@boulder_bob I wondered the same thing. I'm guessing Head-Fi.org
For Gustard R26...which bang for the buck: DDC or LHY OCK clock?
I've been enjoying this dac for several months now. I have tried USB and COAX and now I2S.
There is a noticeable improvement in each of these inputs. I have read many of the discussions here regarding both DDC and external clocks. I am wondering which of these would give more bang for the buck. The Gustard goes very well with my tube amps.
I am considering the LHY OCK 1 or 2 for clocks and undecided for the DDC.
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Hi there, sorry been very busy with work. Some responses: - I found sine works better with R26 - HF refers Headfi + tweaks for OCK-2 were inverting it, removing cover and stacking a sandwich of tungsten cubes and fo.Q damping material on OCXO and toroidal PS, looks like a mad scientist experiment with a graphite foil replacement for the aluminum base with cutouts like a tube amp would have for the tubes. Crazy how sensitive OCXOs are to this, have theorized it may help both with thermal smoothing of the oven due to more mass and of course vibration damping. Others have found similar with Tungsten cubes. Also a lot of signal grounding of spare BNCs (switch 8nternal GND ISO jumpers to GND for max effect) and a Flux-50 style AliX AC RFI filter. Carbon fibre fabric (soft not cured) shroud on top. All these each have a cumulative audible effect that I did a lesser version of these tweaks with the LHY SW-8 which has very similar design. I would like to revert them to normal without the crazy and precarious stacks but they sound too good so each time I start to test this I stop there. Not for everyone but has given me a taste of what more expensive clocks and lower phase noise oscillators must perform like. For now this is what my budget permits.
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@kereru If FedEx doesn't let me down, the OCK-2 will arrive tomorrow. My plan is to connect it to both the U18 and R26 as you suggested. Stupid question of the day... if I connect my cd player to my R26 using a coaxial digital connection, the clock will benefit that connection as well as the i2s connection, correct? I typically use the dac built into my Denon DCD-1700NE because it actually sounds good. I figure I'll try connecting to the dac again with the addition of the clock. The U18 doesn't have a coaxial input, so I can't go through it. |
@sls883 Cool, I hope it goes well for you. Noting leaving it on for the oscillator stabilize for days or even weeks initially will improve the sound, cables matter too. |
@kereru Thank you for the reply. You've been very helpful. |
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