to deafen people, or fill a large room, you may need more current. The Jordans are 'hungry' drivers. Can you e-mail me the manual/schematic?
t
The panny works with the Jordans. There is no question that there may be better choices if you have more to invest. I first heard the Jordans in a similar enclosure to mine using mono-blocked Altec PA amps rated at 160w, one to each driver. They sounded incredible. The Jordans work best with high powered, current-source amps. They are not flea-power SET friendly. They have a 5ohm dip in the LF. Despite this, dual-amped into 2 channel, the SA XR55 can drive them to acceptable SPL. If you need to deafen people, or fill a large room, you may need more current. The Jordans are 'hungry' drivers. Can you e-mail me the manual/schematic?
t
Sure t-head, SA-XR55 manual is about 9Mb zipped so I may have to wait until tonight to send it in 2MB chunks!
Take your point about the Jordan's being hungry but I'm not looking for party speakers, I want accurate immersive sound that takes me to the venue on well recorded material. In other words I would like to forget about the speakers & the amp being there - I know this is probably the holy grail for most of the inmates here!
I'll confess now that a year or two ago I heard a SA-XR15 (lowly 40 watt early panny model) on my Rogers LS3/5a speakers & there was a hint of magic to the imaging which I thought a better model would do more justice to. Unfortunately, the amp smoked shortly after I played with it for a few hours & I brought it back.
I just found out I can get a 10 day "cool off" purchase from an on-line retailer over here who has SA-XR59 (latest European model), in other words a home trial for 10 days with full money back, he he!
Take your point about the Jordan's being hungry but I'm not looking for party speakers, I want accurate immersive sound that takes me to the venue on well recorded material. In other words I would like to forget about the speakers & the amp being there - I know this is probably the holy grail for most of the inmates here!
I'll confess now that a year or two ago I heard a SA-XR15 (lowly 40 watt early panny model) on my Rogers LS3/5a speakers & there was a hint of magic to the imaging which I thought a better model would do more justice to. Unfortunately, the amp smoked shortly after I played with it for a few hours & I brought it back.
I just found out I can get a 10 day "cool off" purchase from an on-line retailer over here who has SA-XR59 (latest European model), in other words a home trial for 10 days with full money back, he he!
jkeny,
Thanks. I suggest keeping it on the entire time. Starting 'cold', emphasizes the brightness of the amp. Using a coax digital or toslink cable for input is much better than analog. It took 100-200 hrs to mellow some for me...it is better after more and is nice now after 1000hrs. The imaging on my Jordans in the transmission line cab is wide, expansive and dead center. Detail is great, depth of sound stage not as deep as my SET set-up. Set up for dual-amp mode and 'distance' feature to 30ft. Keep running source and mute speakers when you don't want sound...
You will not get the 'Holy Grail' for this price...probably not for 100x the price...
t
Thanks. I suggest keeping it on the entire time. Starting 'cold', emphasizes the brightness of the amp. Using a coax digital or toslink cable for input is much better than analog. It took 100-200 hrs to mellow some for me...it is better after more and is nice now after 1000hrs. The imaging on my Jordans in the transmission line cab is wide, expansive and dead center. Detail is great, depth of sound stage not as deep as my SET set-up. Set up for dual-amp mode and 'distance' feature to 30ft. Keep running source and mute speakers when you don't want sound...
You will not get the 'Holy Grail' for this price...probably not for 100x the price...
t
Ah the "holy Grail" - I don't expect it for this price but I'm interested in the hints of it I heard with the SA-XR15 amp & if the later models do it better which I hope they do!
Also, if you remember from my first post, one of the reasons I'm looking at this is to get rid of multiple boxes (DAC, preamp,etc) and hence try to drive the jitter out of the digital signal by focusing on optimising the operating conditions of one box rather than the chasing optimising multiple boxes.
One step towards this would be a music server with lossless audio being served over ethernet to a converter (local clock) to I2S & fed into the panny (ala PeuFeu's thread) - avoiding SPDif & it's inherent jitter problems. Now, I know that there are probably jitter & other issues in the panny but maybe these can be addressed with mods?
Also, if you remember from my first post, one of the reasons I'm looking at this is to get rid of multiple boxes (DAC, preamp,etc) and hence try to drive the jitter out of the digital signal by focusing on optimising the operating conditions of one box rather than the chasing optimising multiple boxes.
One step towards this would be a music server with lossless audio being served over ethernet to a converter (local clock) to I2S & fed into the panny (ala PeuFeu's thread) - avoiding SPDif & it's inherent jitter problems. Now, I know that there are probably jitter & other issues in the panny but maybe these can be addressed with mods?
I guess I'm late in chiming in on this thread.
First, there is actually quite a bit of content regarding the Panny units here, but it's relatively old. Some of the discussion pre-dates the Class-D forum and was actually part of the impetus behind setting it up.
I have several of these - an XR10, two XR25's and an XR55. I quite like the sense of "open, detailed" sound, and unlike others haven't been bothered by an 'unnatural' character. Having said that, I'm actually not using them in my 'high end' system at the moment, as they don't seem to match particularly well with either of my good speakers (ACI Sapphire XL and Yorkville U15).
I've had the best results with these on benign monitor type speakers - Tannoy System 600 monitors worked well, and I currently have the XR55 driving some JBL Control 1-X monitors to very good results. I think the pairing with the Jordans may work very well.
Okay, since I have in fact partially battery-powered one of my XR25's, I can address some of this.
First, I doubt that the output stage is powered by the +-15V for two reasons. First, the output bridges in the older units are powered by a unipolar DC supply. Second, 30V isn't enough. In the XR25 the output stage is powered by a single supply that is 42V at full power, so a 30V swing should only provide ~ 50% of the power.
It's possible that they moved to a bipolar supply in the XR55 so that the speaker terminals would sit at 0V potential, but that still wouldn't explain how they get away with reduced supply voltage, since I don't think the Equibit stuff had any significant increase in duty cycle in newer revisions (although I admit I haven't kept up).
I only used the battery for the output stage - the low-level signal stuff is still run from the switcher plugged into the wall. The bridge input power lines include a ground which ties the battery ground to the signal ground.
In the XR25 and 45, the volume control is a hybrid system. The supply rail is reduced in level from 42V down to (I think - its been a while) about 4.5V, or 18-20dB of reduction. Below that, the DSP is used to digitally attenuate the volume. When using a fixed battery supply, this means that the volume control has no impact until ~-18dB is shown on the display, and then below that the volume is reduced as expected.
IMHO the XR25 sounded much better with a battery supply than with the conventional switcher. I'll qualify that by saying that it's been a while since I've listened to it though. In particular, I haven't listened since getting my new signal chain set up using DRC/BruteFir. Since I now have both a stock XR25 sitting around as well as my battery modded one, I guess making the effort to listen might be worth it.
With the Jordans, I don't think power is much of a concern. Going with either a single 24V supply or a split +-12 V setup for 24V of swing should provide more than adequate power for the Jordans, and will greatly simplify things.
First, there is actually quite a bit of content regarding the Panny units here, but it's relatively old. Some of the discussion pre-dates the Class-D forum and was actually part of the impetus behind setting it up.
I have several of these - an XR10, two XR25's and an XR55. I quite like the sense of "open, detailed" sound, and unlike others haven't been bothered by an 'unnatural' character. Having said that, I'm actually not using them in my 'high end' system at the moment, as they don't seem to match particularly well with either of my good speakers (ACI Sapphire XL and Yorkville U15).
I've had the best results with these on benign monitor type speakers - Tannoy System 600 monitors worked well, and I currently have the XR55 driving some JBL Control 1-X monitors to very good results. I think the pairing with the Jordans may work very well.
jkeny said:
Okay, since I have in fact partially battery-powered one of my XR25's, I can address some of this.
First, I doubt that the output stage is powered by the +-15V for two reasons. First, the output bridges in the older units are powered by a unipolar DC supply. Second, 30V isn't enough. In the XR25 the output stage is powered by a single supply that is 42V at full power, so a 30V swing should only provide ~ 50% of the power.
It's possible that they moved to a bipolar supply in the XR55 so that the speaker terminals would sit at 0V potential, but that still wouldn't explain how they get away with reduced supply voltage, since I don't think the Equibit stuff had any significant increase in duty cycle in newer revisions (although I admit I haven't kept up).
I only used the battery for the output stage - the low-level signal stuff is still run from the switcher plugged into the wall. The bridge input power lines include a ground which ties the battery ground to the signal ground.
In the XR25 and 45, the volume control is a hybrid system. The supply rail is reduced in level from 42V down to (I think - its been a while) about 4.5V, or 18-20dB of reduction. Below that, the DSP is used to digitally attenuate the volume. When using a fixed battery supply, this means that the volume control has no impact until ~-18dB is shown on the display, and then below that the volume is reduced as expected.
IMHO the XR25 sounded much better with a battery supply than with the conventional switcher. I'll qualify that by saying that it's been a while since I've listened to it though. In particular, I haven't listened since getting my new signal chain set up using DRC/BruteFir. Since I now have both a stock XR25 sitting around as well as my battery modded one, I guess making the effort to listen might be worth it.
With the Jordans, I don't think power is much of a concern. Going with either a single 24V supply or a split +-12 V setup for 24V of swing should provide more than adequate power for the Jordans, and will greatly simplify things.
jkeny said:
If you look for the holy grail in the digital domain, you IMO need a master-clocked environment, which keeps everything in sync.
99,99 % of all jitter discussions around here are based on
asynchronous connections, where the receiver has to recover the
clock from the signal. Life could be much easier I guess.
jkeny said:
The simplicity is certainly appealing, and part of the reason I was drawn to them - replacing a DAC, Preamp and Amp with one cheap box is a nice deal. However, I think price point has to be kept in the discussion. The XR55 is only $250 here in the US, whereas you are indicating that you'd pay something like $750. That's a pretty wide gap.
For context, I just replaced the XR25 in our video system with an Azur 540R V2 that I got as a refurb closeout for $400. In very preliminary lisetning with my ACI Sapphire XL's I belive the Azur is a noticable step up when fed via toslink from an Oppo 981. At a the price point you're talking about (~ 500 euro) the Azur and some other higher-end receivers that also enter the discussion that may be more cost-effective.
Of course, the probably don't offer the technical appeal and potential mod opportunities that the Panny does.
The Equibit chips use an internal PLL to derive the modulator clock, so there's only so much you can do. Certainly feeding a clean I2S clock and providing good low-level power to the modulator will help, but there will be limits.
In the context of Peufeu's project, it might make more sense to look for a used XR10 or maybe just go straight to the TI evaluation boards - this way you get very easy multi-channel I2S input. On the XR25 and later models, the high integration makes multi-channel direct digital input much more difficult. In the XR10 the I2S lines are on a ribbon cable and hence are very easily accessable; unfortunately, battery power is harder to do due to some sense circuitry that feeds the output voltage back to the power supply (search the archives - there are ways around this).
jkeny said:
Oh thanks.
I tried the gainclone using LM3875, TI purepath eval board using LM1083 as variable power supply (15 ~ 1.25v).
I play with the Jordan in and out of my system for 18 months.
I don't think I've heard the full potential of the JX92s yet, but I got caught in the B200 hype, so I move on.
I also have a diy 2-way scan speak Revelator as reference.
Thanks dwk123 for chipping in - interesting insights you have on battery power - thanks for sharing.
I take your point about the I2S feed & the highly integrated circuitry of the later panny models - I will look into the TI eval boards again as a more direct way of achieving my goals (although another of my goals was to have a finished box which could reside in the living area - I'm not great at the fine finishes - so maybe used XR10 would be better?)
Hi soundcheck,
The beauty of peufeu's project is that the server sends the file over LAN cable to a FPGA which does the conversion to I2S using a local (low-jitter) clock. I2S can then be connected to DAC or in this case "panny Power DAC" & the clock is on a seperate data-line to the signal so no recovery is needed. There are still areas which could introduce jitter but they become less numerous & possibly easier to address
I take your point about the I2S feed & the highly integrated circuitry of the later panny models - I will look into the TI eval boards again as a more direct way of achieving my goals (although another of my goals was to have a finished box which could reside in the living area - I'm not great at the fine finishes - so maybe used XR10 would be better?)
Hi soundcheck,
The beauty of peufeu's project is that the server sends the file over LAN cable to a FPGA which does the conversion to I2S using a local (low-jitter) clock. I2S can then be connected to DAC or in this case "panny Power DAC" & the clock is on a seperate data-line to the signal so no recovery is needed. There are still areas which could introduce jitter but they become less numerous & possibly easier to address
I am also using a TVIX HD music server. I rip my all cd into wave files and store it into its 500g harddisk. The digital output is very very good. Esp after I convert it into BNC connector.
An older version of TVIX I tapped its I2S signal together with TDA1541 that sound very good also.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=84056&highlight=
An older version of TVIX I tapped its I2S signal together with TDA1541 that sound very good also.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=84056&highlight=
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