Implications of Esoteric G-0Rb atomic clock

I thought we were talking about the international atomic clock which keeps the official time. That is not a rubidium oscillator but a caesium oscillator. There is now however a new invention unveiled a couple of days ago which breaks new ground.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/02/14/sciclock114.xml

This type of product is already obsolete and I am sure that many audiophiles aren't even aware of it. We are on the verge of a imminent change to USB driven computer front ends that will sonically outclass the traditional CD transport and D/A converters here. Even the cost no-object "Uber" technology products. Here is a short understanding to why: once a CD is properly converted to a computer hard drive (with a true lossless format) there just isn't a need for something like the Esoteric "Superclock". With the hard drive containing the music data in a much purer form, it can then be sent to a USB D/A converter, via a USB cable, without the overlying clocking issues that creates such a headache sonically, i.e. a much purer methodology. In this new methodology, only one decent clock (read not overtly expensive) will be needed inside the D/A converter itself (instead of one at the tranport then another "Uberclock" at the other end attempting to "fix" and "massage" very ugly timing issues). Therefore, in an excellent designed USB D/A converter being driven from a hardrive without the ugly timing issues. We will be able to say "Goodbye!" to typical transmitted jitter problems. Say "Goodbye!" to transport differences! Say "Goodbye!" to CD treatments! And finally, say "Goodbye!" to high dollar "band-aids", uh..errr..."Superclocks" - (such as this Esoteric). We are on the precipice of a very exciting breakthrough with some new upcoming USB dacs that will sound much more analog than most of us have ever imagined. Sorry Esoteric, I'd really like to give you credit for this "breakthrough", but in my opinion, the true sonic breakthrough in digital will be in USB connected products that don't even need a clock such as this.

Since there are already plenty of USB DACs out there, what is the big breakthrough that is coming?

The big breakthrough in upcoming Dacs has much more to it than just if they are USB connected. It's more to how the data is streamed from a hard drive to the USB dac. There are HUGE sonic gains to this methodology ONLY if it is properly executed. At this moment, there are only a few select digital designers that even know how to do this correctly. Most that have a USB connection are not taking advantage of the elegance of streaming the data via a USB to avoid the jitter and many other problematic issues that are inherent in our current way of digital playback. Once we get a digital couple of companies that surface into the mainstream (that actually know how to do this correctly via USB), I think many audiophiles will be STUNNED to hear the analog fluidity that cannot be achieved with any other form of connectivity. Other digital companies will have to notice of this leapfrog improvement in sonics. Subsequently, they will (most likely) just follow suit and copy, i.e someone else does it right first, then the "other" digital companies will copy the "correct" way to do it. I figure we are looking at sometime later this year for the first breakthrough USB dacs to surface. I know, I know... we've all heard these sort of "statements" many times before. This time though, I think we will finally have digital offerings that can actually have most (if not all) of the inherent musicality that was only inherent via an analog front end. It's about time!

C'mon Ehider, tell us who is doing it right today. Whose gear did you hear that convinced you of this rosy future?