The Technics Digital Link interface was introduced by
Panasonic
is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturer, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Kadoma, Japan. It was founded in 1918 as in Fukushima-ku, Osaka, Fukushima by Kōnosuke Matsushita. The company was incorporated in 1935 and renamed and c ...
at the
Internationale Funkausstellung 2014 in Berlin as an integral part of the new "R1 Reference Class" of audio components. At the same time, Panasonic relaunched the Technics brand itself.
At the moment, only two devices are announced with this interface, the SE-R1 stereo power amplifier and the SU-R1 network audio control player/preamp.
Design
As can be seen on the product images,
the Technics Digital Link uses some kind of
RJ45-styled connector and therefore most likely
twisted pair
Twisted pair cabling is a type of communications cable in which two conductors of a single circuit are twisted together for the purposes of improving electromagnetic compatibility. Compared to a single conductor or an untwisted balanced ...
cables with an unknown set of pairs.
The interface transmits digital audio data at a sample frequency of 192 kbit/s with 32-bit resolution together with some control data. The so called "VR control data" is used to adjust the output volume inside the power amp rather than in the pre-amplifier, which would be the case in analogue setups.
The left and right channels of digital audio are transmitted on separate digital links and cables which seems very unusual compared to S/PDIF, for example. If
Cat.3 unshielded twisted pair cable will be used to connect the components, the cable itself would be suitable for bandwidths up to 16 MHz.
The connectors are clearly labeled as "IN" and "OUT",
so the connections between the audio components will most likely be unidirectional point-to-point connections.
References
External links
;official site
Technics Hi-Fi Audio
{{Panasonic
Digital audio