Hey Guys,
I'm out of the game and burnt out from this hobby. I'm like a 5-year cyclical end-user. But clocks talk pull me back in slightly. I'm Pro-Clock.
I just wanted to show my support for those whom are now discovering what clocks at the source can do. It's too bad it took the dCS Lina to shine a light, but better late than never. It's not an imagination, it's real. Clocks are awesome. I only lurk a few times a month and trying to cut to zero, so when I see clock talk...
Forgive me as I moved on from this hobby and have only a faint trace of my research left. Also, forgive me as I'm just a Hugo₂ CIEM peasant. The best CIEM chain up to the transducer in the history of Head-Fi, but I'm not playing high-stakes with the Doyles and the Durrs as I'm more risk-adverse and just want to get my hands dirty and experiment in this hobby before deciding if it's worth it to scale for CIEMs. With Clocks, I lean towards scaling. Without Clocks, I lean towards selling off and moving on from this hobby.
I also love Chord DACs as I can listen almost literally straight out of the FPGA DAC out of a WBT 2-channel CIEM cable that only GOAT IEM reviewers have in possession at this time. I only get cables that have full control of the supply chain (metals) the old school way.
Anyways, IMO, the source should be treated separately from the DAC. The DAC should have no say in the source besides for the input interface. So I don't understand why a DAC designer would comment on the source. Does the DAC designer realise when they use a MSI Laptop optical or their son's gaming motherboard optical OUT, they are using external clocks? Albeit, very cheap clocks. SPDIF quality is determined by the clocks. Cheap clocks have high jitter I agree, so why is our DAC designer using cheap external clocks to feed his Chord DAC? A bit hypocritical. TV optical OUT, cheap clocks. Chromecast Audio, cheap clocks. MSI Latops, cheap clocks. Noisy Mains PCs, cheap clocks. I could go on and on, but since I'm out of the hobby, I have long COVID brain fog. It's like CD transports with optical OUT have Hi-Fi clocks since the beginning of time, so now if I feed a Chord DAC with a CD transport, external clocks are bad? Just because you can't visually identify the clocks doesn't mean there's not a clock heavily embedded. DAP users optical OUT have clocks too that's why early Hugo days, some prefer DAPs as the source because it had better clocking than a dumb file server source.
During COVID-19, I clock-rolled. I went from embedded clocks which are better than cheap clocks listed above to Hi-Fi clocks you find in AIO devices. I finally settled on State of the Art (SOTA) clocks which destroy any Hi-Fi clocks out there. For SPDIF you needs clocks, so why not get the best? Why criticise external clocks when anytime you use SPDIF you are using some type of clocking?
SOTA clocks are near perfect and the measurements prove it. You don't have to worry about jitter or timing errors with SOTA, it's a modern SPDIF solution which is impossible to find these days. Also can SOTA USB, but the Asus Sage Motherboard allowing external clocks internally is a rabbit hole and SPDIF will always be superior to USB. It's like if you replace the typical Hi-Fi clocks in a CD transport with SOTA clocks, it's a whole different realm. You should be able to scale DACs and sources independent of one another. These are not AIO devices. Chord DACs are not miracle workers, it's better to eliminate jitter and timing errors at the source than letting the Chord DAC with a small PLL handle the workload. If you have timing errors, by the time the Chord DAC receives the not-perfect-as-the-original-source, it will be too late. How can the Chord DAC recover these timing errors? It's impossible. Like the Yangtze River only flows one-way, you can't get it back. It's better to feed the Chord DAC a near perfect signal free from jitter and timing errors. I believe that is what dCS AIO devices and DAP AIO devices attempt to do, but will never be able to scale to SOTA levels. If you reverse engineer TOTL AIO devices, you will notice they are running typical Hi-Fi clocks. Hi-Fi clocks are nothing compared to State of the Art clocks. I'm always skeptical when I clock-rolled, but each iteration just brought more Nirvana. I was even skeptical with the 2-channel CIEM cable, but Oh Lord...
My external clocks are slightly larger than a Hugo₂, so it's going to destroy PLL or coin-size clocks. They are classified as State of the Art clocks because they measure SOTA. But remember, this is all source. It has zero to do with a Chord DAC. You can be feeding any brand of DAC. But if you don't feed with the best source possible, performance will be abysmal no matter which DAC you use.
When it comes to DACs, I follow every word of Rob Watts. I'm a die-hard Rob Watts fan. When it comes to sources, Rob Watts is more like a novice PC builder building a PC for the first time. You can't be an expert in every facet of this hobby. So when he talks sources, he's like a novice up against seasoned MasterRacePCGamer builders. I just wish he kept a more open-mind on sources.
I hate any glorified high-markup noisy mains USB file servers that litter this place. I want SOTA as the foundation then mOhms low impedance throughout the chain. My power supplies are Super Capacitors only with Solid Core Silver Wiring throughout. Basically, I use a Medical-Grade Mean Well SMPS connected to the Mains. The other side of the SMPS is connected to the Super Capacitor Management System PCB. When you turn on the PCB, it automatically disconnects from the Mains. The other side is connected to about over 20,000 Farads total. Then I have a SwitchCraft DC plug with solid core to the PCB.
Anyways, here's some embedded PLL, clocks, etc. Okay, not recommending just as an example. My crystal for the SOTA clock is almost the size of a Mojo. Hi-Fi clocks sounded good when I went through that phase, but SOTA is stratospheres above anything out there.
https://www.cirrus.com/products/wm8804/
https://www.digikey.com/en/product-...-wm8805-s-pdif-digital-interface-transceivers
https://www.cirrus.com/products/wm8805/
If you read the Phoenix re-clocker for USB, it's similar to the impressions I get. But Phoenix is only a typical Hi-Fi clock. Just making a point you can clock i2s or USB. Dumb Passive Noisy Mains File Servers that everyone else is using are not my thing. I need active processes and zero noise floor, not Status Symbols.
Sorry for the intrusion, I play at the lower stakes but I love clock talk. I'm out after copy and pasting from another thread. House of The Dragons (HOTD) is my hobby now.