dCS contends that their external clock is superior to slaving the transport to the DAC clock as master for lowering jitter.
While one would expect a company which has a $10k external clock to contend such, others have told me the improvement (with dCS gear at least) is quite audible.
Antelope Audio has a temperature controlled crystal oscillator external clock for about $1400 which is much cheaper than Esoteric's or dCS' offerings. I've not read of anyone using it outside of studios, though.
I've read that clock stability and jitter reduction "processing" are more important than clock accuracy. The Rb oscillators, at least by literature, are both very stable and accurate. The jitter reduction schemes seem to be proprietary DSP-based animals and surely impossible to directly compare as entities separate from the rest of the unit (oscillator, etc).
Seems, like many other things audio, you pays yer money and let your ears judge.
While one would expect a company which has a $10k external clock to contend such, others have told me the improvement (with dCS gear at least) is quite audible.
Antelope Audio has a temperature controlled crystal oscillator external clock for about $1400 which is much cheaper than Esoteric's or dCS' offerings. I've not read of anyone using it outside of studios, though.
I've read that clock stability and jitter reduction "processing" are more important than clock accuracy. The Rb oscillators, at least by literature, are both very stable and accurate. The jitter reduction schemes seem to be proprietary DSP-based animals and surely impossible to directly compare as entities separate from the rest of the unit (oscillator, etc).
Seems, like many other things audio, you pays yer money and let your ears judge.