Zed Audio Draconia Instruction & Installation Manual - page 19
Gladius
and
The Deuce
hat a combination these two are.
Gladius,(which is Latin for sword) was the famous
W
Roman short sword used by the Romans. Between 18 and 27 inches (455 to
685mm) in length and made from hardened steel attached to a wooden handle it was a
deadly weapon in the hands of a soldier. The design of the short sword was copied from
the Iberian Celts. Roman gladiators were also specialists in the use of this weapon. Our
version of the Gladius is equally as deadly in the hands of a good installer. Somewhat
shorter than the sword but of course a lot heavier. At 75w/ch it packs a punch which
belies it’s modest power rating.
he deck of cards originally came from China and entered the Western world in the
T
13th century. Many forms of cards exist but all have the same number in each suit
and all have a deuce. Thirteen cards in each suit, the second being the 2 or deuce.
The
Deuce from Zed signifies our second amplifier in the line up which is a two channel
amplifier of powerful proportions. Whilst not a monster power house, at 400w/ch @ 2
ohms it will certainly do justice to any system in which it is installed.
As in
Megalith, these two amplifiers have all the same power supply technology but of
course on a smaller scale.
Gladius employs 6 high current Mosfets in the power supply
together with 8,800 mfd of capacitance whilst
The Deuce has 8 ultra high current Mosfets
with 22,000 mfd. Each Mosfet in
Gladius is limited to a maximum current of 9 amps and
in
The Deuce to 18 amps. The same extensive protection system as used in Megalith is
used in these two babies. The secondary side of
Gladius has fast recovery diodes
delivering the rectified AC to a bank of capacitors totaling 8,800 mfd.
The Deuce has
18,800 mfd worth of capacitance.
Both
Gladius and The Deuce use the same topology in their amplifier circuits. Fully
complementary from input to output, they use temperature compensated constant current
sources to drive the differential input transistors. This ensures that with varying
temperature the DC conditions within the amplifier are kept constant. The inputs are fully
balanced, using our Differential Drive circuit, which allows us to float the pre-amplifier
100% from ground. Noise is thus a thing of the past. The circuits employ substantial
amounts of local feedback which allows us to use very little global feedback. Low THD
was not our goal, rather sound quality. The output stages use high frequency Bipolar
output transistors. These have an Ft of 20MHz and are very linear with respect to gain.
Gladius has four, 100 watt devices per channel whilst The Deuce has ten,100 watt
devices per channel. Zed has always been a strong proponent of having output stages
vastly over rated. The reliability of the amplifier is improved when output devices are run
at fractions of their capability.
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