SCPA 1 Technology Overview
A couple of years ago I received a phone call from Dan Banquer (Chief Designer for RE Designs Audio) about the series of articles I have written on the format implementation issues with DVD-A and SACD for consumer audio. I was expecting to hear complaints about my articles like I have heard from a few manufacturers, but instead Dan complimented me and agreed with my recognitions regarding the shortcomings such as:
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Lack of independent channel trims for Preamp EXT inputs.
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No bass management or time delay compensation.
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Format incompatibilities with standard 5.1 systems (IE. DVD-A/SACD is a 6 channel format, not 5.1, thus many recordings use that extra channel as an overhead, NOT subwoofer channel).
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Lack of a standardized digital interface.
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Lack of software and at the time mostly remasters 1980s 44kHz/16bit two channel one hit wonders was all that was available.
Luckily many of these items have since then been resolved by
manufacturers and we are now starting to enjoy these formats in all their
glory. In fact some of the recent hardware reviewed by Audioholics incorporated
an i.Link connection for digital transmission of all of these formats over a
signal cable allowing the preamp/receiver to handle all of the decoding, bass
management and digital delay compensation.
So at this point you may be wondering what purpose a multi channel analog preamp would serve in a technological era of DSP dream machines capable of decoding and processing all know audio and video formats to man at the touch of a button, with amplification, all self contained in one box? My answer to this convoluted question is simple. For the diehard audiophile and purist at heart whose sole objective is to build a dedicated multi channel audio system without all the bells and whistles, with the utmost accuracy in calibration and noise suppression, the SCPA 1 may be the product of choice. Before considering the SCPA 1 for the job, one must first chose a digital playback device (IE. SACD player, Universal DVD Audio player, etc) that offers bass management and digital delay compensation via its multi channel analog outputs. I of course chose the venerable Denon DVD-5900 – the current Universal DVD player dream machine.
