Audio Signal Accessories

Line Drivers & Crossovers

A line driver is an electronic amplifier circuit designed for driving a load such as a transmission line. The amplifier’s output impedance may be matched to the characteristic impedance of the transmission line.

In analog audio, a line driver is typically used to drive line-level analog signal outputs, for example to connect a stereo music player to an amplified speaker system.

When you have long wire runs to the back of a large vehicle, your signal strength may weaken before it reaches the amplifier or be clouded by noise interference. By using a line driver/crossover, you can rise the signal for better sound quality, and a noise free signal.

A standard head unit, even an after market can still produce a weak signal. Signal loss can be caused by multiple factors including weak head unit output, using mutliple devices and other factors. By placing the line driver between your head unit and amplifier, you can increase the signal as well as adjust accordingly.

Remember, boosting the signal is pointless if the equipment it is being received by can not handle that input. Be sure to research all of your equipment capabilities to ensure optimal system function.

Digital Signal Processor (DSP)

A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor chip, with its architecture optimized for the operational needs of digital signal processing. DSPs are fabricated on MOS integrated circuit chips.

They are widely used in audio signal processing, telecommunications, digital image processing, radar, sonar and speech recognition systems, and in common consumer electronic devices such as mobile phones, disk drives and high-definition television (HDTV) products.

The goal of a DSP is usually to measure, filter or compress continuous real-world analog signals. Most general-purpose microprocessors can also execute digital signal processing algorithms successfully, but may not be able to keep up with such processing continuously in real-time. Also, dedicated DSPs usually have better power efficiency, thus they are more suitable in portable devices such as mobile phones because of power consumption constraints. DSPs often use special memory architectures that are able to fetch multiple data or instructions at the same time. DSPs often also implement data compression technology, with the discrete cosine transform (DCT) in particular being a widely used compression technology in DSPs.