Clocking: again!
There are all manner of folk claiming that clocking is irrelevant to Ethernet and USB connections. While this is obviously ignorant of the RMI/EMI and ground level effects on DA conversion and the analogue stages of a DAC, the level to which digital clocking matters was again brought into stark relief when I changed the clock cable between the Antelope 10m clock and the Etherregen from the cable supplied by Antelope to a Shunyata Clock75 Sigma cable. Shazam! Everything jumping into focus and significantly more snap and reverb. In our hobby everything matters and we are only at the very beginning of optimizing streaming.
I can hear the difference between £30 Mogami 2964 with canare BNC and £150 oyaide cable between a super cheap Chinese 10mz clock (£90) and the Etherregen. Much easier to hear than any changes I've done in the Ethernet cable between the Etherregen and my DAC, maybe that's because my clock is so cheap :) |
@discopants You're only going to get the max effect if you clocked your streamer and the Etherregen simultaneously and your DAC too, if possible. It's probably not the cheapness of your clock it's the crappy switching wall wart PS that came with it. If you can upgrade to a LPS you'll hear a difference. |
agreed, slight addendum: if connecting the server to the DAC via USB it actually matters to synchronise clocking between Etherregen and DAC. The server is addressed by the DAC‘s slaving its clock under the asynchronous protocol. Better clocking, better sound, it really is as simple as that. Fully agreed on using an LPS instead of the wallwart for the Etherregen |
