I gave it a 'not terrible'. It's cheap, it looks good, it has DSP and reasonably high power output, noise and distortion are not unacceptably bad and the teardown shows no build quality issues.
I can only imagine what that does to the sound. It's all over the place.
I mean... marketing...bridged into 4 ohms (rated 1160W - hence the 1200W designation).
Yeah I reckon really for subs as they auto-eq only works in sub mode, and only a HPF is avaiable on the line-outs, not a LPF (if you wanted cross over to a sub).I'd guess they're taking some notes from car-audio manufacturers, in that its name is based on a low-impedance peak output.
Based on its bridged mode 4 ohm rating, the best I can guess it would perhaps produce 2x600w at 2 ohm. Probably relevant for Dayton subwoofers more than hifi speakers.
As a full-range main channel amp, I agree this is a bit shy of the mark, at least at the price. For driving a sub in bridged mode, it would be great if it cost $300 or so.This is a review and detailed measurements of the Dayton Audio APA1200DSP DSP analog and digital input stereo class D amplifier. It was kindly purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me. Parts Express is selling it for US $650 right now.
The APA1200DSP has nicer look than typical pro amplifiers:
View attachment 166728
The back is especially nice with the type of connectivity you need in a home system:
View attachment 166729
Both analog and digital inputs are provided. Ethernet input allows a nicely done web interface to be used from anywhere:
View attachment 166730
There is a microphone I believe and ability to automatically calibrate the room response. I did not use or dive into this functionality.
There is a fan that came on when powered on but nicely powered down gradually and I did not hear it during operation. When it runs it has a lower frequency and a bit less annoying than on pro amplifiers.
There is a strange setting for 2 vs 4 ohm speaker load. I set it to 4 since I tested it at 4 and 8 ohms. Manual doesn't say exactly what this does.
APA1200DSP Amplifier Measurements
I set the gain to -10 dB which gave me the nominal 29 dB I look for and measured using XLR input:
View attachment 166731
Switching to digital input showed essentially the same performance:
View attachment 166732
This level of noise+distortion (SINAD) puts this amp way down in our rankings:
View attachment 166733
Noise level was not very good either, using analog or digital input:
View attachment 166734
View attachment 166735
Unit was stable on power up which is good:
View attachment 166737
Crosstalk was decent:
View attachment 166738
Multitone suffered from high noise floor and sporadic distortion spikes:
View attachment 166739
Sadly frequency response is highly load dependent due to class D amp's output filter interacting:
View attachment 166740
We also see sharp cut off due to internal processing being at low sampling rate. Switching to digital input at 96 kHz sampling made no difference:
View attachment 166741
The name indicates it produces 1200 watts. Let's see what it can do into 4 om with both channels driven:
View attachment 166742
The curve wiggles as protection circuit kicks in. Prior to that, it produced 370 watts. Letting distortion rise to 1% didn't do much better:
View attachment 166743
Switching to 8 ohm naturally cut the power substantially:
View attachment 166744
Stepping through the test frequency shows a number of odd behaviors:
View attachment 166745
Conclusions
Typical of this class of amplifier, power specs are mostly imaginary. Objective measurement of noise and distortion are also typical with little attention paid to minimize them. So you are left with buying this for functionality not because it has any great implementation of class D amplification.
I can't recommend the Dayton Audio APA1200DSP DSP based on its pure measured performance.
Edit: teardown posted: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...udio-apa1200dsp-teardown-dsp-amplifier.28270/
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There is a microphone I believe and ability to automatically calibrate the room response. I did not use or dive into this functionality.
And so this review misses the point of this amp completely. Nobody should have read a word of this review past this point.
Whoa the Hiby rep is coming in hot
At minimum, shouldn't the amp perform at base of engineering performance (1)6 -bit), pre DSP.
That happens when you search for "outboard subwoofer amp" and that's what you get (I didn't even go to the Dayton page). Some retailers are selling it as a subwoofer amp alone. After seeing your response - I went to Dayton's page and saw exactly what you referenced ,lesson learned. I'd never use this type of amp for full-range duty (especially after the review). If you notice a few of my recent post - I'm in the market for something high powered (as my Acoustic Elegance subs require it), but something that doesn't cost as much as my McIntosh or even my B&K. What's the acceptable measurements for an amp that's pulling duty only at 80hz and below?View attachment 190202
I wonder where these myths come from and why people can't spare the 20 seconds it takes to look this stuff up