TDAI-2200
Product Description
Contents |
Page |
General Description |
3 |
Inand outputs |
4 |
Clock |
5 |
DSP |
5 |
RoomPerfect™ |
7 |
Power Supply |
12 |
Output Stage |
12 |
Overload Protection |
14 |
Cabinet |
14 |
Summary |
15 |
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General Description
When we started out designing the Lyngdorf TDAI-2200, our goal was to create a genuine high-end amplifier, based on the highly acclaimed Millennium, i.e. possessing a combination of unsurpassed sonical qualities together with a very strong DSP engine that gave the user the ability to make real improvements in the final sound heard in the living room. At the same time a parallel goal was to hit a more affordable price point than the Millennium.
Today’s hi-fi industry is very good at building ideal products for ideal rooms. However, real world rooms are anything but ideal, which is why so much effort is expended on ‘tweaking’ sound quality, with special cables, fuses, interconnects etc. However, none of these tweaks can alter the fact that 70 per cent of the final sound of your system is governed by your room acoustics!
Since Lyngdorf’s core philosophy is ‘Development based on facts instead of feelings’ we wanted to develop a product that offered something that nobody else in the industry offered: a genuine solution to the main problem in hi-fi systems… room acoustics.
The Lyngdorf Audio TDAI-2200 is a fully-digital amplifier based on the new Millennium platform. However, the TDAI-2200 is much more than an amplifier: it is a complete digital signal processing control centre, designed to be the heart of an advanced audio system that can encompass controlling and powering loudspeakers with or without built-in filters.
The compact design of the TDAI-2200 features a highly efficient fully-digital PWM amplifier capable of driving extremely difficult loads. Integrated within it is a native DSP section which can be controlled by Lyngdorf Audio DSP software. Equalization and correction options for speaker position and delay, combined with extreme versatility when it comes to processing, make this amplifier completely unique in today’s audiophile sector.
If you choose the RoomPerfect™ option for TDAI-2200 the ‘manual’ DSP adjustments are ‘replaced’ by state-of-the-art room correction – fully automated and thus granting you the best possible result – always!
This product replaces – simultaneously - a D/A converter, equalizer, pre-amplifier and a power amplifier, requiring only a CD transport as a source. This amplifier is also chock-full of remarkable innovations such as a power supply which can be regulated to attenuate the signal with the volume control setting. This can be compared to an engine transmission in a car where the engine operates at its maximum performance at any speed by the expedient of changing gear.
The TDAI-2200 can even be equipped with a state-of-the-art A/D conversion module allowing it to interface with analog sources…
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Inand outputs
Traditionally, interconnects are a big discussion point in the hi-fi industry. And they can indeed make a world of difference on most equipment. Why? Because most equipment is not engineered correctly in the first instance and is often compromised by varying input and output impedances. And thanks to different ground potentials/planes between different components, you also run the risk that current can run from one component to another through the interconnects. It doesn’t require much imagination to see how that might influence sensitive low-level audio line signals.
In the Lyngdorf Audio TDAI-2200 we have taken an extra step (at considerable extra cost) of adding filtering and ensuring the true galvanic separation of each single input. In that way the ground planes for the digital and analog domains are completely separated and sounddeteriorating ground loops are prevented.
The digital inputs comprise 3 SPDIF (RCA/Phono), 1 AES (XLR), all gold-plated, and 1 Toslink (optical) connections.
The outputs from the digital section comprise digital outputs (SPDIF, RCA/phono) plus a set of RCA/phono with analog output signal of the selected source.
The D/A converter used for the analog output is the high performance Wolfson 8740 DAC, highly acclaimed for its pure, rich and natural sound. Just as importantly, the
critical re-construction section after the DAC is based on high-end Texas Instruments OPA 227 op-amps and is designed, as are all other signal paths in TDAI-2200, to be fully balanced for optimum purity and the best S/N ratio.
The optional analog input module comprises 3 RCA/phono unbalanced and 1 AES (XLR) balanced inputs.
Input selection is carried out via high-end, double gold-plated relays, normally only encountered in expensive high-precision measuring equipment.
Since analog signal levels can vary considerably, the input sensitivity of each input can be attenuated by up to -6dB, granting correct signal level for the A/D converter. The sensitivity is adjusted in the pre-amp section before it is fed to the converter.
The state-of-the-art A/D converter is built to outperform the noise levels of most analog sources. Listening to the analog output from, say, a high-end CD player through the A/D converter versus the direct digital signal leaves you asking the question... which is which? This gives an idea of the performance potential of the A/D converter in the Lyngdorf Audio TDAI2200.
Achieving such a performance needs careful selection of the right components and - just as importantly – considerable design experience, in order to know how to maintain optimum sound quality throughout the signal path.
Also worth noting is that the signal paths in the TDAI-2200 are fully balanced and individually impedance compensated (transmission-line principle). Normally, a standard ‘compensation’ resistor is placed right after the signal transmitter for impedance correction. However, this increases the output impedance and makes the signal path more susceptible to noise. In this
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amplifier the resistor is placed just before the signal receiver - the value of the resistor selected takes into account the resistance in the signal path itself, too. Thus the circuits are kept low impedance, ensuring better noise immunity, while optimum impedance matching is maintained in order to preserve the original signal shape ( i.e. overshoot is avoided).
Clock
One of the most important factors in digital signal processing is the ‘purity’ of the clock, in other words, ensuring that the master clock that controls everything is extremely stable and correctly placed (electrically as close as possible to where the clock frequency is needed).
In every one of our R&D tests we have concluded that keeping phase noise as low as possible in the clock system is the single most important factor in minimising jitter. Typically jitter is heard as high frequency distortion. That’s why we have always given the design of the clock a very high priority – in fact this is one of Lyngdorf Audio core competencies!
Specialised low-noise design techniques have been employed in the TDAI-2200, reducing digital interference in the product, and giving better working conditions for critical parts such as the modulator (PCM -> PWM) and converters, which are especially sensitive to noise.
The TDAI-2200 handles all conventional sample rates (192kHz, 176.4kHz, 96kHz, 88.2kHz, 48kHz and 44.1kHz). To minimise jitter further, the sample rate of the input signal is measured to determine the exact sample rate whereafter it is re-sampled to match the master clock in the TDAI-2200 (although the input is stated at e.g. 96kHz it can easily ‘float’ slightly both up and down).
The result of this meticulous design philosophy speaks for itself, as a pure, clean and natural sound reproduction.
DSP
When we use the term ‘Digital Control Centre’ to describe the Lyngdorf TDAI-2200 we do so because the TDAI-2200 is much more than ‘just’ a digital amplifier.
In fact the powerful DSP ‘engine’ inside it allows one to customize a speaker set-up completely to one’s preferences.
The TDAI-2200’s built-in x-over filter allows you to both control conventional passive speakers, substitute it the normal x-over in a 2-way speaker or use it as the x-over filter between main speakers and woofer(s) – e.g. in a Lyngdorf Audio 2+2 set-up.
Also, multi-way systems can be controlled by using daisychained TDAI-2200s.
For example one can use a single TDAI-2200 as the ‘master’ of the system to handle the high range (treble) and send the low-pass filtered signal to a ‘slave’ TDAI-2200 which then powers the midrange but then sends a further lowpass filtered signal to a SDA 2175 that handles the bass frequencies.
So you see, the TDAI-2200, when combined with other
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