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dCS Puccini Clock

I had yesterday the oportunity to hear for first time the Puccini clock.

I must admit that I was a little sceptical. The system consisted of:

Howland preamp HP-200 SE
Howland amp RADIA SE
Avalon Indra
Transparent power cleaner / station ?
I can't tell which cables

Well the effect is quite amazing and you can easily recognize it in a blind hearing. If I have to describe it I would say, you become aware of the hall / the space in which the recording has been done. The difference is very noticeable when you switch the clock off, suddenly the music sounds dryer, shorter and the space all around the whole music desapears.

I heard:
Luiz Bonfa plays and sing Bossa Nova (Verve)
Bruckner 4th by Jaap van Zweden (bad SACD & interpretation)
Bruckner 4th by Günter Wand (the last recording)
Ports of Call by Eiji Oue (Ref. Rec. bravo Prof. Johnson you are a great sound engeneer!)

One of these days I will take it home and have a test on my system ... and will make some blind hearing with my wife ;-)

I will report then about the experience.
clavil
clavil OP
254 posts
 
a british dCS dealer reports big improvements by using MIT cables between the Clock and the Puccini.

Had somebody a similar experience?
elberoth2's avatar
elberoth2
1,223 posts
 
I have been playing with the U-Clock for the past week, but unfortunately, did not hear the difference other ppl reported. The sound may be a bit more smooth and palpable, but differences are very small at best. To give you a proper perspective - I got a much bigger efect from swapping power cords.

I tested the dCS U-Clock as supplied by my dealer - with $2000 Shunyata Anaconda Helix VX PS and Stereovox VX2 BNC-BNC digital cable.

So if the U-Clock was to be judged purely as a clock, its value for money at +$6000 with the supplied cabling has to be regarded as poor. However, the U-Clock has an additional feature - USB->S/PDIF (on RCA) converter, which IMO is exceptional.

It allows to connect a computer through USB out to the Puccini (although due to a certain "soon to be fixed" bug in Puccini software, when in external source mode, Puccini cannot sync to the U-Clock - which, ironicly, is when it needs the external colck THE MOST).

More on the quality of PC-Audio through the U-Clock later. So stay tuned.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,189 posts
 
I've heard the Puccini.

It sounded great.

I would expect the clock to be pretty darn excellent, about as good as it gets already for that price though.

I don't doubt the external clock is even better, but I wonder what it is exactly that makes it better? Is it just a better clock for even lower jitter or is there more to it than that?
usarmyvet91
83 posts
 
You would think for 6,000 you would here an improvement in sound of the puccini. Could you use an esotric clock with the puccini or does it have to be the u-clock?
elberoth2's avatar
elberoth2
1,223 posts
 
You can use whatever clock you want, as long it supports 44.1k rate. You can get a Puccini U-Clock, the older dCS Verona, one of the Esoteric offerings or even one of the studio clocks available, like the Apogee BigBen (~$1000 from ebay).

Effectivnes of using external clocks with single box CD players has always been questionable. I remember coments posted by another user on this forum a while back - he connected uber-expensive Esoteric Rubidium (Rb) clock to his Esoteric X-1 single box unit and also did not notice much of a difference.
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