As far back as 1988, Audio Design Associates had been eying the home theater market. At the time, Dolby Pro Logic surround sound decoding had just come out and all of us who were deeply involved in residential entertainment systems, were blown away by the movie like sound. The level of hollywood-like realism that could be brought into the home, had just taken a huge step up.
While Pro Logic decoding was still in its infancy, light-years prior to Lucasfilm's THX release for the home, ADA's owner and Chief Design Engineer, Albert G. Langella, realized that with this new surround format now out, people would need as many as six channels of amplification to power the home theater system. Instead of using three ADA stereo power amplifiers, Albert embarked on what would be, the first of dozens of products that ADA offers for the home theater enthusiast, the MPA-6 Multi-Channel Power Amplifier. The MPA-6 was unique in its design by 1988 standards, as it contained in a single fan-cooled chassis, six independent channels of amplification. Five identical channels were for the front left, right, center: rear left and right channels. A sixth channel was dedicated for the subwoofer with extra power for the demanding bass. The MPA-6 also had a parametric bass EQ built directly into the amps front panel. At the time of the MPA-6's introduction, there were no other multi-channel surround sound amplifiers available to consumers, making ADA one of the true pioneers of home theater sound.
Naturally, once you have designed and built a radically new amplifier for home theater, you test it using the best decoders out there. The results of the 1989 tests proved that these decoders were all lacking the clarity required for musical playback. While it was never ADA's intention to introduce a surround sound decoder, the lack of a high-end audiophile decoder sent Albert into the design of ADA's first Dolby Pro Logic preamp, the SSD-66. Introduced in 1990, the SSD-66 is still considered to be one of the best sounding Dolby Pro Logic decoders available. It is still offered as part of ADA's home theater product mix, and since its introduction over seven years ago, has been upgraded with new modes through software upgrades, as well as hardware upgrades for THX, Dolby Digital (AC-3), as well as DTS decoding. The rest is now history.
