The smallest Digital Amplifier with the biggest Hi-Fi sound

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The smallest Digital Amplifier with the biggest Hi-Fi sound Only a big amplifier inside a big Hi-Fi can possibly equal big sound, right? Wrong. What if we could fit all that amplifier power into a tiny chip, and give you even bigger sound than before…

The engineering story

Inspiration

Our sound engineers simply would not accept that a super-sized sound experience had to come from a super-sized Hi-Fi.

Their dream was to create an amplifier small enough to fit into a credit card holder, with no need for big heat syncs. And, in the process, preserve the process of digital sound.

A bit like a giant tiger and a tiny kitten making the same huge roaring sound…

Creation

Fitting a big old amplifier into a tiny chip was no mean feat. But it worked. The world’s first S-Master Digital Amplifier was born.

Unique to Sony, the S-Master technology makes sure a signal stays digital all the way around a Hi-Fi system until it hits the speaker. This means it stays pure, is free from distortion and delivers exceptional sound clarity.
S-Master Digital Amplifier uses three clever technology elements to make this happen:

• Complimentary Pulse Length Modulation (C-PLM) converts the digital signal input to a sequence of power pulses
• Clean Data Cycle eliminates the jitter included in the input
• S-TACT eliminates any jitter generated from the power pulse

Well, at least that’s what Eric Kingdon, our Technical
Marketing Manager, told us.

Demonstration

The S-Master Digital Amplifier not only faithfully reproduces the high quality audio of digital media such as CD, DVD and Blu-ray Disc™, it also reduces the need for unnecessarily expensive parts.

So it’s simplified the design and build process for the Hi-Fi range - enabling us to offer exceptional audio quality, at a much lower cost.

So when Eric was asked at the European Imaging and Sound Association Awards, ‘What are the next steps for Sony in terms of miniaturisation?’ He simply took out the Walkman® X Series from his shirt pocket to prove that big sound can now come from the tiniest of audio devices.