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In Reply to: RE: new re-clocker from w4s posted by mbnx01 on May 20, 2014 at 21:15:32
Go right ahead! It sounds like you have your heart set on it but I would wait for technical reviews first and not rely on subjective opinions on the perceived sound quality. You may be surprised at how incredibly high levels of jitter can still get praised in a subjective sonic assessment.
I'm not saying it won't work, but on the other hand any company that cannot publish preliminary specifications or provide any technical detail on what makes their product stand ahead of the competition makes me suspicious about the technical capabilities of the product as they probably don't have the test instruments required to verify the product performance.
Many DACs that advertise "reclocking" don't actually do true reclocking by reclocking the bit clock from the receiver; instead they rely on a sample rate converter. This one clearly uses one as the output is fixed at 96kHz. They also don't say if the output bit depth is identical to the input or whether the data is 24 bit. This makes a difference as an additional dithering step is required when reducing the bit depth.
Transmitting 24bit,96kHz requires a much wider bandwidth capability for the transmission line than at 16bit, 44.1kHz. It's generally a bad idea to transmit upsampled data - for lowest jitter it should be done within the DAC. The worst idea is to upsample TWICE as you errors in each process are made worse; which is what you are potentially doing if you have an upsampling DAC combined with that device.
If you want the absolute best product for jitter reduction, the Grimm CC1 is IT (but very expensive). The Apogee Big Ben is a close second but not as robust with high jitter sources. The Perpetual Technologies P-1 is a step above the Monarchy products, but definitely not in the same league as Big Ben which uses a DDS clock reference to reclock the data stream.
I have a lot of experience with these devices and as an electronic engineer I know what is involved to make a good one.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Follow Ups:
I thought it read "capped at" 96K which I took as that was the max. I thought if it were fed 16/44.1 that's what would come out of it. All that said I don't expect a lot at that price. Was the Genesis Digital Lens a reclocker? I remember that back in the day, nearly $2K.
ET
The page simply says: " 96kHz output sampling frequency " which implies a fixed value regardless of input.
My guess is they are simply using a BB SRC4392 which is an all-in-one IC solution that integrates a receiver, src and transmitter. This enables them to make the claims of functionality (in terms of "reclocking") and is also the reason they can't specify effectiveness of the jitter reduction since it will be defined by the frequency of the input jitter from the source. If the source already has low jitter, it will have no effect. It is even possible that it ADDS jitter if the source jitter is less than the intrinsic jitter of the product.
With such gadgets, it is important to establish the Intended Use (as determined by the designer). They have designed this product for use with network streamers, and other "garden variety" sources which most likely may only have a TOSLINK output to turn them into something better for a hifi DAC. I'm sure it will work admirably in this respect. However, with high quality sources it is unlikely to have an effect and may even degrade the performance of the high quality source.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
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