Rip CD to Mac - basic question

Mapman wrote: "I have no complaints and think I would be hard pressed to do much better"

Actually, you can do a LOT better even with that Touch and its not very expensive:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/empirical4/1.html

"I would like to try SB touch to DAC to amp direct someday, but have not in that I also play vinyl so need the pre-amp for that."

Actually, you can have your cake and eat it too:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=108715.0

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

The synchro mesh device is interesting.

What are the measured jitter numbers with and without it for SB Touch?

Thanks.

Mapman - SM has money-back guarantee.

I could give you a jitter number, but it would be meaningless. I have had clock oscillators with higher jitter specs that sounded better than those with lower jitter specs. Its because the specs are broken. These need to be specified over frequency and correlated with system activity. Its the jitter spectrum correlated to the music itself that is important.

The only professional jitter studies that I have read over the years involved random jitter, not correlated. These are of no use IMO.

I would resist buying equipment based on measurements anyway. Even amplifier and preamp measurements have little bearing on the musicality of the device. The proof is in the reviews with measurements by by John Atkinson over the years. If specs were that important, no tube equipment would ever be sold because of the high THD compared to SS. However, speaker measurements are useful as are some amp measurements. Most manufacturers have gotten tricky about how they spec, using the most advantageous system and measurment conditions etc., to get the best looking numbers. They do this with jitter too. Dont fool yourself. Its all marketing. They like to say that they "eliminate" jitter too. Impossible.

Jitter is the most useless spec. At least with the analog measurements, there are some correlations to sound quality. With jitter, there are none, zero. I measure jitter, but I dont use it as a selling tool. It's SQ that I am after, not specs that look good.

Jitter is what my products do well, but you will have to hear them to get it.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Are there any specs/measurements that indicate the superiority of the clock compared to standard Squeezebox Touch?

Or perhaps more simply, why did you choose to use the clock you did rather than the one SB Touch uses? What makes it "better"?

The price is certainly reasonable as best I can tell (sure beats DCS) and it appears to be a well thought out device to help optimize performance based on your website description. I would expect only positive results with most sources.

The clock I use was chosen for its jitter spectrum and pricing. I also offer better clocks in my other products, but not at this pricepoint.

All of my clocks are custom builds, not off-the-shelf.

The clock in most high-volume low cost products is usually off-the-shelf and nothing special. These monolithic oscillators usually cost in the $2-3 range if that much.

It is possible to get slightly better clocks, using oven-controlled technology
to stabilize the oscilltor even more, but these have costs in the $200+ and that is my cost, and I have to purchase the in hundreds, so the risk is $20-40K for me.

The other thing to understand is that no matter how good the oscillator spectrum of jitter looks, the designer will never actually achieve this, only come close. In order to come close, the design must have extremely good power subsystem and voltage regulation. These are all custom discrete designs in my products. Again, off-the-shelf chips are simply not good enough to achieve really low jitter, even from the best oscillators.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio