[rsbrsvp]

Does JaMo have any conclusions on his on Mutec clock? I do wonder how much improvement it can render over a $50-$200 ebay OXCO and if it is worth it?

I am considering the new mute or the SOTM.

The thing I do not get is I have read on this thread several times that "square wave" output is not as good as "sine wave" output and Mutec uses square wave output. SOTM uses sine wave output.

Why would Mutec use square wave on such a good clock?

 

[JaMo]

Does JaMo have any conclusions on his on Mutec clock? I do wonder how much improvement it can render over a $50-$200 ebay OXCO and if it is worth it?

I am considering the new mute or the SOTM.

The thing I do not get is I have read on this thread several times that "square wave" output is not as good as "sine wave" output and Mutec uses square wave output. SOTM uses sine wave output.

Why would Mutec use square wave on such a good clock?

Ok, I will try to answer. Yesterday I got a question from a forum member of how it performs. Here is my answer to him:

"Spacious, width, depth, even height are super defined. Crazy low bass. Layering's are excellent. -How much better than Oscilloquartz...? Hard to compare. This is another animal. The Oscilloquartz is nice but the Mutec reveals it all and drags You into the scene. The music flowes easy and gently even if I play pretty high. Never unpleasant. I am still wondering how the H-LL can a XO have this impact on the sound...? It is just/only active in the time domain..? Well, fact is fact. It is an expensive investment but I have no regrets. The Mutec still have burn in time left...I expect a month and today is day 13 of power on. I still haven't found a decent priced and decent looking, vibration damping solution for it. It does a more than great job this far but to get it all the vibration prevention and a more serious power cable has to be addressed too"

Squarewave.
I did a "research" on that and I also asked Kingwa before I ordered. Kingwa answered: "-Square wave is better. With sine wave the square wave has to be produced in gear.". That made it for me. A clean square wave is more critical to transfer so the coax (BNC) cables must be well built according to the true specification of 50 Ohm and 75 Ohm. The Mutec REF10 has a very clean signal and the noise levels are crazy low. I also like the generous number of individual buffered outputs (2x50 Ohm+6x75 Ohm). In my case I went for the SE-120 version...-How much better it is compared to the present (-116dBc/1Hz) version...I don't know.

Is it worth it?
It is a lot of money. For me, having this music listening as one of my most important things in my life...Yes. I was lucky to have the funds to buy it. I like the exploring of this higher end area. Future gears will benefit from these EXT XO's. I know that.

So, to wrap it up. If You have the economy, the genuine plan to let this "hart" (Master clock) to have optimum setup regarding cables, vibration protection. Go for it.
/Jan

 

[LOUD]

Break In.....

i bought the Audio-GD DI-20HE pretty much because of all the good things that I read About Audio-GD on this site over the years. My correspondence and dealings with Kingwa were also a major factor. The things I have read in the Audio Science reviews were disturbing, but I had faith.

The DI-20 has a little over 100 hours now. I have to say that this break in is unlIke any break in that I have experienced. Not only has the quality varied greatly, but in my case, the scratchy sound that comes and goes is very unpleasant and worry some. It sounds like it is a BROKEN product vs one that is breaking in..... Like the kind of distortion produced by a bad tube.

When it is sounding good it is SO GOOD - the best I have experienced.

I will hold off on detailed comments until substantially more hours have passed, but for now I am reaching out to try to reassure myself that I don;t have a defective unit.....can others provide advioe?

Thanks very much,

Lou D
Wilton, NH

 

[JaMo]

Break In.....

i bought the Audio-GD DI-20HE pretty much because of all the good things that I read About Audio-GD on this site over the years. My correspondence and dealings with Kingwa were also a major factor. The things I have read in the Audio Science reviews were disturbing, but I had faith.

The DI-20 has a little over 100 hours now. I have to say that this break in is unlIke any break in that I have experienced. Not only has the quality varied greatly, but in my case, the scratchy sound that comes and goes is very unpleasant and worry some. It sounds like it is a BROKEN product vs one that is breaking in..... Like the kind of distortion produced by a bad tube.

When it is sounding good it is SO GOOD - the best I have experienced.

I will hold off on detailed comments until substantially more hours have passed, but for now I am reaching out to try to reassure myself that I don;t have a defective unit.....can others provide advioe?

Thanks very much,

Lou D
Wilton, NH

The burn in of the DI20HE was roller coaster for sure. I had strange noises off and on, the first days and a great variation of the performance. Then there was a "boring period" (day ~5-10). If I remember correct the DI was stable enough after approx. two weeks...to call it excellent all the time. My experience was on firmware version 3.32 but I think You will experience something like that.

I hope You will be equally pleased with Your DI as I am with mine.
/Jan

 

[FredA]

Break In.....

i bought the Audio-GD DI-20HE pretty much because of all the good things that I read About Audio-GD on this site over the years. My correspondence and dealings with Kingwa were also a major factor. The things I have read in the Audio Science reviews were disturbing, but I had faith.

The DI-20 has a little over 100 hours now. I have to say that this break in is unlIke any break in that I have experienced. Not only has the quality varied greatly, but in my case, the scratchy sound that comes and goes is very unpleasant and worry some. It sounds like it is a BROKEN product vs one that is breaking in..... Like the kind of distortion produced by a bad tube.

When it is sounding good it is SO GOOD - the best I have experienced.

I will hold off on detailed comments until substantially more hours have passed, but for now I am reaching out to try to reassure myself that I don;t have a defective unit.....can others provide advioe?

Thanks very much,

Lou D
Wilton, NH

Don't now what you mean by scratchy. It can indeed sound very bad during burn-in. Should be much more stable from 350 hours on, Should be finished around 800 to 1000 but will sound consistently good from 350.

 

[LOUD]

Jan - thanks for the good thoughts.

Fred - the static sound is like high distortion pure and simple. i’d think I had a bad tube in my mono tube amps - but it is both channels simultaneously.

thanks,

Lou D

 

[FredA]

Haven't noticed anything that bad, your unit might not have received sufficient factory burn-in, under the circumstances. Again, let it burn. If it does not stabilize, contact Kingwa. The accusilicons can produces glitches during the first 200 hours.

 

[rsbrsvp]

Squarewave.
I did a "research" on that and I also asked Kingwa before I ordered. Kingwa answered: "-Square wave is better. With sine wave the square wave has to be produced in gear.". That made it for me. A clean square wave is more critical to transfer so the coax (BNC) cables must be well built according to the true specification of 50 Ohm and 75 Ohm. The Mutec REF10 has a very clean signal and the noise levels are crazy low. I also like the generous number of individual buffered outputs (2x50 Ohm+6x75 Ohm). In my case I went for the SE-120 version...-How much better it is compared to the present (-116dBc/1Hz) version...I don't know.

Very interesting. SOTM advertises their 10mhz clock as using sine wave because it is better than squarewave- less jitter..

Hard to know the truth....

 

[JaMo]

Very interesting. SOTM advertises their 10mhz clock as using sine wave because it is better than squarewave- less jitter..

Hard to know the truth....

Yes, it is sometimes. Also Cybershaft produces sine waves. Maybe the more critical transfer between gears are the reason for the sine-choice. It is easy to destroy a square wave. Precautions has to be taken for this. For me the crazy low jitter- and phase noise numbers by Mutec REF10 and the REF10 SE-120 speaks for themselfs.
/Jan

 

[DACLadder]

Squarewave/ Sinewave 10M clocks. Which type is best depends upon the circuit you are connecting. Kingwa said squarewave clocks may work best with his current equipment. Reasoning is easy as the clock connects to a “digital“ PLL which only responds to 1s and 0s and clock edges. A sinewave will work but Kingwa first converts to a squarewave before delivering to the digital PLL. And the converted squarewave may produce more jitter as rising/ falling edges of the sinewave are really slow compared to much faster squarewave edges. Sine’s slower rise and fall creates ambiguity when converting to squarewave and adds jitter.

For “analog“ PLLs sinewaves are generally preferred. Analog is looking for purity of the clock and perfect sinewaves contain no harmonics. In contrast squarewaves have odd harmonics which makes the analog PLLs job harder to pick out the fundamental clock frequency.

Sine and square wave clocks work OK. i think square sounds a little better with my clock and DI’s digital PLL.

 

[FredA]

I must add an important point, the rise time is much shorter with a square wave, so noise will introduce less jitter than with a sine.

 

[FredA]

Still prefer the serial mode.

 

[joyck888]

I received my double oven OXCO (Morion MV89a) clock today. It was custom built for me by "queens land"; a seller on ebay. He used the 2009 OXCO which he said has the best specs. He also made sure it had three Sine Wave 50ohm outputs. One for the DI-20HE; one for the R-7HE and one if I ever want to use my SOTM tx-usbultra with an external clock. Cost was $350.

Additionally, he built a beautiful casing around it for an extra $15;- it looks so professional.

Sonic results? To compare this clock to the built in clock is literally a joke. The transparency and detail retrieval of my system jumped several notches and blew away the other two double oven OXCO's I bought on ebay a month ago.. ABSOLUTELY STUNNING. His customer service was excellent as well.

Connecting the clock to the DI-20HE and the R-7HE is noticably better than when the external clock is only connected to one of the two components.

If you have the DI-20HE and R-7HE---- get this clock for the ULTIMATE in transparency.......

Thx for the advice ordered the same with x2 square wave and x1 sine wave. Ordered the x2 75 ohm BNC cable from the same store.

 

[DACLadder]

That is best to get a 10M clock with both sine and square wave outputs. Pick which one you like best. Kingwa said some of his customers like sine wave 10M clocks better than square. Sine wave can be a touch warmer. Square more focused. All depends upon your equipment, tastes, and ears.

 

[DACLadder]

@rsbrsvp Since you have both the externally clocked R7 2020 and DI-20HE (well broken in) have you made any comparison to USB into the DI-20 and USB direct to the R7 2020? All externally clocked.

The reason for asking with an external clocked DAC is the DI-20 even necessary? With my current setup (DI20HE and regular R7) I find less differences in sound quality with HDMI I2S or SPDIF or AES/EBU. They are getting closer in sound with each hardware and firmware upgrade.

And anyone else with the latest DAC and DI gear would like to hear your comments as well about externally clocking and USB input comparisons.