2. digital
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Importance of clocking

There is a lot of talk that external clocks because of the distance to the processor don‘t work. This is the opposite of my experience. While I had used an external Antelope rubidium clock,on my Etherregen and Zodiac Platinum Dac, I have now added a Lhy Audio UIP clocked by the same Antelope Clock to reclock the USB stream emanating from the InnuOS Zenith MkIII. The resultant increase in soundstage depth, attack an decay and overall transparency isn‘t subtle. While there seems to be lots of focus on cables, accurate clocking throughout the chain seems still deemed unnecessary. I don‘t understand InnuOS‘ selling separate reclockers for USB and Ethernet without synchronising Ethernet input, DAC conversion and USB output.

antigrunge2
antigrunge2 OP
1,393 posts
 

And by the way: your sophisticated views would obviate the setups of any major recording studio where clocking of multiple devices with very long cables is standard practice

greg_f
99 posts
 

@emergingsoul 

Perhaps I wasn't clear, I much much prefer a clock within the DAC than an external clock source. The better DACs have an extensive clock design. I believe something that separates a good DAC for a great one (both using the same DAC chip) is the (internal) clock circuitry, the power supply and the output stage of it.

antigrunge2 OP
1,393 posts
 

A good clock is between $5k-15k. What Dacs are you talking about?

greg_f
99 posts
 

DCS, Weiss, Meitner to name a few. But you are missing the point, the external clock is much further away from the DAC IC (assuming an integrated type) than the one inside the DAC unit. You have the extra cable to feed the external clock to the DAC unit, the length of the cable, the impedance, exact termination need to be taken into consideration. In the case of a square wave clock output, as I said before, the edges are extremely fast and need to be contolled.

antigrunge2 OP
1,393 posts
 

DCS is offering an external clock for their top of the line stack as well

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