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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-24-2006
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I wonder how myth in all those digital gismos and how little what we considering in digital is obvious and self-explanatory in reality has not relation to Sound. Also, how much those people with who just learned how to solder and let their blind (and deaf) solder to put themselves on a position of audio experts, in reality, how much they get the results that worth any attention?
Playing with Lavry AD, DA and Lynx 16 digital interface I was wondering how much the rumors about using one clock as master and others as slave would actually affect sound. I’m not talking about some conceptual justifications but the actually auditable sonic BENEFICIAL results. Different Morons assured me that “the external master clock or a master-slave scenario is the way in which it should be done”. They also proposed that I should buy $4435.54 cables to synchronize the clocks…. :-) I’m a gullible person and I extend a credit to anyone who knows a difference between faraday and coulombs but I am very suspicion to the judgments of the people who do know a difference between Bach and Bax. They bring different technical justification why master clock up-stream and down-stream would be better or worth, dropping the big professional names and mention as their hi-fi references the digital crap like Wadia, Spectral, ML and so on. I was little suspicion, as I know that those digital experts personally can’t perceive Sound and they have very primitive reference points regarding Music reproduction. Well, after the actual experiments and the actual listening of the external clock configuration I surmised that what I expected was correct – the internal clocks and the master-slave scenario did work better. I have no explanations why, nether do I care why …
Another example: I have a Superclock lying around and I decided to listen the Morons and to put it in my CEC TL0 CD transport. The Audiocom’s Superclock is an aftermarket $300-worth discreet clock generator made to minimize jitter.
http://www.audiocom-uk.com/control/news/anmviewer.asp?a=162&z=15
The substitute clock has very good publicity from the average audio crowd… and this made me always little afraid. The guy who suggested me the Superclock was Kyle form Reference Audio Mods. Kyle-like operation is kind of become very typical: those people run their mouth about anything using like parrots the very same words and the very same thoughts that were pre-developed for them. They usually have very little real meaning behind the words and have very primitive actual sonic results in their listening/demonstrating rooms and very-very, extremely low, reference points in regard of ASSESSMENT of reproduced Sound. For year I use those tweakers guys as an indicator of the most revolting tendencies in audio. Black Gates Capacitors, silver cable and the rest audio foolishness derive directly form the efforts of those audio vandals. Do not get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with Kyle and with those people. They all run the honest businesses where they provide the services with a scope of own knowledge and understanding – unfortunately very limiter understanding and very irrelevant knowledge. They juts server completely different domain of demands in audio and they regrettably to unable to understand neither the real Sound not the civilized method of accomplishing Real Sound. Am I wrong? Well, visit Kyle, listen his playback, paying attention to his system’s intentions and the system’s objective. It will be enough for you to learn what you deal with. I made my mind after attending the Reference Audio Mods demonstration at CES…
Anyhow, coupled days back I put the Audiocom’s Superclock into the TL0. The rational was reasonable: since my DAC has no own clock then putting better clock into the transport would presumably improve the entire digital chain. Well it was a purely intellectual rational that had no relation to anything else besides juts an abstract logic….. In realty, the Superclock completely killed Sound. Ironically the Sound did become “better” but this “betterness” was only in scale of the Kyle’s reference points. The system gained “resolution”, the resolution that Kyle’s people love to mention; but was it really resolution or it was some kind of surrogate that fulfilled the barbaric expectation of the typical audio-Morons ™?
The Superclock’s effect has nothing to do with resolution. The Superclock made the different sounds separated from Music converting Sound into a back of a porcupine. Interesting, that my attention, listening the Superclocked TL0, did not listen Music but juts jumped form a Sound to a Sound, form pitch to pitch, scanning the differences, impressed by the boosted irrelevant effectiveness, without associating the tones but with purpose of musical reasons of the musical program. It was some kind of listening of Music Lite ™… or the very same audible crap that you will be able to listen in 99.9999% of those audiophile’s listing rooms.
Also, the Superclock completely screwed up bass. I was very surprised, as everyone with whom I spoke was absolutely thrilled with the bass results they were able to get out of the Superclock. However those people, all of them, are wrong. Superclock does jack up midbass and make it very nice and softer. So, what? The region around 40-150Hz suddenly become too prominent and the lower bass got completely lost and masked out. The midbass prominence made music too heavy and too weighty, very unbalanced. I understand why the Morons ™ out there find this effect very positive. Thy listen their speakers with undeveloped mid-bass channels (99% of them)
http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=1414
and when this Superclock suddenly pushes out a huge amount of fictitious upper bass then they go crazy. I am sure if I would use the back-loaded speakers than I would lover more and better upper bass. Probably they would love to have an EQ and well, they would also love that my Superclock prevent their MF drivers do not produce 90% distortions in upper bass region….
It is was not enough I would tell you, the Superclock sound has a “double ping” imaging that most of the Morons consider as “space”. It is very minute and infinitesimal but it is VERY annoying. I could go on trashing the sound that I got from the Superclock but what would be the point? I put the default oscillator back to TL0 and it was like a return home after many year of journey…
So, what the digital experts-tweakers are saying? As far as I concern their opinions and their expertise worth … and in fact is…. juts a jitter of audio practice.
Rgs,
Romy the Cat
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Posted by George on
02-25-2006
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I remembered reading this buried deep on the Lavry forum:
http://www.lavryengineering.com/forum_images/clocks1.pdf
I also remember reading either on the dCS site or in the Stereophile review that the Verona clock was a later addition to the stack. Originally dCS did not think an external clock was necessary but due to the experiments of some Japanese audiophiles with an external clock decided that it did improve things.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-26-2006
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I do not know. People say a lot of words about jitter and speculate a lot about the topic. I never heard from anyone any real definition how a high level of jitter sounds in realty. I heard 4 (!!!!) complete contradictory descriptions how high level of jitter manifest itself subjectively – interesting that they all derived from the engineers whose credibility is very high (not juts the audio-tweakers who fart sound out of their audio components by changing capacitors). No one says that jitter is good but there is probably a lot of more then juts perusing a lower jitter. At least it is what I feel as when I experienced objectively-less jitter digital then it was not necessary that this digital performer better. For instance the Museatex original transport coupled with Bidat using Meitner’s C-lock synchronization mechanism that has NO MEASURABLE JITTER at all. However, this combo does sound very-very unfortunately. The top of the line Wadia, another instance, have very low jitter but those Wadia perform awfully. Certainly there are a lot of other things in digital that describe Sound but unfortunately the digital people talk only about jitter. Try to talk with them about something else, not to mention Music. Another problem with the people who “do digital” are mostly just unable to objectively asses subjectively what the heal they do. So they build the sonic microwaves and push to the audio pubic a new marketing BS telling then of how they fought the jitter for instance…. The explanation from Lavry Forum that you linked does sound very reasonable. What is unreasonable to me that with objectively better clock in my TL0 I got that that horrible sound…
Rgs,
The Cat
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Posted by clarkjohnsen on
03-01-2006
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The mystery of all this has not been solved. Not to worry, it will be... moments before people stop buying CDs.
clark
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Posted by Thorsten on
03-07-2006
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Hi,
 Romy the Cat wrote: | | I heard 4 (!!!!) complete contradictory descriptions how high level of jitter manifest itself subjectively – interesting that they all derived from the engineers whose credibility is very high (not juts the audio-tweakers who fart sound out of their audio components by changing capacitors). |
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Of course you would. Jitter is just another type of distortion where the one-dimensional "single number" thing does not work. The key is actually the spectrum.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | For instance the Museatex original transport coupled with Bidat using Meitner’s C-lock synchronization mechanism that has NO MEASURABLE JITTER at all. |
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Sorry, but the physics of making an oscillator demand, require that it has jitter and without liquid nitro cooling of the electron ics you never get low enough noise to claim "no measurable jittter".
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | The explanation from Lavry Forum that you linked does sound very reasonable. What is unreasonable to me that with objectively better clock in my TL0 I got that that horrible sound… |
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It makes complete sense, actually.
Jitter with a fairly low frequency (for example a fairly noisy supply with a nice deal of "pink" LF noise) can make for a nice, warm sound without obviously affecting resolution etc.
The problem is that some people wish to sell "silver bullets". So they claim "clock so and so" reliably improves sound. It certainly changes the sound and Joe Public has paid 500 Greenbacks to have the clock installed "by a professional" So it must be an improvement, nah?
I have seen stuff like this - the professional actually applied a clock with a 5V output to a 3.3V logic chip that is explicitly rated for NO MORE THAN +V [3.3V] input, so everytime the clock output went above 3.3V (that is on every single clock pulse) the protection circuit of the CD chip clamped the clock, throwing noise currents into the supply line and causing a near short circuit load on the clock modulating itr's supply a lot more than intended. I'll not even mention the stuck down by dual layer sticky tape "never connected" supply, sufficient to say that the clock was best with the "never connected" supply genuinely "never connected" and the original state restored.
The machine came into my hands for "fixing" because it actually tended to lock up and refuse to play CD's!!!! The Joe had paid nearly a grand to have his player "improved". It was worse than stock, sonically and actually just did not work properly at all!!!! I ended up doing a big mod job on the player, which the guy subsequently liked a lot so that he considered even the total mod expense (mine and the earlier bad attempt with "boutique parts and modules") of nearly 2k5 well spend. Maybe I should charge more?
So, what is the lesson?
You cannot just "chuck clock at it" (unless "it" is a thief and the grandfather clock is the only weapon the law allows you to protect your home or you happen to only have a Makarov), a "clock" like so many things in audio needs to be designed into the circuit properly, understanding both clock and circuit.
Just connecting the wires a few mm out of the ideal position can throw a few 100pS (audible) jitter into the combined circuit, even if the clock itself has "0pS" Jitter (not that any has).
The LC Audio Clock at least accounts for differences in logic levels but instructions rarely account for grounding et al completely. A COMPETENT tech should be able to install such a device correctly, if he can be bothered to obtain the datasheets for the IC's in the player and to analyse the actual circuit.
Ciao T
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
03-07-2006
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T,
The phrase “"no measurable jitter” was actually the Ed Meitner quote and it was he himself who claimed that his transport and his DAC bound together via his C-clock interface have no measurable jitter. I have no reasons to disbelieve him regarding it as he would hardly make such a statement if it would not be true. I do not know the details but I know that his DAC (Bidat) have no own clock and recognizes the tact frequency in the incoming stream. I know few other did it, never successfully, but the people who are familiar with the way “how” Meitner did it in the Bidat claim the it done very-very slick and very different. I can not comment more as I do not know “hows” and “whys”. However, regardless e correct was Meitner or not in his assessment of the C-clock jitter but I do feel that his transport was not really good transport and despite the alleged absent of jitter it did not sound satisfactory.
Regardless the rest. I clack that I used was Audiocom Superclock that most like is good clock. Powered I it from the 12.6V that I find in the CD player, perhaps it was not the best souse or perhaps it sunk voltage too much. Who know! The clock was properly installed and properly grounded (Dima supervised me and he is not just an armature audio-tweakers but the person who has no problems to design and built those clocks from scratch). The problem was that the actual horrifying sound of this thing so hugely demoralized me that I have no motivation or encouragement to do anything else with it. The guy who sold me the clack suggested to power it form DC but I really do not know what it would take for me to do it again….
Rgs,
Romy the Cat
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Posted by Thorsten on
03-08-2006
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Hi,
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Regardless the rest. I clack that I used was Audiocom Superclock that most like is good clock. |
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It likely is. I still use an earlier version of it in my main CD-Player, actually an extremely hacked up early generation Pioneer DVD Player.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Powered I it from the 12.6V that I find in the CD player |
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THAT is a pretty poor idea, as you have now FUBAR'ed (unavoidably) the grounding, probably adding a good bit of ground bounce and all.
As said, if you have a player the clock needs to be designed properly, not just "thrown in", which is what (forgive me for being blunt) you have done. Arguably, the usual clock vendors claim in exactitude that this is how their clocks work, my experience is that it is rale the case.
Ciao T
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
03-08-2006
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T,
it is highly possible that you are correct but it was exactly the point of my in initial post - the people worship the clock upgrades but 99% of then just throw in the new clocks, or do exactly what I did. Considering that 100% of them claim that sound get “dramatically better” and considering that I observed very opposite reaction I can see two possibilities to explain the situation:
1) TL0 doe not need all of this crap because it sounds perfectly fine “as is”. So far I observed the stock TL0 performs uncooperatively more interesting then any modified CD transport then I had experienced. Also, a few years back I did what usually works on any transport: updated the flimsy CEC rectifier diodes to the much better “sounding” diodes. Ironically the TL0 sound did not change, absolutely nothing changed, that was very strange as it did very nice with any other equipment I even have seen. So, the conclusion might be that despite the generally beneficial effect on other bad designed and performing transports the clock upgrade does not work out on TL0 because everything is fine in TL0 as is”.
2) People who claim the clock upgrade advantages are juts the Morons who have no idea what the REAL improvement in sound might be.
So far I have liberty to believe in both of my proposals above.
Rgs,
Romy
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
01-14-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d As after recent incident with my CEC I opened it ups and “fixed” the bearing I was surprised to discover in there the Audiocom’s Superclock that was sitting in there for 9 years unplugged. I just forgot it in the belly of TL0 in the past. So, if anybody want it then it is reportedly good devise and I will be happy give it to you for free is you have Cat in your home:
http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/sclock_e.html
Rgs, Romy the Cat
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Posted by custodian on
04-24-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d New member, first post, so go easy on me!
Ive been playing around with clocks in digital audio for a while. Current system uses a DCS Scarlatti stack with the Scarlatti clock. Synching to the Scarlatti clock rather than using the Scarlatti DAC as master does make the sound better to my ears, reducing some edginess that people might call digital glare.
About 6 years ago, I decided to experiment with an external 10MHzclock and I got hold of an ex telecom rubidium unit (available cheaply from your usual auction site). Once Id managed to get it to output a 10mHz ref signal and set up the DCS to accept that reference, I was impressed with the sound improvement.
Now that is quite surprising because, whilst the rubidium clock has a better long term stability, that should not be really important for the music system. What matters is short term stability or phase noise which, for the rubidium is worse than for the OCXO crystal oscillator reference used in the standard DCS clock.
I spent some time with the DCS technical people comparing rubidium with the DCS oscillator and we all agreed it sounded "different" although ultimately the DCS team couldn't agree whether it s better or worse!
Last year I decided to see if improving the absolute specs for the master clock would have an impact so I managed to get hold of an Oscilloquartz BVA block. The BVA clock is an woven controlled oscillator in which the suspension for the crystal oscillator is also made from the same crystal. Complex to produce and expensive, the phase noise is one or two orders better than the standard DCS OCXO.
Results to my ears were exceptional with a removal of more digital grunge from the sound.
Problem with that solution is that since the sale of Oscilloquartz last year, they have stopped manufacture of the BVA clock. I believe that was due to the difficulty in getting acceptable manufacturing yields.
One Japanese company SFZ Sforzato produced a commercial audiophile version based on the Oscilloquartz clock which they retailed for around $40k. Its still listed as available which I assume means they haven't sold many and are still working their way through remaining stocks.
Conclusion is that, to my ears, clock improvements affect sound. Better short term stability is important although rubidium, with worse short term stability, can still sound better that a good OCXO. Best clock is the BVA OCXO which, sadly, is no longer being manufactured.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-24-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d I think everyone who ever experiment with this did conclude
that a good clock does mater a lot and its location is important. However, itseldom,
if ever, goes any further. In all your (and mine) experiment when we got better
sound by clocking or slaving something we dealt with very specific configuration
and very specific implementations. We connected a given devise to given
interface and we felt it was belter of worse. I am sure it was but what does it
mean? Does it mean that “better” clock always better? I do not know and I do
not think so. You did mention the long term stability that is super important
for clocks and completely irrelevant for audio, I do not think that anybody
make d-clocks “for sound”. We just try different configuration and different interfaces,
differently made data accusations stagers… etc etc… get some accidental better results
and then we feel that new clock made difference. It might be the case and it might
be not. I have seen the situation what belter clocks give undesirable sound. So
my attitude is that if it works then it is great. To explain it is a totally different
matter. Go explain to anybody (or to
yourself) why 75R digital coaxes all sound different. Still we all have a few of them and they DO
sound very different…
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Posted by clarkjohnsen on
04-24-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d ...about digital audio, but fortunately some of us know that we do not know. And yet many if not most in the field (especially for instance the guy who moderates Audio Asylum's Computer Audio forum, can't recall his name) are scandalously smug. Such an attitude gets us nowhere.
I have been told about a little glitch in the decoding of CD audio that causes more damage than jitter. But he's not been able to get much of anywhere with this knowledge.
clark
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Posted by custodian on
08-22-2016
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fiogf49gjkf0d Actually your point on 75 ohm cables is a good one. I had our lab guys look at the various 75 ohm cables we had to check how accurate a load they presented. Various designer bnc-bnc cables were checked and a surprising number did not represent 75 ohms and did generate visible reflections on the attached display. Some of the worst were very expensive designer names: the best included a number of video cables including the Stereovox component video loom which I am now using for my clocking signals.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
08-22-2016
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fiogf49gjkf0d The most interesting in who of it is the question: what relation
cable impedance has to do with actual sound? It is easy to take number of cable
and to measure how close they are to 75R. It is very easy if the cable that
closest to 75R sound the best. However, you know very well that this is not the
case the sonic character of cable might or might not be connected with cable impedance.
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Posted by custodian on
08-22-2016
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fiogf49gjkf0d  Romy the Cat wrote: | | The most interesting in who of it is the question: what relation
cable impedance has to do with actual sound? It is easy to take number of cable
and to measure how close they are to 75R. It is very easy if the cable that
closest to 75R sound the best. However, you know very well that this is not the
case the sonic character of cable might or might not be connected with cable impedance. |
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I'm referring to the clock cable which really only needs to avoid spurious reflections in transmission. 75 ohm load will achieve that.
Digital music cables are a more complex situation
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