Q Audio Amplifier
Libby Cowen
Our high-end audio stereo amplifiers are recognized for their outstanding sound quality and craftsmanship. They provide clean, powerful amplification to stereo speakers, faithfully reproducing music with precision. These amplifiers incorporate premium components, advanced circuitry, and careful engineering to minimize distortion and noise.
Audiophiles appreciate high-end stereo amplifiers for their capacity to uncover subtle musical details and establish lifelike soundscapes, even in smaller rooms. Their reputation for excellence is underscored by their premium status, making them essential to high-quality audio systems.
The heart of any hi-fi set up. All of our amplifiers follow our unique sound first design; they use hearty toroidal transformers and have all been uniquely voiced by our in-house pros for the best possible audio performance.
A heavily featured streaming amplifier that combines the sonic genes of Technics Grand Class components with a wealth of source functions, including video connectivity, the SU-GX70 Network Audio Amplifier easily integrates into the home hi-fi system with the inclusion of an HDMI ARC port.
Further, a JENO Engine has been used in the HDMI ARC (Audio Return Channel), which has been installed in a Technics product for the first time. This helps to reduce any degradation in sound quality caused by jitter during the transmission of digital audio signals (S/PDIF), ensuring unparalleled levels of clarity in TV audio.
High-quality audio components have been used in various other locations, too. For example, chip film capacitors have been used in place of power supply noise-reduction capacitors and signal path coupling capacitors.
We thus developed a speaker impedance adaptive optimization algorithm that performs correction to the ideal impulse response through digital signal processing by measuring the frequency amplitude-phase characteristics of the amplifier with the speakers connected. This technique enables flattening of the frequency characteristics of amplitude and phase, which had previously not been achieved by amplifiers, while also delivering a sound with rich spatial expression.
The design of the power supply is extremely critical in audio systems containing amplifiers, digital circuits and other such components. To eliminate any adverse effects on the amplifier, the SU-GX70 is equipped with a dedicated power supply for the power amplifier circuits that is independent from all other circuits. As such, the same electrolytic capacitors installed in high-end models have been used in the dedicated amplifier power supply and the power amplifier components.
Further, by using the shortest possible connection between the power supply and the power amplifier, the SU-GX70 ensures low noise and low impedance. Elsewhere, the connections between the speakers and power amplifier use non-magnetic brass screws.
The SU-GX70 uses a high-speed switching power supply of approximately 130 kHz. By increasing the switching frequency, noise interference on the music playback bandwidth is reduced. This enables highly responsive power supply for music signals and powerful speaker drive capability.
For the SU-GX70 to receive audio signals through the HDMI ARC (Audio Return Channel), due to the specifications, video signals must first be output from the SU-GX70. However, the output of these signals can cause unwanted noise.
As such, the video signals are output from the SU-GX70 at a lower rate, and the digital value of the color of each pixel is set to zero. This ensures low-load operation between the HDMI transmitting/receiving devices, preventing any unwanted noise generation from the video signals.
This also reduces any impact on sound quality. Further, transmitting the signals from the TV to the JENO Engine via the shortest possible route minimizes any further impact from jitter. This is a mechanism unique to Panasonic/Technics as HDMI licensors.
The discrete amp circuit used in the SU-GX70 was redesigned and adapted from the circuit used in the SU-R1000, and the same symmetrical layout has been used.
Further, other high-quality audio parts of the same grade as those used in the SU-R1000 have also been adopted, such as low-noise FETs, thin-film resistors, film capacitors, and electrolytic capacitors.
In this way, analog input has been fine-tuned to every detail.
Yes, that is our name. Shih-tah. It's a proud German name, host to a long line of audio engineers who slaved away in crumbling Teutonic fortresses as lightning lashed the dark lands outside, working to perfect the best amplification devices in the world...
An audio power amplifier (or power amp) amplifies low-power electronic audio signals, such as the signal from a radio receiver or an electric guitar pickup, to a level that is high enough for driving loudspeakers or headphones. Audio power amplifiers are found in all manner of sound systems including sound reinforcement, public address, home audio systems and musical instrument amplifiers like guitar amplifiers. It is the final electronic stage in a typical audio playback chain before the signal is sent to the loudspeakers.
The preceding stages in such a chain are low-power audio amplifiers which perform tasks like pre-amplification of the signal, equalization, mixing different input signals. The inputs can also be any number of audio sources like record players, CD players, digital audio players and cassette players. Most audio power amplifiers require these low-level inputs, which are line level.
While the input signal to an audio power amplifier, such as the signal from an electric guitar, may measure only a few hundred microwatts, its output may be a few watts for small consumer electronics devices, such as clock radios, tens or hundreds of watts for a home stereo system, several thousand watts for a nightclub's sound system or tens of thousands of watts for a large rock concert sound reinforcement system. While power amplifiers are available in standalone units, typically aimed at the hi-fi audiophile market (a niche market) of audio enthusiasts and sound reinforcement system professionals, many consumer electronics audio products such as an integrated amplifier, a receiver, clock radios, boomboxes and televisions have both a preamplifier and a power amplifier contained in a single chassis.
The MOSFET, invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959,[3] was adapted into a power MOSFET for audio by Jun-ichi Nishizawa at Tohoku University in 1974.[4] Power MOSFETs were soon manufactured by Yamaha for their hi-fi audio amplifiers. JVC, Pioneer Corporation, Sony and Toshiba also began manufacturing amplifiers with power MOSFETs in 1974.[4] In 1977, Hitachi introduced the LDMOS (lateral diffused MOS), a type of power MOSFET. Hitachi was the only LDMOS manufacturer between 1977 and 1983, during which time LDMOS was used in audio power amplifiers from manufacturers such as HH Electronics (V-series) and Ashly Audio, and were used for music and public address systems.[4] Class-D amplifiers became successful in the mid-1980s when low-cost, fast-switching MOSFETs were made available.[5] Many transistor amps use MOSFET devices in their power sections, because their distortion curve is more tube-like.[6]
In the 2010s, there are still audio enthusiasts, musicians (particularly electric guitarists, electric bassists, Hammond organ players and Fender Rhodes electric piano players, among others), audio engineers and music producers who prefer tube-based amplifiers, and what is perceived as a "warmer" tube sound.
Key design parameters for audio power amplifiers are frequency response, gain, noise, and distortion. These are interdependent; increasing gain often leads to undesirable increases in noise and distortion. While negative feedback actually reduces the gain, it also reduces distortion. Most audio amplifiers are linear amplifiers operating in class AB.
Until the 1970s, most amplifiers used vacuum tubes. During the 1970s, tube amps were increasingly replaced with transistor-based amplifiers, which were lighter in weight, more reliable, and lower maintenance. Nevertheless, tube preamplifiers are still sold in niche markets, such as with home hi-fi enthusiasts, audio engineers and music producers (who use tube preamplifiers in studio recordings to "warm up" microphone signals) and electric guitarists, electric bassists and Hammond organ players, of whom a minority continue to use tube preamps, tube power amps and tube effects units. While hi-fi enthusiasts and audio engineers doing live sound or monitoring tracks in the studio typically seek out amplifiers with the lowest distortion, electric instrument players in genres such as blues, rock music and heavy metal music, among others, use tube amplifiers because they like the natural overdrive that tube amps produce when pushed hard.
The Class-D amplifier, which is much more efficient than Class AB amplifiers, is now widely used in consumer electronics audio products, bass amplifiers and sound reinforcement system gear, as Class-D amplifiers are much lighter in weight and produce much less heat.
Since modern digital devices, including CD and DVD players, radio receivers and tape decks already provide a "flat" signal at line level, the preamp is not needed other than as a volume control and source selector. One alternative to a separate preamp is to simply use passive volume and switching controls, sometimes integrated into a power amplifier to form an integrated amplifier.
The final stage of amplification, after preamplifiers, is the output stage, where the highest demands are placed on the transistors or tubes. For this reason, the design choices made around the output device (for single-ended output stages, such as in single-ended triode amplifiers) or devices (for push-pull output stages), such as the Class of operation of the output devices is often taken as the description of the whole power amplifier. For example, a Class B amplifier will probably have just the high power output devices operating cut off for half of each cycle, while the other devices (such as differential amplifier, voltage amplifier and possibly even driver transistors) operate in Class A. In a transformerless output stage, the devices are essentially in series with the power supply and output load (such as a loudspeaker), possibly via some large capacitor and/or small resistances.
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