Special Design Features; Powerful Hardware; Software Updatable - PROCEED Audio Video Preamplifier Manual

Special Design Features

Congratulations on your purchase of the Proceed Audio Video Preamplifier (AVP).
We have gone to great lengths to ensure that the AVP remains "future-proof" even
in these times of change. As a result, you will be able to enjoy the outstanding
performance of the Audio Video Preamplifier for many years. In case you are in-
terested in technical details, what follows is a brief outline of some of the key
technologies in your new product.
The AVP shares the same type of powerful DSP engine used in the Proceed Digi-

powerful hardware

tal Surround Decoder, employing multiple Motorola 56303 DSP chips in a Madri-
gal-designed operating system. This DSP engine has sufficient power to handle
the decoding requirements of Dolby Digital, DTS, MPEG2, HDCD, THX, and oth-
ers. In addition, its power and flexibility provide for future updates to handle as-
yet-undefined digital audio standards that may be adopted in the future, such as
the 24 bit/96 kHz high quality audio disc proposal for a DVD-audio (only) disc.
If a new, dedicated DVD-for-audio format is defined, it will almost certainly use
significantly more "bandwidth" than today's digital audio standards—after all, pro-
viding more information per second is the basis for the improvement in quality .
Fortunately, the AVP includes a special, Madrigal-designed Digital Interface Re-
ceiver (DIR) that can receive digital information even faster than a dedicated DVD
could send it, while at the same time rejecting timing errors called "jitter" in the
digital signal. Thus, this Madrigal DIR protects the AVP from premature obsoles-
cence (by allowing it to receive as yet undefined signals of up to 12 Mbits/sec),
while improving the sound quality of every digital source connected to the prod-
uct (by rejecting incoming jitter).
The AVP includes eight channels of digital to analog conversion, all of which can
process and convert 96 kHz information. In addition, all volume controls within
the AVP are implemented in the analog domain, allowing the DACs to run at their
maximum resolution at all times. (This approach stands in contrast to digital vol-
ume controls, which operate by requiring the converters to operate at less than
their maximum capabilities. After all, what would be the point of having 24 bit/96
kHz music formats if you end up throwing away much of the improvement in a
digital volume control?)

software updatable

All the software that the AVP uses is stored in special "flash" memory that can
easily be updated as improvements are made available. These improvements can
affect both operational and performance enhancements.
With a simple software download a short time after such a standard is an-
nounced, your Audio Video Preamplifier would be able to both decode and play
back the new audio standard, and flip back and forth between the different ver-
sions of the music on the disc for comparison purposes. For example. since the
AVP was originally introduced, we have added DTS decoding, MPEG audio de-
coding and 8-channel support, all available to pre-existing units by simple soft-
ware downloads.
The Audio Video Preamplifier is designed to avoid the premature obsolescence
that will be the hallmark of far too many products sold in these changing times.
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