Importance of clocking

Guys,

it all depends what is understood by the term 'clock accuracy'.

For example rubidium clocks have very poor short term stability, they jitter by design. This makes them totally unsuitable for a short term time base reference. Their big usage is due to their long term stability where the time has to be correct after a long time without synchronization (eg military applications). The long term frequency stability, the clock 'accuracy' is defined in ppm (part per million). The highest clock accuracy is not required for hifi applications.
An OCXO (or TCXO)  has a better short term stability (phase noise) but is doesn't have the accuracy of the rubidium. .
As in hifi the real long term stability isn't important, the better clock source is a very high quality OCXO or a TCXO.

My point is that the absolute accuracy of the clock is not as important as other aspects of it (phase noise, voltage stability, jitter, etc).

@antigrunge2 I said "I fully accept that an external clock might improve sound quality. I don’t accept that the reason for this has anything to do with the accuracy of the clock. That’s all"

You said "Congratulations on inventing a negative inverse tautology". I haven't. Please re-read. I choose my words very carefully.

You keep asserting that any reported sound quality improvements from an external clock must be due to its accuracy; I keeo asserting that it can't be, so we need to look elsewhere for the cause. I do NOT assert that an external clock cannot improve sound quality; I merely and persistently question your attribution of the effect to a cause.

@greg_f Great post. Indeed, short vs long term stability is a key concern as dCS are particularly keen to point out.

This is in the bitstream domain though. Neither applies to the asynchronous ethernet domain. The streamer is where clocking, jitter, etc become real concerns impacting sound quality, not before.

🌻

@greg_f 

You are introducing the relative benefit of different types of clocks which has no direct relation to the topic discussed.

@antigrunge2 In your discussions with @nigeltheflash you are both  referring to clock accuracy, I was merely pointing out that in our hobby the clock accuracy is not the most critical parameter. That's all.