A little bit of fun here. But with the project being open source I wonder how long it may take to adopt to the media and then the hifi world. At work we have a $35k Evertz master clock but image something much more accurate for waaaaaaay less.
1 Like
Clocks are already pretty typical for high end, but I’m not sure a pcie clock card would really help here, as that’s not exactly the type of clock the dac is looking for if I’m understanding that correctly unless you were say trying to synchronize dacs across different locations
4 Likes
At the end of the video it mentions that not everything will need the pcie card to sync but another smaller module can get the “pulse”. I would imagine this could make sure the source and dac are extremely in sync, possibly even make a wireless protocol that wipes away much of the downsides we have today.
For media streaming we had a few times where a server drifted and the blocks are writing over themselves in the “past”. That is where the master clock comes in.
But once again, the post is a little tongue and cheek, but I dont think anyone would say they wouldnt want a “nuclear powered” chain.
Just for now this doesn’t seem like it would offer much for those looking for localized playback, they might be better off just buying a traditional studio master clock or one of the more out there clocking solutions, but who knows lol
I’ve been looking at studio clocks and Hifi based clocks (sotm for example) and still can’t tell the difference other than being able to manually pick the sample rate with the pro models which I am not sure how that works
Generally not much of a difference performance wise, typically studio stuff comes with more io for syncing up many more devices than would be in a typical hifi setup and whatnot, but really they are fairly interchangeable, a quality clock is a quality clock, basically you just want to make sure it’s designed for audio so the output is properly compatible with what you need (typically 75 ohm bnc outputting a 10mhz reference)
Yeah. I’ve been looking at this clock for a while since it seems affordable and doesnt have too much IO. I’m pretty sure it does the 10mhz signal but It doesnt say.
I also have access to Antelope, Tascam and something called M audio clocks
So personally I’d be a bit careful though, depending on the dac you have, it actually may not be worth getting a separate clock, because if you cheap out on a clock and have a pretty higher end dac, there’s a chance it will actually have better clocks inside the dac already, so adding a cheap clock can cause a performance hit if that’s the case (and from my experience 1k for a clock is on the cheaper side of things for a good clock, but no experience with the black lion clocks so I can’t really comment, might be worth trying if you have the ability to return if needed)
Okay. Makes sense. The Clock is less for the dac (there’s no reclocking input on the TT2) but rather an ethernet Streamer from SotM i’m looking at that can have a 75 ohm clock input option
If your just plug a clock into a DAC, it’s doing a different job than a studio Clock.
The latters job is to synchronize across devices and avoid drift between them, a clock just connected to a DAC aid about jitter, and cleanliness of signal, it doesn’t even strictly need to be entirely accurate and long term drift isn’t really an issue.
Ah ok, that makes sense. You could try it and see if it’s an upgrade there. And yes the chord stuff doesn’t have any clock in
True, but in the end both can be used to improve the performance of a dac if it’s a good clock, you just ignore the extra capability of the rest of the studio master clock (just like how some studio dac/adc combos make for good hifi dacs, but you just ignore half of what it can do there)
Yes the are basically the same device, and good clocks will help in both places, but you end up needing to have a “higher quality” device for hifi to get an obvious improvement.
Because your not getting the advantage of just driving 2 or more devices from the clock you get in a studio setting.
1 Like
Agreed there, something like the black lion is more on that side of just getting things synced up enough, not really worthwhile for just playback most likely, you would want better for that
Okay that makes sense. I can always get the clock input and just save up for a proper hifi audio clock from sotm or auralic or something (or perhaps that expensive antelope one) saving up for stuff is tiring when your freelance pool dries up lol
For fuck sake! Buy a BNC cable and the correct adapter!
5 Likes
This is LTT. It’s not them unless they’re doing something inappropriate with expensive tech people want but only they have exclusive access to
1 Like
With great power comes great responsibility.
It is the little things that stick with people resulting in half-assed everything.
Curriosity (to see if i understand): would there be a benefit from a dac and a streamer sharing the same clock? Would that reduce jitter/other time domain errors? Or are good PLLs good enough that part isn’t reaoy an issue anymore?
Yes, depending on the design of the dac
Too dependent on the dac to say
1 Like
There’s benefits but as @M0N says it depends on the design. You tend to start getting into the highly specialized highly proprietary solutions especially in the connectivity space.
Auralic is a good example of this, they have their G2 and G2.1 streamers that then link to their Leo Clock.
2 Likes