Feature Story:
NAV-TV Corp. says it is first to market with an aftermarket A2B interface for Ford and Lincoln vehicles with Bang & Olufsen, Revel and Revel Ultima factory systems.
These systems use an A2B digital audio bus to deliver high fidelity audio.But the systems are complex, supporting multiple microphone arrays in order to provide voice recognition, active noise cancellation and in-car communications.
NAV-TV said it is able to integrate with these systems using its new ZEN-A2B interface that replaces the factory amplifier. Installers may then seamlessly add aftermarket amplifiers for “audiophile quality sound” without losing factory features.
NAV-TV said, “A2B is a high bandwidth (50 Mbps) digital bus capable of transferring audio and control data with clock and power using a single, 2-wire, unshielded, twisted pair cable over distances up to 32 feet between devices.” Because of its complexity, vehicles using A2B “have been difficult to integrate with, leading to poor sound quality, reoccurring come backs and customer dissatisfaction.”
The ZEN-A2B produces a flat audio signal from the factory system without any factory time delay or equalization, eliminating the need for summing devices, or DSP. Volume, Fade, Balance and Bass/Treble tone controls are retained through the factory radio and echo cancellation for the factory Bluetooth hands-free system is supported.
NAV-TV said, “Traditional audio integration devices convert a high level output from the factory radio or amplifier to low level, or manipulate a fixed preamp level audio signal. However, this method relies on the factory radio or amplifier to perform the digital to analog conversion (D/A) and may lead to less than ideal sound quality. Unlike traditional devices, the ZEN-A2B extracts the audio directly from the A2B digital audio stream and performs the D/A conversion internally. Utilizing a 128 bit floating point DSP and 384 kHz 32 bit DAC, the ZEN-A2B produces a 12 channel analog output with an extremely low noise floor and a S/N Ratio of 114dB.”
The ZEN-A2B includes a variable TOSlink digital output for use with other aftermarket DSPs. The ZEN-A2B is also configurable through dip switch settings.
The product ships May 15. For information contact (866) 477-3336 (USA and Canada) or +1(561) 955-9770 (International), or email [email protected] (domestic) or [email protected] (Europe).
Always cool to see new systems cracked and able to be integrated with! Things like this and Mobridge are 100% the way to go when available.