How can I tell if I need a better clock for my DAC?

@melm — thanks for your advice. I tried ripping to hard drive, but could not hear any improvement. I may have to go with your higher cost option — mind sharing which DAC you bought?

My DAC is an LKS MH-DA004. There’s a thread about this DAC on this forum. Owning a Chinese DAC is a bit of an adventure, but worth it IMO. I believe there are other Chinese DACs out there for less money that also offer extraordinary value. It’s definitely the road less traveled though.

As for ripping CDs and getting better SQ, I think my experience is shared by many others. Your CDP has a severe limitation in that it does not support asynchronous USB, usually evidenced by a USB "b" port . See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBLto-DlGJo You might also look here and in the PC Audio forum for advice in getting improved SQ from ripping.

Seems like even a dCs dac gets better with a better clock. Better clocks and cleaner power can probably help almost any dac.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/dcs-puccini-clock

@headphonedreams and @melm — thanks for your posts — it sounds like my CXU could benefit from a reclocker; now I need to decide if the new clock will make more noticeable improvement than a better CDP or DAC... or MCP decoder, or whatever. Will the audio solution ever make itself known?

@cheeg,

Installing a better clock in your CXU would likely be cost prohibitive. Also, there's no telling if the rest of the CXU circuitry would reveal what a new clock would offer.  If you want better digital performance then you get from the CXU, better to sell it and start over.  Or you can begin by adding a separate DAC and using the CXU as a CD front end.