I watched this from Paul curious as to what he’d say. Remember, Paul a while back laughed when someone sent in a question to him mentioning Denafrips DACs. He’d never heard of Denafrips.
Well queue this video and no only did I do a WTF when he talks about external clocks being advertised as “long term stability” and “accuracy in clocks down to Femto seconds” you can’t hear. Then there are the comments… oy vey, why do I read the comments.
As far as disagreements are concerned, the entire point to PCM digital is that it’s time domain based, so yeah the more accurate the clock the more accurate a signal can be reconstructed. In this video the letter is asking whether he should spend his money on a better external clock versus upgraded power cable.
The most upvoted comment is “The best option is to hand wire the electricity transformer that serves your house and buy low jitter coal for your local power station.”
Can we correct the title, Paul is not a reviewer, he sometimes gets handwavy, but most of his technical explanations have some validity if you take them as dumbed down for the viewer.
Also if you could clarify what it was Paul said and what you disagreed with, most people aren’t going to watch the video.
And Paul suggested what, I assume your disagreeing with his conclusion, or just the rationale, I can’t watch it right now to determine what it is your getting at.
TBH I always find his viewpoint interesting even if I disagree.
Say’s he’s not a great fan of external clocks, but others are.
His point about long term stability is valid, drift over minutes or hours is irrelevant, jitter over windows where frequencies are audible are important, but he accepts that.
I mean he even states he hasn’t heard the equipment in question and you need to determine if there is a big improvement from the clock and the DAC.
On power cables, I wouldn’t say this on Hifi guides, but at least when using a regenerator there is a BIG difference when changing power cables, I did a test of 4 at various price points on my gear here and I’d go out on a limb and say anyone on this forum would be able to A/B them almost immediately.
It was not a subtle change.
Again Paul says he hasn’t heard the cables in question, he just thinks they will be a bigger change.
Just Paul being Paul, going off on a tangent. He did give the guy the right answer which was I don’t know your system so I don’t know what’s best. But he goes about it the wrong way, are clocks important, yes. Are cables important, yes. Can both bring improvements to a system, yes depending on the system.
The problem with tangents and the way Paul goes about it here is that there’s already so much misinformation out there or worse, disinformation, reading the comments show just how downright ignorant or blissfully unaware people can be depending on one’s POV.
If you’re going to be a “trusted advisor” the least one can do is be accurate if not also concise. Paul goes off on talking about how manufacturers advertise clock accuracy over time, and how we can’t hear down to the femto second which is not only confusing but also misinformed because it’s not our ear hearing down to the femto second, it’s processors using synchronized time down to the femto second to be more accurate in their digital to analogue conversion.
Nothing he says is inaccurate, he talks about long term accuracy to the fempto second, again not relevant. He’s trying to explain why he doesn’t buy into external clocks, and as someone who’s actually designed equipment, I find his take interesting, even if I don’t necessarily agree.
I quite like the asides, no one has to listen to him, he couches opinions as opinions.
His take (in other videos) on why power cables and why power supply transformers generally make a difference, and what’s important in them are really interesting.
His is one of the few explanations (it focuses on impedance of supply) that while I don’t necessarily think it’s correct, might have some merit as an explanation.
The one caveat I have about his videos, is his tendency to push PS Audio products and their approach, but it’s not like he makes a secret of working for them.
I guess he’s one of the few remaining audio youtube channels I watch, but I tend to stick to videos where the question is interesting to me.
