> Sugden Audio Sapphire DAP-800 Digital Analogue Pre-Amplifier

Sugden Sapphire DAP-800 Digital Analogue Pre-Amplifier

The Sugden Audio Sapphire DAP-800 High End Digital Pre-Amplifier & DAC further enhances the Company’s standing and reputation amongst discerning music lovers.

Sugden’s main objective in developing the DAP-800 has been musical performance coupled to a practical user interface, pride of possession and product longevity.

The market trends for new and fashionable technologies have not been ignored and the DAP-800 has been developed to complement and present the user with the very best euphonic experience.

As with all Sugden Products they are designed and manufactured by Sugden Employees, in the West Yorkshire, premises. The use of through hole as opposed to surface mount components, where possible, enhances product life, performance and reliability.

The DAP-800 is an Analogue pre Amplifier with a separate in built DAC facility. It has:-

Analog Inputs:

One pair of Balanced Inputs.

Four Pair of Phono/RCA Inputs.

One Pair of By-Pass Inputs Phono/RCA.

Digital Inputs:

One x USB type B.

Two x Toslink Optical S/PDIF.

Three x Coaxial S/PDIF.

Analog Outputs:

One pair of XLR Balanced Outputs.

One pair of Phono/RCA Tape outputs.

Two pair of Phono/RCA outputs.

The individual sections of the pre-amplifier i.e. Analogue and Digital are self contained stages having their own Power Supplies voltage regulation and circuit board assemblies The analogue stage has a 50 watt toroidal transformer and the digital stage a 15 watt E core transformer. The digital facility power supplies are totally isolated from the analogue stage

The Pre-Amplifiers analogue stage incorporates a Sugden VCV circuit in its most developed advanced form. This circuit has a high impedance input section, current gain stage (without attenuation problems) which drives a folded cascode stage into a Class ‘A’ output stage. The folded cascode circuit facilitates a wide bandwidth with maximum dynamics and low capacitive connectivity.

The tonal balance is irrespective of the output level and the sense of headroom, imaging and soundstage is to be believed.

The DAC facility to interface with digital products includes inputs for USB, Optical and coaxial S/PDIF signals. The actual DAC is a non-oversampling, digital filtering- less, DAC where the digital interface transceiver is a Wolfson Micro electronics device. The DAC also includes Post Conversion Filtering in the analogue output stage. The USB signal received is converted via a circuit including a Texas Instruments Universal IC whose SPDIF output signal is re-clocked and de jittered by the Wolfson interface transceiver.

This DAC configuration has been adopted for Sugdens Digital Processing after many many hours of actual auditioning of a wide sample of DSPs. The auditory perception/Musical performance in terms of dynamic balance, tonal balance, voice and emotion, are so much more satisfying and Sugden’s preference.

Facilities:

Analogue inputs – Four line level inputs, one balanced input & bypass.

Digital inputs – Three S/PDIF coax, two S/PDIF optical & one USB type B Word length up to 24bit 96k.

Outputs – Two line level outputs, one balanced output, & tape output.

Volume control – Motorised remote control (analogue) RC5 compatible.

Mains power switching – Separate for analogue and digital circuits.

Technical Specifications:

Input sensitivity – 120mV for 1 Volt out.

Maximum output – 9 Volts.

Frequency response – 0dB 15Hz – 98kHz. 3dB 8Hz – 125khz.

Signal to noise – >85dB.

Distortion – <0.05% @ 1kHz, 1Volt out.