Zed Audio Draconia Instruction & Installation Manual - page 24
Draconia
reece, the ancient land where the modern day Olympics was born and from where
G
Alexander the great ruled a vast empire for 33 years. 300 years before Alexander
was born, a guy named Draco, instituted a code of laws so harsh that they became known
as Draconian laws. Zed Audio also has a law, it is called
Draconia and this new amplifier
sets a new standard in multi-channel amplification.
Draconia is a 4 channel amplifier of
modest power but let this not fool you. With pre-amplifier features that are somewhat
unique this puppy can do some cool things.
Power supplies of course follow the same theme as all Zed amplifiers. Eight ultra high
current Mosfets provide the switching power in the supply and there is 22,000mfd of input
capacitance. The secondary side has 18,800mfd of capacitance and supplied by two ultra
fast 20 amp recovery diodes. Once again the pre-amplifiers have their own fully isolated
power supply which completely eliminates any chance of ground loops.
The power amplifiers are identical to those used in
Gladius except of course there are
four of them. Turn and off cycles are controlled via optically isolated control circuits.
The pre-amplifiers are what sets
Draconia apart from other four channel amplifiers. Whilst
we could have put in multitudes of switches and controls just for the sake of having lots of
“toys” on the front panel, we opted for a system which allows maximum flexibility without
being overly complex.
Channels 1 and 2 may be run in either FLAT, HIGH PASS or LOW PASS generated from
channels 3 and 4. A little more about this LOW PASS function in a moment. The HP
crossover is variable from 46Hz to 3.5KHz. In the “flat” position (On all four channels) all
pre-amplifier functions are bypassed for the purest signal path
Channels 3 and 4 are more flexible. When the SELECTOR switch is in the FLAT position
then all crossover/eq functions are bypassed. When in the HP position then the high pass
crossover functions as usual. Now when moved to the LP position a whole new ball game
begins. The Low pass crossover with it’s bass boost control are put into circuit, but along
with this comes the MODE switch. What the MODE switch does is allow the user some
further options. When in the LP position channels 3 and 4 function in low pass mode and
this low pass signal is also routed to the SELECTOR switch on channels 1 and 2 (see
above note). So
Draconia can then be run with all channels in low pass and all running off
inputs 3 and 4. The channels may be bridged or run as stereo pairs.
When set to the BP position, the LOW and HIGH PASS crossovers are in cascade and
channels 3 and 4 are in bandpass mode to be used as part of a tri-amplified system.
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