Technics is back. Panasonic has unveiled the first new hi-fi products from the highly-regarded brand in 6 years. The new Reference Class system is made up of three components – a stereo power amp, a network audio control player and a speaker system. The amp uses a JENO Digital Engine to eliminate jitter and nip noise in the bud, and Load Adaptive Phase Calibration (LAPC) for flat amplitude-phase frequency delivery. It features GaN for high speed switching while keeping signal loss low, a proprietary digital link input, analog XLR input, analog RCA input, bi-wiring speaker terminals, and a silent linear power supply.

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The quality of sound reproduced by an audio amplifier, measured by critical performance parameters such as THD (Total Harmonic Distortion), damping factor (DF), and T-IMD (Inter-modulation Distortion), is influenced by the characteristics of the switching transistors used. Class-D audio amplifiers typically use power MOSFETs, however, lower conduction losses, faster switching speed, and zero reverse recovery losses provided by enhancement-mode GaN (eGaN) FETs enable a significant increase in the sonic quality, and higher efficiency that can eliminate heatsinks. The result is a system with better sound quality in a smaller form factor that can be built at a lower cost.

EEWeb
By: Alex Lidow
February, 2014