[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] External clock for my Transporter...

[Gazjam]

Dac: M2Tech Young
Transporter
75 ohm BNC connection to Dac.

Hi,
Using my TP strictly as a digital transport and on forum land elsewhere
a nice chap is using his Transporter in his £KKKK system as a digital
source.
The key to it all is an external master clock, in his case DcS Scarlatti
kit with BMV Masterclock.

Serious level equipment, and I dont play at that level, but wonder if
there's a more affordable route?
I'm thinking specifically about the M2Tech Evo Clock:
http://www.m2tech.biz/it/evo_clock.html

Compatible with Transporter? Any mileage in this?
The Evo Has master clock output for M2Tech Evo USB/spdif box only and
word clock output BNC for any kit that has word clock input.

Thanks.


Thanks.


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[arnyk]

Post by Gazjam
Dac: M2Tech Young
Transporter
75 ohm BNC connection to Dac.
Hi,
Using my TP strictly as a digital transport and on forum land elsewhere
a nice chap is using his Transporter in his £KKKK system as a digital
source.
The key to it all is an external master clock, in his case DcS Scarlatti
kit with BMV Masterclock.
Serious level equipment, and I dont play at that level, but wonder if
there's a more affordable route?
http://www.m2tech.biz/it/evo_clock.html
Compatible with Transporter? Any mileage in this?
The Evo Has master clock output for M2Tech Evo USB/spdif box only and
word clock output BNC for any kit that has word clock input.

Let us be clear. The unambiguous situation that external clock units
address is large complex digital audio systems such as one finds in a
studio or production facility. The reliable indicator for needing an
external clock is a number of recording or playback devices that one
needs to use at the same time. The external clock keeps their timing
precisely the same so that for example I can play channels 1&2 of a
multichannel master through one DAC, and channels 3&4 of the same
recording through another DAC, and the timing of all 4 channels of a
re-recording that I make with a completely disassociated ADC remain
digital perfection.

While digital clock vendors sometimes seem to be falling over each other
to advertise low jitter and noise, in fact just about all good digital
audio equipment is just fine in that regard. The chaos ensues when one
tries to run a bunch of like-functioned devices at the same time.

For example, the basic SB device has been tested for jitter by Archimago
in this article:
http://archimago.blogspot.com/2013/02/measurements-logitech-squeezebox-touch.html
and produced the following highly diagnostic and sensitive measurement
using SOTA procedures:

18220

The executive summary is that there are no audible problems with jitter
or other clock artifacts in the performance of the SB all by itself. If
you have a typical home system, no external clock needed! Now Archimago
does not seem to have done the corresponding measurement on the
Transporter, but it is highly probable that it is no worse.

As far as your favorable impressions of a system that used a Transporter
with an external clock, its hard to say but there was no doubt more
different about that system than just the source of the clock. The
acoustic environment was probably different and at least unfamiliar, and
it probably included near field monitoring, which can be a real
experience if you are not familiar with it. These are just examples,
obviously I was not there. However the odds are slight that your
friend's system was identical enough in those important matters to your
system as would be necessary for any comparison to be scientific and
reliable.

When listening to an impressive new system I always sense some kind of a
"Halo effect" that makes all of the differences seem like improvements.
In fact were I to listen to that system extensively, I would probably
start picking up on some of its suboptimal performance features, which
pretty much have to be there. This is, after all the real world!


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[rgro]

The acoustic environment was probably different and at least
unfamiliar, and it probably included near field monitoring, which can be
a real experience if you are not familiar with it.

Arny, could you please explain what near field monitoring is and why
it's such a different experience? Not really familiar with the
particulars.



Rg

System information
------------------------
Main: Vortexbox/Squeezelite > USB> Benchmark DAC2 D > LFD LE IV
Signature amp > Revel Performa F208 speakers.

Home Theatre: Touch (Wired) > Pioneer VSX 919 > Energy Take 5 Classic
5.1, Touch FW 7.8.0-r16754.

LMS 7.9.0 - 0.71.20150313git1426153261 on a 1TB Micro Vortexbox
Appliance, V 2.3.
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[arnyk]

Post by rgro
Arny, could you please explain what near field monitoring is and why
it's such a different experience? Not really familiar with the
particulars.

In one analysis of listening rooms, the room is broken down into two
regions. One is called the Near Filed and in it sound that comes direct
from the speaker predominates. The other is called the Far Field and in
it the sound that comes indirectly from the speaker, that is sound that
has bounced off of one or more objects or walls predominates. The
boundary line between the two is is called The Critical Distance.

A Near Field speaker is then a speaker that is listened to in its Near
Field.

Usually, listeners in a listening room are in the far field or right
around the critical distance.

The subjective impression of listening in the near field is that the
sound is highly detailed, but some sounds that benefit from reflections
such as vocals come off with what I think of in my mind as being
excessively hot-sounding. It is midway towards listening with
headphones. It's good for critical listening, but if you aren't adapted
to it, it can be irritating particularly in the long haul.


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[rgro]

Interesting. Thanks, Arny.



Rg

System information
------------------------
Main: Vortexbox/Squeezelite > USB> Benchmark DAC2 D > LFD LE IV
Signature amp > Revel Performa F208 speakers.

Home Theatre: Touch (Wired) > Pioneer VSX 919 > Energy Take 5 Classic
5.1, Touch FW 7.8.0-r16754.

LMS 7.9.0 - 0.71.20150313git1426153261 on a 1TB Micro Vortexbox
Appliance, V 2.3.
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[Gazjam]

Thanks guys, all very useful information.
Wondered if adding an external clock would improve things, going to
leave it for now.


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[cliveb]

Post by Gazjam
Dac: M2Tech Young
Transporter
75 ohm BNC connection to Dac.
Using my TP strictly as a digital transport and on forum land elsewhere
a nice chap is using his Transporter in his £KKKK system as a digital
source.
The key to it all is an external master clock, in his case DcS Scarlatti
kit with BMV Masterclock.

Arny has already explained why an external master clock is not
appropriate to your scenario, and that the clock in the TP is almost
certainly good enough.

If you genuinely want to try and improve the clocking in your setup, the
only rational way to do it is to use a DAC that has a word clock output
so you can slave the TP to the DAC's clock. (That said, jitter really
isn't the bogeyman it's made out to be. There have been properly
conducted trials which show that what seem like alarmingly high levels
of jitter - we're talking about tens of nanoseconds here - are
undetectable on normal music material).

As far as I can tell from a cursory search, the M2Tech Young DAC does
NOT have a clock output, so you're out of luck. (Presumably the reason
there is no clock output on their DAC is because M2Tech would like to
sell you an Evo as well).



Transporter -> ATC SCM100A
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[Mnyb]

Post by cliveb
Arny has already explained why an external master clock is not
appropriate to your scenario, and that the clock in the TP is almost
certainly good enough.
If you genuinely want to try and improve the clocking in your setup, the
only rational way to do it is to use a DAC that has a word clock output
so you can slave the TP to the DAC's clock. (That said, jitter really
isn't the bogeyman it's made out to be. There have been properly
conducted trials which show that what seem like alarmingly high levels
of jitter - we're talking about tens of nanoseconds here - are
undetectable on normal music material).
As far as I can tell from a cursory search, the M2Tech Young DAC does
NOT have a clock output, so you're out of luck. (Presumably the reason
there is no clock output on their DAC is because M2Tech would like to
sell you an Evo as well).

Yes in a home scenario one source one DAC the Idea is usually to slave
the source to the DAC clock .

If it's needed probably not ?

The studio scenario is familiar ,my old man had a professional video
company ( with studio ) there was a central time unit off a kind , there
was a bunch of digital and analog video tape players audio and video
mixers servers and whatnots .
With video you have to align the frames between sources you want to mix
.
Later all off was replaced with hard rives and servers and shrunk to
1/10 off its size :)



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http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
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