10.15.2007 — There's a new Cat5-based audio solution in town, and its backers hope to make it an industry-wide standard.

The technology, Digi5, is a product of five companies within Nortek's Linear Home Technology Group: Elan (and sub-brand Aton), Linear, Niles, SpeakerCraft and Xantech.

Digi5 marks the most ambitious collaborative effort among the Linear companies, which generally have recognized synergies through more conventional measures, such as cross-marketing products and sharing manufacturing facilities.

All five companies have plans to develop products based on the platform, and it matters little that the products may compete with each other.

"If you look at who our competition is, it's not Elan or Niles," says Steve Hayes, director of sales for SpeakerCraft.

"It's all the discretionary-fund sucks [for example, hot tubs and granite countertops]. If we as tiny players don't figure out how to play together, we will be consumed."

Digi5 Technology

Like other Cat5-based multiroom audio systems on the market, Digi5 delivers audio and power from a central hub to amplified keypads via Cat5 Cable (with a return path for control).

The amplified keypads power speakers are connected via traditional speaker wire.

The big difference between Digi5 and some of the other Cat5 technologies is the digital architecture of Digi5.

"The technology's digital end-to-end capability ensures the audio signal is accurate regardless of wire run length with no analog frequency response issues, drive limitations or noise pickup," says Bob Farinelli, CEO of Elan and a key technology driver for Digi5.

Farinelli boasts that the product sounds better because of the digital signal processor (DSP) built into the amplifier chip, enabling bass, treble, loudness and balance controls.

"These adjustments are available on a room-by-room basis that allows the sound to be individually tailored to the type of speakers, room acoustics and listening preferences," Farinelli says.

In addition, according to Farinelli, Digi5 offers more power -- 30 watts per channel RMS at 8 Ohms -- than conventional keypad amplifiers for two reasons:
1) Digi5 uses digital amps, which boast 85 percent efficiency, as opposed to Class A/B analog amps that are on average only 45 percent efficient, and
2) Digi5 uses four wires for power and ground to achieve more power than either analog or digital amplified keypad systems that only use two wires for power and ground.

"When installed on an equal length of Cat5, Digi5 provides nearly four times the power of a conventional Class A/B product with more total SPL, tighter sounding bass and more headroom before clipping," Farinelli says.

It was a tall order, he adds, saying that one challenge was "stuffing five pounds of electronics into a single-gang keypad. We successfully achieved a balance between audio performance, single-gang package size, heat dissipation, installer-friendly connector options and a full-featured, user-friendly keypad."

Digi5 accommodates four zones (expandable to 28) and four sources.