Digital clock - any recommendations?

@folkfreak

riddle me this then. Why are the suppliers of external clocks primarily suppliers to recording studios? Presumably the studios can afford the clock impervious DACs of which you speak so highly yet they somehow seem to think it worth investing in master clocks?

To quote someone else:

This is so all digital processing, DAC’s, ADC’s all sample at exactly the same time and all data words...are generated/read at the exact same time.
When this was not done the drift in each clock of every ’device’ would make them all different in frequency (very slightly) and timing.

What a studio needs and what a residential setup needs are totally different. 24Bit provides 0 benefit for consumers, but is needed for studios so they can gain recordings without increasing the noise floor to audible levels.

We are not talking about audio production, we are talking about audio reproduction, specifically reducing jitter from the source to the DAC by using external clocks. Any good DAC will reclock internally, so unless you have so much jitter that your DAC is losing lock, there is no need for an external clock on a good DAC, because it would make no difference, the only jitter from a good DAC is internal.

@mzkmxcv you are also aware that the Esoteric and DCS systems we are discussing are all multi box systems with seperate transports, upsamplers, DACs and so on. Hence the focus on ensuring a consistent master clock between them?

I have no opinion on the effect this would have on a one box system but in the case of multi box systems the benefit of both consistent word clocking at sample rates (ie multiples of 44.1 or 48) and a superior master clock (ie 10 MHz) is obviously audible, st least in my system (DCS Vivaldi based)

Did not know the Esoteric was multi-box (I know the DCS is; I still see no reason to have an external upsampler).

Still, I believe OP is asking for a reclocker and not actually a master word clock.

I know that Marantz has a clock input, but unless the source also has one, then it cannot be used. Even if so, the internal jitter from the Marantz would still exist.

It would make much more sense to instead buy a $250-$2000 DAC that reclocks internally, and simply use the digital out from the Marantz and plug whatever other sources into the DAC as well, instead of into the Marantz.

Let’s stick with what the OP asks shall we

He wants to use his Marantz SACD player hence an external DAC is a non starter (as there’s no facility to export DSD).

Marantz provide for a 75ohm BNC master world clock input but provide no data on the stability of the internal clock.

It therefore follows that adding an external clock could improve the sound if any of the following apply
1. The external clock is itself more stable than the one in the Marantz
2. The electrical environment in a stand alone clock is more stable than that in the all in one Marantz (btw this is dCS’ argument for a stand alone clock rather than slaving to the one in the Transport)

As even modestly priced clocks as suggested to the OP probably satisfy both 1 and 2 I’d suggest they give it a try,

This review gives a good description of what to listen for when adding a master clock to a one box system
http://highfidelity.pl/@main-815&lang=en

@folkfreak

OP has now stated whether he uses SACD or not, but good point.

I would argue though that regular Audio CD through an SMSL SU-8 or similar would sound be better than even a $10,000 master clock hooked up to that Marantz. Granted, Stereophile measurements show it to be pretty good, except Filter 2.