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Digital clock - any recommendations?

Recently heard an Esoteric setup with and without a digital external clock and the difference was not subtle.  I have a marantz sa11 s2.  Any recommendations?
tzh21y
mzkmxcv
777 posts
 
How much are you willing to spend?

Any excellent DAC will not benefit from an external clock. The good ones, like the Benchmark DAC3 reclock S/PDIF themselves, so the only jitter is internal.

Why buy a $700 reclocker when you can get $700 or cheaper DAC with external jitter reduction?

For instance, the Schiit Modi 2 showed improvement when the Empirical Audio $700 reclocker was added, but pretty much no difference when used with the Topping DX7s ($500 DAC+headphone amp).

Going digital out of your Marantz to say the SMSL SU-8 would give you similar results to using an external reclocker, in that the jitter from both would be well below audible levels.
folkfreak's avatar
folkfreak
1,349 posts
 
Any excellent DAC will not benefit from an external clock.

Did you not read the OP? Presumably Esoteric make good DACs with good clocks? dCS also have an adequate reputation yet my Vivaldi stack improved significantly with the addition of the Mutec 10MHz clock.

Besides the performance of the clock having a separate and dedicated power supply and greater isolation from vibration can all help - in my experience in addition to care in choice of the BNC one also should pay attention to footers, power cord and grounding
david_ten
5,480 posts
 
 @folkfreak  +1
lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,503 posts
 
+2, @folkfreak


@tzh21y,

Here is another recommendation for external clock,

http://www.grimmaudio.com/pro-products/master-clocks/cc2/

I think the guys suggesting to go with external DAC missed your point of exploring the external clock. I own the same player, If your goal is to improve SACD playback then external DAC will be of no use cause you cannot transmit SACD layer through a SPDIF output.

I would only explore external DAC if your goal is to improve CD playback which kinda defeats the purpose of owning a fabulous sounding SACD player from Marantz 😉
dgarretson
2,599 posts
 

+3  @folkfreak 

With an Esoteric DAC it's easy to perceive the improvement of an external 10mhz atomic clock powered by a good LPS.  Why would Esoteric market the interface were this untrue?

Also, if your networked computer audio components have master clock inputs(e.g. SOtM renderer and ethernet hub), or if you have a PCM/DSD digital recorder with clock inputs(e.g. Tascam), it is beneficial to sync everything to one master clock, just like in studio environments.

That said, I have no experience with Marantz.  To Erik's point, at an early stage in digital evolution I had good results with Audiocom Superclocks inside a Sony SCD-1.  The idea there was to position the clock within a few centimeters of the PCB input.   

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