Table of Contents
Advertisement
Dear customer,
Thank you for buying the Apex dBZ-48d. The dBZ-48d is a professional quality, DSP-equipped 2-into-4 stereo zone
mixer designed to manage audio distribution and time alignment in a variety of sound reinforcement applications
including live PA and installed sound systems.
Product highlights
• Two stereo input channels
• Four stereo output channels
• Electronically-balanced inputs
• High-quality, servo-balanced output stages, capable of driving
long cables
• Stereo/mono switch on each input and output channel, with
LED indication
• Mute button on each input and output channel, with LED
indication
• LED signal metering for L & R on each input and output channel
• Integral DSP (Digital Signal Processing) section, providing:
• Adjustable delay for each output channel, 0 – 1 second
• Hi- and lo-pass filters in each output channel
• Polarity (phase) switching for output channel
• Delay can be specified in units of ms, distance or
video/film frames
• Temperature compensation for delay calculations (°F/°C)
• 8 presets for storing all DSP settings
• DSP by-pass for each output channel
• Simple menu system with LCD display
• Rugged all–metal chassis
• Professional quality XLR connectors throughout
• 1U 19" rack-mounting unit
Foreword
The Apex dBZ-48d can be used in any situation where one
or two stereo audio signals need to be routed and mixed at
different levels to up to four destinations.
Common areas of application are as zoners/distribution
amplifiers in installed audio situations, as time alignment
devices for sound reinforcement systems, and to provide audio/
video synchronisation.
When used as a zoner, any of the four outputs may receive
either of the two inputs at any level, or a mix of them.
Mono/stereo switching on both the inputs and the outputs
makes matching the unit to a variety of sources and speaker
systems simple. Filtering can be applied to individual outputs to
tailor the signal to suit the acoustics of the area being driven.
An alternative installed sound application is to use the unit as a
distribution amplifier (DA), to drive rows of loudspeakers in an
auditorium. It is common practice to drive speakers further from
the stage at a higher level, and to introduce delays to time-align
the speaker rows accurately.
When used with a sound reinforcement system, the dBZ-48d
can be used as a simple electronic crossover. The filters may
be set to configure any two output channels as a two-band
crossover; two pairs of outputs may be set differently to suit
different speaker systems.
Another live sound application is to use the dBZ-48d to
derive the feeds for a system's delay towers; time delays
can be accurately added to each output channel, calculated
automatically from distance and temperature data.
The dBZ-48d is also extremely useful in providing finely-
adjustable audio delays to enable accurate audio/video
synchronisation at live events. Video processing generally
introduces signal delays in discrete numbers of video frames;
the dBZ-48d's delays can be adjusted in frames to simplify this
process.
Introduction
Advertisement
Table of Contents
