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LampizatOr- Amber-3 Manual
DIGITAL INPUTS
There are three data types that our DAC can read internally: biphase, i2s and USB.
The bi-phase can come in many forms, but the most common are:
S/PDIF (Sony/Philips data inter face) by means of single ended square wave of
amplitude around 0,5 V pp
AES/EBU - the same as S/PDIF but the signal is a mirrored (balanced) pair of square
waves around 2,5 V pp (max. 5 V pp)
TTL - just as S/PDIF but 5 V pp
TOSLINK - a fiber optic transmission of S/PDIF producing at the DAC the 5 V TTL
electrical signal.
RS422 - it is practically the same as AES/EBU
The i2S
is the same as biphase but separated into 4 signals - each carrying only one
type of information. Biphase encodes 4 groups of informations in one signal stream.
Specifically they are: System Clock, Bit Clock, Left/Right Clock and Data. We can
install these four in any type of connector, because there is no standard. Most
customers use RJ45 LAN socket or simply four RCA sockets just like in TV RGB.
The TOSLINK connection
Is toslink bad or not ? That is the question. Like everything in life - it can be bad or it can
be good.
By using own experiments and oscilloscope observations we concluded, that Toslink is not
bad and not inferior to RCA SPDIF if implemented properly. Toslink is EXTREMELY
demanding about the power supply quality. That’s why we build for toslink separate
dedicated power supply and with this supply the response is instantaneous and there is no
deformation of square wave. Usually Toslink ports are installed in cheap low end gear and
the power supply to Toslink is completely neglected. Not in LampizatOr DAC. If you have
Toslink in your DAC you can be sure it will sound good and not degrade the sound. Of
course providing that the transmitter part of the link is at least semi decent.
NOTE: All Apple products which have headphone output (iMac, MacBook, Power MAC,
MAC-Mini, iPhone, iPad, iPod) - have a secret toslink transmitter hidden inside that port.
Just buy the special cable - Toslink Minijack and when placed in the headphone output of
an Apple product - will emit light with SPDIF in it. That is a very good way of using MAC
computers as transports.
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