Owner`s manual

Special Design Features

Congratulations on your purchase of the Nº360 Digital Audio Proces-

sor. The Madrigal design team is confident you will enjoy the outstand-

ing performance of the Nº360 for many years. In case you are inter-

ested in technical details, what follows is a brief outline of some of the

key technologies in your new processor.

“24/96” capability

& HDCD

In addition to the common 16 bit at either 44.1 and 48 kHz sampling

rates used by digital sources such as CD and DAT, your Nº360 also sup-

ports the two channel 24-bit/96 kHz signal that was defined as part of

the DVD-Video standard (and which will certainly be included as part

of a larger DVD-Audio standard when the industry agrees to such a

thing). As of the writing of this manual, such “24/96” material is just

beginning to become available, and we expect availability to grow

quickly over time.

In addition to true 24-bit capability, the Nº360 also incorporates High

Definition Compatible Digital

decoding to take full advantage of the

increased resolution available from HDCD-encoded 16-bit CDs. The

High Definition Compatible Digital

format retains much of the reso-

lution inherent in professional twenty bit recordings, by encoding this

information more efficiently within the sixteen bit space available

within the Compact Disc format.

Guarding against

obsolescence

There are many promising technologies on the horizon, many or all of

which may be included as part of a DVD-Audio disc standard. These

technologies differ in many significant details, but they all promise

revolutionary improvements in sonic quality. While such a DVD-Audio

standard has not gotten past the draft form (as of the writing of this

manual), we have gone to great lengths to design the Nº360 to be able

to accommodate new standards as they are introduced.

For example, we designed our own “digital interface receiver” that can

be reprogrammed in software to receive and sort out many different

types of digital transmissions. This is critically important, since the fin-

est digital processor in the world is of little use if it cannot receive the

desired signal in the first place.

Similarly, we have implemented both digital decoding and filtering in

powerful, general-purpose Sharc DSP chips, rather than relying on

purpose-designed chips that may well be obsolete as soon as a new for-

mat is introduced. These Sharc chips can perform a wide range of

functions, including many that are not yet defined, simply by loading