I'm sure that this has come up before, but I've searched and can't find the relevant thread.

Does anyone know of any car amplifiers that have digital inputs? I've searched the web and can't find anyone making them. It strikes me as odd that the car audio market has not embraced digital interconnects given the serious difficulties encountered with ground loops and interference when using remotely mounted amplifiers.

I'd certainly be looking at getting an S/PDIF output board for my empeg if I could only find a suitable amp.

Paul

Blaupunkt had one back in the early '90s; sometimes they show up on eBay.de.

i asked the same thing a while back. Here's the thread. Still haven't decided on an amp, but it's gotta happen soon.

Thanks. Have you actually found any amps with digital inputs? Those Blaupunkt amps all have analogue inputs. Wierd. I'm sure I've seen headunits with S/PDIF out.

nope. i haven't found any digital input amps. Though i'm SURE i've seen them mentioned somewhere... i thought on this board.

I looked too after reading your thread and couldn't find any either.

Hi,
here's the beast I'm talking about; this was the whole system as it was on sale in shops in 1993. Click on the amp's pic and you can read that it's digital. It had 3 inputs; one for the disc changer, one for the tuner and one for?? Can't remember. The amp has also an rs232; but for what? Maybe you could ask the owner some questions?

Gretings!

Did you forget to link?

these guys produce pure digital amps.

Great! But can you actually buy them in Europe/US?

Ever consider bolting down a home theater amp and giving it a converted power input? you could have 5.1 and everything!

I've seen a number of head units with digital outputs but it's only designed to carry the signal near the amp, where it goes into another box to be converted at the last minute. I've seen a lot of stereos and browsed a lot of magazines over the years and never seen a car amp with an SPDIF or toslink style input. However with so many head units having built in DVD players and such these days, it's only a matter of time. Not that it helps you out now...

Yep, of course I forgot to link... sorry guys!

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2425178192&category=38778

Unfortunately on the pic you can't see the digital inputs, but I think they're TOSLink connectors (I just can't separate all these different types of connectors, sorry)