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:
The back is especially nice with the type of connectivity you need in a home system:
Both analog and digital inputs are provided. Ethernet input allows a nicely done web interface to be used from anywhere:
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:
Switching to digital input showed essentially the same performance:
This level of noise+distortion (SINAD) puts this amp way down in our rankings:
Noise level was not very good either, using analog or digital input:
Unit was stable on power up which is good:
Crosstalk was decent:
Multitone suffered from high noise floor and sporadic distortion spikes:
Sadly frequency response is highly load dependent due to class D amp's output filter interacting:
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:
The name indicates it produces 1200 watts. Let's see what it can do into 4 om with both channels driven:
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:
Switching to 8 ohm naturally cut the power substantially:
Stepping through the test frequency shows a number of odd behaviors:
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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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The APA1200DSP has nicer look than typical pro amplifiers:
The back is especially nice with the type of connectivity you need in a home system:
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:
Switching to digital input showed essentially the same performance:
This level of noise+distortion (SINAD) puts this amp way down in our rankings:
Noise level was not very good either, using analog or digital input:
Unit was stable on power up which is good:
Crosstalk was decent:
Multitone suffered from high noise floor and sporadic distortion spikes:
Sadly frequency response is highly load dependent due to class D amp's output filter interacting:
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:
The name indicates it produces 1200 watts. Let's see what it can do into 4 om with both channels driven:
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:
Switching to 8 ohm naturally cut the power substantially:
Stepping through the test frequency shows a number of odd behaviors:
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/
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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