THD 88 Hypex Class D Amplifiers Designed with Discrete Components for HiFi Pro Studio

foreign [Music] with another episode of the THC podcast thanks for tuning in and checking this out today we have a class D company from the Netherlands joining us they're doing class D amplifiers DSP power supplies for pro Hi-Fi and all the good uh exciting Market spaces uh but before we forget let's remember that we have the ulti association to thank for our sponsorship uh we encourage everybody to check out that organization um I know they're going to be next show is that not until Munich next year in the Hi-Fi show but without delay let's get into uh saying hello to everybody so we have Simon Weston in Japan as always good afternoon Simon good afternoon Dave all right and joining us Niels Burma the account manager at hypex in the Netherlands uh thanks for joining us today Niels yeah you're welcome uh Dave and Simon yeah all right so yeah we've been uh we've been trying to get you on for some time uh you guys are in a kind of a a special space there's not too many players in your category and you guys do some neat stuff so we wanted to get you on and find out about your product and your offerings uh there's some interesting things about your business and how you guys are pretty much vertically integrated with your own factory and we're gonna find out about that information as well so maybe without delay let's get into your presentation all right yeah um thanks for uh for uh interviewing us and uh giving us the opportunity to share something about um uh who we are and what we do um really uh keen on on sharing this with everybody uh of the viewers uh so hypex Electronics who are we you already introduced us we're from the Netherlands an Innovative supplier um and exactly what you already mentioned in the introduction our Core Business is class the amplifiers um and apart from that power supplies switch mode and indeed also some Digital Signal processing to complement our products um as mentioned an innovating supplier we are always looking for um for Innovation always improving our Technologies as we recently also introduced new technologies which I will go into detail later uh always to try uh to to be ahead of the game in the market and as you said there are not a lot of suppliers that are doing an excellent job in class D amplification it's difficult um so yeah we we put a lot of energy and time and resources into the Innovative part uh we're based in the Netherlands our headquarters is in the North in Groningen which we where we found it in 1996 so already some time ago uh we also have an r d office in Eindhoven in the south of the Netherlands that's more the technology uh heart of basically Western Europe so a lot of good Engineers can be found there so that's why we have an r d office there as well and as you mentioned indeed we have our own Factory in Malaysia we started that in 2012 already 11 years ago just with the idea to have full control over the whole supply chain and over the quality controls and everything so yeah that's what we why we started that with with good good results um founded in 1996 by our late uh founder Ian Peter from Ameren died in uh almost two years ago really unfortunate but he left us a really good company really nice company um uh still the CEO now currently was already an employee at ipex so the Integrity of our company hasn't been compromised or anything we didn't get sold out or stuff like that so that's what everybody's really really fond of we are close team we have very uh very limited amount of hierarchy structure so not a lot of management layers or stuff like that so we can get things done quickly short lines internally and that benefits our customers as well so that's um yeah that's always always really nice to have R D team is the biggest department of the company hypex itself is around 30 employees almost half of that is R D um because as mentioned before we're doing a lot in the Innovation part so yeah you need to put a lot of resources in that um so yeah that's why our R D team is multi-disciplined and uh yeah the biggest team in the company okay um since 2004 we actually only started with class D before that it was just Class A B designs we did we always done our own designs we never bought Technologies or anything already from the start we developed everything ourselves and since 2004 we started with class D technology with the UCD technology um so yeah that's in a nutshell Who We Are mm-hmm uh what we do well we are a specialized OEM supplier that's the core business we Supply to um uh manufacturers indeed in Hi-Fi high-end Hi-Fi Pro Audio studio monitors um system integrators for multi-channel amplifiers stuff like that and we also supplied a DOI Market directly it's not a core business it's nice to have on the side um we we often get the question why why do you supply the DOI Market because it's a difficult Market to supply well yes and no what we get out of it the benefits is that we get direct feedback of end users not through our OEM customers that have their own end users now we get feedback from direct end customers and that's that benefits us uh in terms of what we need to develop how we develop it and what the features need to be of those products so yeah it is a nice Market to do to supply and we are loyal to them because they have given us so much and we we I think already from the start we supplied to the DOI markets um so yeah we keep continuing that it's it's a yeah small margin a small part of our overall turnover but it's still a nice Market to supply um so yeah the most um um yeah most time goes into at OEM Market um we help our OEM customers with the full support on the system integration we know our products uh we know how to integrate them um on on every part on heat dissipation the cooling design of the of the chassis EMC designs and stuff like that we know exactly how to implement that and we are always keen on on helping our customers making uh making a good design it benefits us to do that already up front instead of finding out implementation errors when it's already in production so would the customers be finding this in like big block Hi-Fi amplifiers as well as plate amplifiers on the back of powered speakers uh what kind of devices would we see this in yeah exactly complete active speakers for uh high-end Hi-Fi Hi-Fi studio monitors as well and pro audio of course um it's nice to see also in the high and high five markets more and more manufacturers are going into active speakers they they see the benefits of that now as well of course in Pro Audio that was already for many years the case that they go for active systems um multi-channel solutions for um for custom Integrations uh um we do a lot of that as well we Supply the solutions for 16 channels or more with their modular systems so all kinds of amplifier Solutions we have a vast amount of customers also with a musical instruments but that's from bass guitar amps up to electronic church organs we have I think I think we have we Supply more than half of all the electronic Church organ Supply manufacturers in the world so that's uh that's a bit odd but that we already do that for many years and actually in many of those manufacturers are from the Netherlands so that's uh that's also a also nice to have but yeah and actually exactly everything that needs to have an amplifier amplifier inside we supply for all kinds of solutions okay yeah and apart from all our offerings of standard modules we have we can do a lot of customizations we do full Custom Designs also for for a few customers but also just slide changes on our standard products that's really easy to do for us we can tune our products whatever our customer would like to have achieved in general Our intention is the amplifier should be as neutral as possible a lot of new customers or potential customers ask us say Okay looks nice on paper and the DHD and everything really low but how does your module sound actually there's only one answer it's it sounds like nothing and then they usually Lucas uh look at us a bit bit odd and say what do you mean well you don't want your amplifier to sound like anything because it needs to amplify the input signal as good as it it needs to be but without colorization or or anything like that and so that's our general intention it needs to be an amplifier for every solution and it needs to amplify the signal that's it nothing more nothing less but there is still of course a lot of Manufacturers especially an i5 and high and HiFi that like a certain sound signature to say we don't we don't really say colorization because that's I think a negative thing colorizing the sound but a sound signature so more emphasis on on the low mid or high section of the frequencies um that's you know every brand has their own signature bit on that and we have a lot of knowledge in our designs to uh to get that result that the customer wants and that's just by component choices or tuning the tuning the modules and we have a lot of knowledge in that and we can then do customizations to to supply basically um yeah each manufacturer in the industry okay um so yeah that's that's what we do uh actually in a nutshell and how do we do that going into indeed Technologies on the amplifier techniques we have now actually already four levels we started in 2004 with UCD technology uh originally python from Phillips and used by US already for many years that was a first class D technology which we integrated first in custom designed for studio monitors actually and later on we developed indeed modules for the OEM Market uh still our Baseline technology we have a a really nice family of separate amplifier modules which you can design basically anything with up to my multi-channel solutions to 32 channels but also uh indeed active speakers you can build anything from it smallest modules are two times 100 Watts up till two and a half kilowatt modules for Pro Audio especially and combined with our separate power supplies you have a really flexible system so you can go yeah any kind of Channel count with one power supplier two power supplies any kind of power per channel it's a really flexible system so it's um it uh yeah it can offer a lot of different applications is that an acronym UCD it stands for Universal closely okay yeah so it's uh it is indeed an acronym but uh yeah really uh it is exactly what what it says Universal is really for uh for everything it's already really good Hi-Fi quality uh so it's it is our Baseline technology and basically our worst sounding module what's actually already really good amplifier um one of the first class D Technologies back back then in uh basically 2008 to 2009 that's already showed the world that the class the amplifier doesn't need to sound bad it was already a good sounding amplifier later on we have our own patent on Encore we started the developer there in that 2008 and patented in 2011. we started using this technology in uh in modules and complete Solutions um more intended in Need for high and high five we showed a world with Encore that class D can also compete with really good class A B and class amps it was a first class D technology that showed that class D is coming coming in other markets where where audio quality is really critical um so that was really really nice to see um also manufacturers in high-end Hi-Fi jumping on board in the class D trained so to speak for the first time because we proved class D as the benefits of the less heat dissipation and everything and smaller designs so it can be a cheaper amplifier as well because you need less big parts and stuff like that but still get a good sound quality you would need for such such applications we take a quick tangent just on that point so what what are the what is the what is it that historically made a class D amplifier sound worse than a Class A or Class A B amplifier that is a really good question um it's really technical I'm not exactly sure but I do know that a Class D design from origin um isn't isn't a topology that really uh wants to um how do you say amplify the signal that is coming in basically you really need to to keep full control of what is going on in the technology and in the circuitry and there are several different topologies in class D we always have self-oscillating amplifiers with with feedback a lot of people also believe and amplify with feedback is a negative thing but that's a part of our topology and but that's also the reason why our amplifiers are that good because we have um we have developed uh we have developed that part of the technology really well and improve that over the years as well with our new technologies could we say could it be said a bit like this then that um historic plus the amplifier would not reproduce the waveform quite as perfectly as a class in low frequencies it was easy uh so forth base for subs and everything it was easy and the cloth the amplifier was good enough and then you have the benefits of the class D amplifier being fast High damping Factor so full control of the of your subwoofer and for subwoofer that then the harmonic Distortion is maybe not so good it's less obvious uh and not not really hearable but going into the mid-range and especially the high frequency ranges it was just terrible the the Distortion was just too bad and you couldn't the historical class D amplifiers were not good enough on on performance uh wise on the on the on the harmonic Distortion and everything so yeah that's why it wasn't used in in Hi-Fi applications or high-end HiFi applications and that's nothing to do with the filtering that's related to how well controlled the pulsing is and things like that is it uh well it has to do with that as well and um in January speaking um already back in the years has been First Class D amplifiers were out there you could still already uh with with the technology available then you could make a good class D amplifier but it was just not invented yet um and that's since the UCD technology it was actually that was the period in the time when um the the good topologies were invented where um also theoretically the calculations on on the model of the Class D model were were invented so and to uh yeah and then good day the knowledge came how to actually do it properly yeah yeah because if you look at our designs we use we use a lot of discrete uh some some competitors of us use a lot of ICS as well but of course there are more and more ICS out there now with class D technology our designs are still completely discreet um just using transistors and such um so that's that's not new technology uh of course also on on each uh components there are Innovations over the years so you get new new transistors and everything but um yeah it's it's completely discreet designs and that's why we also have full control of the complete class D topology in terms of the modulator the um the steering comparator we can control every aspect of what is happening there um instead of just using the chip which yeah is basically locked in how it does okay yeah okay so since um almost two years and now we introduced our new technologies Encore X and nilai Encore X is really an improvement on rancor um what we did there is as I mentioned before we always have amplifiers with self-oscillating amplifiers with with feedback and that feedback loop is where we could make a lot of changes with the anchor X we have improved that feedback loop of Encore so you get indeed nice improvements on that we have the the if you look at uh the amount of Luke and we we we have added because of uh if we have more feedback you have more Loop gain Loop gain is uh at least plus six DBS more compared to Encore in high frequency range and the low frequency range it goes up to plus 18 DB um that's also the big change with Encore and UCD we always chosen to tune the module with flat looking um it has um it always has benefited Us in terms of sound quality when we did the developments on and correction Eli we actually experimented a lot with is that the best way to do flat looping or not because we could easily make even higher Loop gain in the lower frequencies without compromising in high frequencies and we listen to that we did tuning we did measurements and you see indeed Loop gain changes but that wasn't where we stopped we listened to it and say how does it sound so put all the equipment aside and just hook it up and listen to it that's what we did a lot with Encore X in the eye tune the modules really by here um also um you know with a lot of people just putting all the opinions [Music] in a row and see okay how do we like our modules to sound and the feedback we get now from our customers for with anchor X and Eli is astonishing and it proves that uh to ourselves that we made good choice um so yeah the tuning on the modules we we did now uh differently than we previously did but also on that part we can do customizations OEM customer prefers a different tuning of the module we can do that so that's now we have a lot of playroom in our techniques um to to yeah to fiddle around with the settings of the module so it's really neat to have which we previously did to do we just leave the settings alone and just just did some component swaps but now we can offer our customers full tuning of the module so to speak and that's really nice uh nice to have now with anchor X we really aim for still price competitive so we going to use this more and more in future OEM products we're going to upgrade uh existing Encore line as well uh to Anchor X to benefit of course the sound quality but also in terms of heat dissipation the idle losses and everything also can be improved because of the better class D topology and that's also something we can tune between if we have an eye and Hi-Fi customer that says I can put in five kilograms of heat sinking in my chassis no problem at all just make this module sound as good as it can be and I don't care about the heat dissipation we can tune the module to optimize to the sound quality but if it needs to be useful for example a 16 channel amplifier for a Zone amplification and stuff like that then maybe heat dissipation gets more important so we can tune also to have it uh uh you have to less heat dissipation and tune it more for the idle losses still benefiting on the sound quality improvements as well with nilai that's really the new benchmarking class D technology what we did there with the feedback loop and the loop gain is um is just another way to do it um instead of just improving the look and use on Encore we've done that in a different way uh cannot really go into detail in how we exactly did it but it does mean it adds an additional 15 DB of of loop gang compared to Encore um so that's a really really nice step upwards um the technology is uh again with Encore X we can also tune whatever we like but with nilai we really want to be competing to the best class A amplifiers out there in high-end Hi-Fi and we know we can so yeah that's really really nice to have at the moment we only have a DOI module uh we just decided to start with a really nice DOI module was intended actually to launch two years ago but do during the coveted years with all the supply chain issues it was on the launched last year but two years ago we had our 25th anniversary um so that's why we wanted to launch the module as an anniversary unit for the DUI Market unfortunately one year late what it is here now we can supply um but that technology will indeed also be implemented in in OEM products eventually um hold on go ahead yeah I was just going to say out of curiosity using mostly discrete components versus ICS was the component shortage during uh covet and such was that easier to manage or more difficult uh in general easier because we use uh not an uh a Gate Drive IC or or anything like that or a Class D chip then you are relying on just one supplier that can supply that chip because it's in a unique part because we use indeed discrete designs and use a lot of transistors you have basically 10 or 20 different suppliers of the transistor now because it's completely discreet and it is really complex technology we cannot use all the all of the 15 manufacturers on each position we can maybe only use four or five different manufacturers but that's the knowledge we have but still we have alternatives to choose from and yes each time when a chair chip or each time when a component is uh has a long lead time we need to test it and and yeah trial and error to see which alternative component does work which we previously didn't test out now but in generally speaking we didn't have really big issues we hear our stories of uh stories of more than 12 monthly times and stuff of products we never had that we had a few months delays sometimes with products but we could still manage and change the designs and continue production again relatively quickly so yeah that's that we were lucky with that yeah Simon yeah I was um I get the impression that your designs there's no microprocessor in the design we still use some microprocessor but that's more for the protections and some modules have I squared C connection for communication so you can use it in software mode for controlling the module and reading out temperatures and stuff like that and all the other protections so we use a microprocessor for uh for all the controls but the actual class D design itself we use op-amps yeah of course in the really high-end stuff we uh we developed our own op-amps also completely discrete we developed our own voltage regulations for auxiliary voltages like 12 volts for the albums we also made completely discreet designs uh so yeah we know we know how to develop a really high-end product as well before talking to you know how it was under the impression that class D amplifiers used a microprocessor to generate a pwm signal is that not is that not what a class is it's a self-oscillating amplifier so it's it's not uh with a switching frequency deferred uh generated by an uh by an IC or anything okay is that um uh is that kind of unique or is that the normal is that a very standard way that it's done for this type of amplifier uh I think for for each self-oscillating amplifier it's it's a gen it's normal uh I'm not exactly sure what what our all our competitors do I do know that purify does a relatively the same as we do um um what Ice Bar and Pascal I think they use more chips like ice power they have their own chips developed and stuff like that um so if there are more topologies to use and and how to uh generate the switching frequency actually I'm not sure how they do it but it is for self-oscillating amplifier it's common to uh okay that we're done by a process so it's almost like an analog digital amplifier it's completely analog yeah and so the input signal is a uh is an analog uh signal of uh like a single-ended analog you always have balanced balanced inputs balanced inputs yeah yeah fully balanced all right so there's actually no there's no uh a to d as such this signal is just driving the whole system exactly yeah it is uh it it is indeed completely analog amplifier and that's always of course a lot of um uh confusion with a lot of people that think class d stands for digital but it's just the next letter in the alphabet that's the only thing literally only the thing of course you have class D uh digital designs with a digital input and everything those exist as well but the majority of Class D amplifiers especially the good ones um are all analog designs interesting so uh is there is another category of digital class D amplifiers then yeah there are yeah yeah I'm not exactly familiar in what offering so of course a lot of Class D chips out there from a lot of brands are close the digital designs uh as well in the module Market where we operate most our analog yeah okay very good very good thanks um on the amplifier techniques well that's um yeah the four different levels of techniques we currently offer of course more and more new designs will be based on the new technologies we have because we yeah we have so much more benefits with that in in terms of sound quality and idle losses um so new designs will not be based on the other Technologies um but still the UCD technology we have a really nice price competitive offerings so still being implemented as well in New Designs um so that's that's really nice uh one more actually one more thing um uh in the past that I encountered across the amplifiers uh that use some capacitors and doctors as an output filter is that uh is that something that you use too well yeah yeah because you have a uh the self oscillating design you need to have the uh the switching frequency filtered out at the end so that's an that's an LC Network basically okay but it's that's already embedded on the on the module itself yeah don't need additional filtering but that's already embedded on the design that's correct yeah uh that switching frequency would be well beyond the audible range as it filtered out for uh it drives too much power into the speaker or what uh no it is a switching frequency usually is around 400 kilowatts with our designs depends a bit on which which technology and which modules uh and that's completely filtered out indeed uh hardly measurable at the end yeah I mean is there a reason to filter it out why filter it out it's uh it definitely needs to be filtered out because you have harmonics and everything um on that switching frequency uh you don't want that on the output because it yeah it produces a lot of noise you don't get the THD figures we get if you don't filter that out um yeah okay so so basically the sub-harmonics of that 400k come back into the audio path uh yeah I do believe so yeah yeah yeah yeah definitely all right so yeah yeah if you have more questions on the amplifier techniques or okay then one more is there any limitations in terms of impedance load of their speakers uh there is always a limit because you don't uh don't want a short circuit I should say in another way is it is it any in any way different to a uh Class A Class A B amplifier uh it is different but uh if you have a well uh well designed and the stability of the amplifier is really important and our designs are really stable so a single ended amplifier can can easily drive a one ohm load will be below that doesn't really benefit uh the overall power that you get because you run into current limiting uh because there is always a limiting current what you can do with the modules of course um but yeah the single amplifier from us each of the Technologies each of the modules can easily do one ohm loads basically yeah they are stable yes okay and then as always curious um it may not be able to answer this one but uh uh what is it that makes a class D amplifier more efficient than a Class A or Class A B amplifier in in general it's it's the same with the switch mode power supplies if you um if you need to amplify the signal and you do that in lower frequencies you will have more higher losses that's generally speaking they're not going to too technical on it so if you modulate that first that same signal on a 400 kilohertz frequency then you have a much higher frequency signal in general to amplify and that can be easily done more efficiently so then your the power fits and everything can can be much smaller and operate much if more more efficient so basically the higher switching frequency you can operate on the efficient more efficient the module will get and that's also with the current trend is of course using genfets for example again feds if you the benefits that you can operate on a much much higher switching frequency so benefiting the overall efficiency of the module the disadvantages of using much higher frequencies that you uh it gets more complex to actually make a really good amplifier So currently there is a trend of course using genfed because of all the benefits but it still leaves you with the challenge to actually develop and design a good sounding amplifier usually a lot of people think okay again fetch is the future you you get automatically a good amplifier with it in terms of heat dissipation yes definitely you can run kilowatt amplifier without any heat sinking and everything like that but actually sounding good is another uh not thing but yeah that it's of course we also recognize the future of these kinds of Technologies and as we are innovating we are always looking in new technologies as well currently no plans on the roadmap yet but of course looking into these Technologies as well for our own our own designs yeah so that uh the thing about the heat sinking and the efficiency are this they're actually saying the same thing that's what it comes down to is heat loss yes yeah Power amplifiers are in generally percentage-wise around 92 93 efficient uh depends on how much power you draw out of it because there's a certain idle current so running the modules in idle without uh an input signal then they are least efficient um but running more and more power out of it they are more efficient and that's a calculation of how much uh Power you put into the system and how much you just dissipate across a speaker coil uh yeah yeah okay so as you as you approach no signal then the efficiency goes to zero basically because nothing happens oh yeah of course because yeah you don't indeed you don't get any power out of your speaker without an input signal so yeah so it goes into heat loss um but but still of course with the class D design that's uh relatively speaking but uh uh yeah the module gets already warm when you turn it on but the nice thing is if you draw full power it doesn't get really that much other so yeah yeah um okay so yeah for a good amplifier you need a good power supply so that's why we develop our own power supplies so we have that under control as well uh and two to of course offer a complete solution for our customers as well power supplies are really crucial uh in the node audio amplifier as well also for sound quality um so yeah that's why we develop our own power supplies and of course we have like you see in the background one of our Encore Mains powered amplifier modules this is the NC 502 MP which is a 2 times 500 watt module complete with power supply and standby power supply so this is basically one of our Encore building blocks which our customers can Implement for a subwoofer a stereo amplifier uh active speakers or using multiple multi-channel is also uh also optional so um that's why we make a power supplies as well foreign part of the triangle is a DSP processes um we we don't have a lot of solutions yet in the DSP uh processing we have a really nice line of plate amplifiers also complete for manufacturers in the DOI market and offer those boards including the DSP board also for oems working on expanding that portfolio in dsps for the nearby future so yeah that's the market which has a lot of demand as well a lot of Manufacturers want to have a One-Stop shop for their Electronics especially for active speakers a lot of Manufacturers are used to making passive speakers so they don't know anything about Electronics so they once yet want to work with a partner that knows what they are doing that can help them out with implementing you can help them out making the most optimized speaker design on the filtering and everything so yeah we with all the technology we have we can supply everything needed for for active speakers all right it's quickly on power supplies uh when talking about power supplies in your case it's always transforming Mains power into a DC voltage yeah exactly yeah yeah we only have AC power supplies uh so Universal Mains uh usually so uh 115 volts so 230 volts so worldwide implementation is no problems we don't have any solutions for 12 volts for our new mobile audio applications uh we have we do get the questions a lot uh if we make something for car car audio but it's such a different Market to compete with as well is really difficult um so yeah we have chosen to uh to not be involved in that market but still if another manufacturer makes a nice power supply working from 12 volts and convert that to the voltages needed for our amplifiers it can still be used for our amplifiers on the DSP stuff what do your customers actually want the DSP to do is it to do some Equalization or some other effects yeah speaker filtering so if you have a three-way design you want of course each uh each channel to be filtered to have the proper filtering for your speaker uh you can do indeed Equalization on the input as well uh you can set up all kinds of different parameters because the amplifier modules connected to the rdsp are equipped with the Same by power supply as well so we have with the Same by biosupply you have of course then buy features which you can Implement in active speakers uh you have automatic signal detection in our DSP processor so we can wake up out of standby when a signal is detected on one of the inputs or automatic input switching on Signal detection everything like that so all those kinds of features can be set up with that as well so that enables our customers to make an active speaker for Studio or for Hi-Fi with a lot of with a lot of features with their already looking for basically with our DSP you can eliminate any preamplifier you can go directly in with any Source digital or analog gas both inputs balance and on balance on both sides so yeah you can run it without without a pre-opifier there's also digital volume control which you can even have an option to control that with an IR remote um okay uh do your engineers feel that adding a DSP on the front of it ruins the whole purity of of a system that operates purely analog signal to analog signal out uh yes and no if you indeed have the intention to use the amplifier for really high-end Hi-Fi we also have the opinion that if you're setting up an HiFi system or high-end Hi-Fi system in your home each part of your system needs to be perfect on its own so um you don't want Equalization basically of course with especially with Drac and stuff like that that's really easy to tune your room because the room is part of your system it's one of those components in your system it's not just the preemplifier the sources the cabling and your amplifiers and speakers your room is part of the one of the parts of your system of course which also creates a lot of distortion in your overall audio picture uh so that's nice features to have direct but it's still Equalization so we we believe as well that the speaker already should sound good that the amplifier should sound good um but the benefits of making an active speaker you can make the speaker itself a much better part of your system because you are limited when you create a speaker with a passive filter um so we see the benefits in using a DSP in an active speaker and then yeah the extra conversions you uh you go through uh going from analog to digital and back again um yeah it's disadvantaged but the advantages of the USB overruled our disadvantages We Believe yeah and just another thing uh the distribution of signals is still predominantly done as an analog signal but pretty much everyone is sourcing their audio from a digital source so does that seem strange to you would there be a trend towards Distributing the signal digitally for our amplifiers uh no not at the moment um because it's completely analog design we would need to do to implement the conversion on it we cannot go directly digitally in the amplifier itself it's always needs an analog input for our topology um so you would need to do the conversion on board makes life easier for the manufacturer but then they also have no choice on how the conversion is being done Our intention is for our OEM manufacturer clientele is whole front end what you put in front of the amplifier so all the pre-amplifier section or any conversion from digital to analog they can choose what they want to implement what kind of chip they want to use or or how advanced they want to have that implemented so yeah they can do it for themselves and we just Supply the uh the PowerHouse itself right okay and so um what your suppliers generally a pcba and somebody builds that into their own housing uh yeah the majority of our uh uh of the markets and customers we Supply our modules we are module uh sub-assembly uh supplier basically so what you see in the background is one of those modules being used in um in subwoofers as well you can Bridge the two channels so you have a kilowatt amplifier um and this module because it has the main power supply it has an output with auxiliary voltages and a five-fold standby line as well so you can power all your auxiliary auxiliary Electronics with it so the whole DSP platform in your subwoofer or in your stereo amplifier or other active speaker designs can be powered off our module um and yeah then you have the analog inputs and Loud figure output on a module so the customer can develop their own front end however they would like to have it with all kinds of different inputs they would like to have right yeah and use our building lockers there as a core of the design yeah got it okay all right um and basically you'll ask why we do it um it's fun audio markets we love it definitely I think I think 80 percent of our all uh Personnel of hypex has uh affiliation with audio is it in Pro is it just musicians is it uh just Hi-Fi lovers and uh like to listen to music uh of course who doesn't like to listen to music you know um as I mentioned music is emotion that's uh we really strongly have the opinion that with music you can um you can establish so much uh in terms of how you feel you know if you have a bad day and you just put on some music and listen to a really good audio system and playing your favorite tracks uh it's it changes your mood instantly basically um we really believe that that is really important and to have the equipment to to uh yeah to reproduce that to establish such emotions um yeah we we feel we uh we do an excellent job in uh in making that possible on the amplifier side at least it's up to our customers to to do it on the loudspeaker side or or all the others but other parts but um yeah now we are really passionate about music in general and um we we just love to do it as you can see in the background is a big part of our team on the on the show in the high-end show in Munich where we also exhibit always each year we always love that show what you see there and uh yeah all the customers we we talk with each year we um we love that yes okay I think that's the universal yeah exactly that's Universal and actually because of our passion for music and passion for uh for for for audio we we also already many years back we started our own high-end Hi-Fi company called mola mola and not a lot of people are aware of that it's uh it's not a well-known brand uh yet we are growing uh but it is a separate company under the hypex holding where we develop complete products from a pre-amplifier to a deck and a phono stage add-on and also a separate deck and phono stage now also on offerings and of course on the amplifier section as well we do some unique stuff hypex is of course the the developer and manufacturer of these products but we use this brand really as also on the power supply section and all the other sections we use it as an innovation platform we can really think out of the box and not look at any budgets at all because it's in high and Brands which you know can have a a big price tag there is a marker for it um and so everything we developed for uh for mola mola can eventually also be implemented in in hyperx products in the future as well so that's a really neat to have have as well such a brand in-house okay so it sounds like we're coming to the end of the presentation here yeah that was my last sheet uh yeah if you have any other additional questions uh one more thing your DIY stuff where do we where did someone buy that from the distributed worldwide yeah we have a reseller Network worldwide with uh mostly web shops but also uh physical shops we have our own web shop as well dedicated website neoiclausd.com is our own DOI website where we offer our DOI products um they're on the amplifier side it's also completely separated we have a separate amplifier modules for the DUI market and separate amplifiers for the OEM Market um and the DUI Market cannot buy those OEM parts and we really uh have a strong feeling in keeping that separated because when a manufacturer customer uses one of our OEM amplifier modules and does a lot of developments on making a really nice finished product with that module and then a DUI customer can buy the same amplifier as well and make their own um yeah that we don't think that's really a part of the thing so that's why on the amplifier side we keep that completely strictly separated power supplies it's it's equal it's uh it's basically yeah you need a power supply to to run the amplifier so that's uh we don't see that as a as a main important part of the chassis or the designs so that's basically the similar uh what we offer the blade amplifiers can be used for DIY customers as well to make their own active speakers uh their system yeah all right so I think uh we'll put some links Down Below in the description for everybody to follow up if they want more information or would like to order some parts for themselves but uh Nails I really appreciate you joining us today it was fantastic and uh give you gave you some good uh gave us some good q a on that on the amplifiers and a bit bit more elucidating I think that we learned a little bit today so I hope everybody enjoyed that so uh yeah encourage everybody like subscribe and share this video out to anybody who thinks interested so thanks everybody we'll see you next time thank you
2023-09-04 12:56