[richardloh]

Hi,

Perhaps while awaiting for any good advice, anyone had successfully tried suitable pcie card with "better" oxco clock to replace stock ex's as player for usb output ?

No idea on space constraint/suitability but for e.g. pink faun pcie card with oxco clock ...

This arises on the significant SQ improvement in both having upgraded from std Terminator dac with femto clock to Terminator Plus with oxco clock as well as having etheregen's internal clock similarly bypassed by Afterdark's oxco clock ... something not experienced by cablings, power conditioning etc. but more like component change .. to higher pedigree aka $.

Cheers.

Hi,

Anyone ?

Seems Antipodes will not be looking into any oxco clock upgrade at least in the near future ... bought another Etheregen to have this done in ethernet cabling before cx and between ex and cx instead then.

Interestingly, one local dx user had his upgraded by sotm for a song in comparison to usd4k oladra upgrade for cx and ex and had shared obvious jump in sound quality as expected but cx and ex means 2x cost and may not even be possible like dx with much bigger box to accomodate the added pcba with oxco clock

Cheers.

Richard

 

[frankensmurf]

Hi,

Anyone ?

Seems Antipodes will not be looking into any oxco clock upgrade at least in the near future ... bought another Etheregen to have this done in ethernet cabling before cx and between ex and cx instead then.

Interestingly, one local dx user had his upgraded by sotm for a song in comparison to usd4k oladra upgrade for cx and ex and had shared obvious jump in sound quality as expected but cx and ex means 2x cost and may not even be possible like dx with much bigger box to accomodate the added pcba with oxco clock

Cheers.

Richard

In the DAC landscape some manufactures, such as dCS, Esoteric, Mutec, and some pro-oriented brands, embrace the external clock architecture. Others such as Mola Mola, PS Audio (and I would guess most other brands) do not.

In the world of switches, clock is obviously relevant (and almost certainly a more straightforward upgrade than in a complicated DAC topology). The ER is only one I'm aware of that readily accepts an external clock, which is a great idea. But if you're looking for high-accuracy reclocking in the Antipodes world, I'm assuming they're going to recommend an S20/K50. And if USB is your preferred output, you can always add a Phoenix Innuos (I can confirm a very reasonable improvement on my CX > ER > EX > P2) or full Mutec stack (which I haven't tried in my own system but was great elsewhere).

I generally leave it to manufacturers to decide the best way to optimize their designs, at least inside the box. But I'm not much of a tweaker.

 

[richardloh]

In the DAC landscape some manufactures, such as dCS, Esoteric, Mutec, and some pro-oriented brands, embrace the external clock architecture. Others such as Mola Mola, PS Audio (and I would guess most other brands) do not.

In the world of switches, clock is obviously relevant (and almost certainly a more straightforward upgrade than in a complicated DAC topology). The ER is only one I'm aware of that readily accepts an external clock, which is a great idea. But if you're looking for high-accuracy reclocking in the Antipodes world, I'm assuming they're going to recommend an S20/K50. And if USB is your preferred output, you can always add a Phoenix Innuos (I can confirm a very reasonable improvement on my CX > ER > EX > P2) or full Mutec stack (which I haven't tried in my own system but was great elsewhere).

I generally leave it to manufacturers to decide the best way to optimize their designs, at least inside the box. But I'm not much of a tweaker.

Hi Frank,

Noted and thanks.

SOTM switch Dlink GS105 5v version have external clock input which in fact does not work without one.

Indeed I prefer usb output for the simple reason of dsd playback despite having the P2 that is used only as a footer ... P2 and also S20 with i2s can be used for my Denafrips T+ with i2s input but they are both femto clock based which I hope otherwise for the obvious improvement when I moved to ocxo clock with lower phase noise.

Indeed I too hope not to meddle with mods and hence was hoping Antipodes will take up seemingly more simple and perhaps cheaper oxco clock upgrade availability .. but it seems not to be

Cheers.

Richard

PS: Not aware even K50 is on oxco clock on its mobo and even a femto one ... txco clock for a usb15k device ?

 

[kennyb123]

Not aware even K50 is on oxco clock on its mobo and even a femto one ... txco clock for a usb15k device ?

Can you explain why this is an issue? What are you expecting the clock on the K50 mobo to do?

The reclocker board most certainly has a femto clock as a clock signal needs to be added to support the synchronous interfaces. USB need not have a clock as it’s asynchronous and thus depends on the receiver clock. If the K50 aimed to reclock ethernet then a high quality clock would be needed, but Antipodes seems to think that’s unnecessary. It would be fair to argue that they should be doing more to improve the incoming Ethernet signal but with so many boxes out there to so that, why not use one of them? The K50 would probably cost $18K instead if it had an ethernet re-clocker as it would also need another power supply for it to be done right. And looking at how little free space is available inside the K50, maybe we are talking $20K now as a larger chassis would be needed.

 

[richardloh]

Hi

Can you explain why this is an issue? What are you expecting the clock on the K50 mobo to do?

The reclocker board most certainly has a femto clock as a clock signal needs to be added to support the synchronous interfaces. USB need not have a clock as it’s asynchronous and thus depends on the receiver clock. If the K50 aimed to reclock ethernet then a high quality clock would be needed, but Antipodes seems to think that’s unnecessary. It would be fair to argue that they should be doing more to improve the incoming Ethernet signal but with so many boxes out there to so that, why not use one of them? The K50 would probably cost $18K instead if it had an ethernet re-clocker as it would also need another power supply for it to be done right. And looking at how little free space is available inside the K50, maybe we are talking $20K now as a larger chassis would be needed.

Hi Kenny,

Beyond my depth of knowledge even to know how many clocks are with the mobo are needed or what is in cx, ex or K50 but all digital signals are clocked internally at some point regardless aes, spdif etc. or usb ... why not have them upgraded to oxco ones with lower aka more accurate phase noise for a usd15k k50 but I am more interested in what can be upgraded my cx and ex. Your mentioned usb being asynchronous for high end audio product and not affected refers to external interface .. and there are of course still many Antipodes users of aes, spdif etc.

Yes, I have the Uptone Etheregen with AfterDark double emperor crown oxco clock as these messy (and expensive) additional boxes planned between the cx and ex but still only to be reprocessed by the mobo of ex without oxco clock(s) ?

Indeed a bit more space required but all clocks will still need psu ... just have a look at standard Terminator's femto clock and Terminator Plus' oxco in same box size which is also an obvious improvement on SQ with perhaps help with other changes done by Denafrips.

Cheers.

Richard

 

[richardloh]

Hi Kenny,

4 points connects the Antipodes dx mobo with stock connection cut and reclocked by oxco in separate pcba done by SOTM.

We had all seen and perhaps heard how uptone etherregen with femto clock upped SQ when connected to external oxco clock from Afterdark, mutec etc.

Btw, it was not for a song but usd2k+ .. my mistake

Cheers.

Richard

 

[kennyb123]

just have a look at standard Terminator's femto clock and Terminator Plus' oxco

Above I mentioned that “USB need not have a clock as it’s asynchronous and thus depends on the receiver clock.”. The Terminator is a DAC so it makes sense that it has a clock since it’s the receiver. Denafrips uses several OCXO clocks to “eliminate the word-clock jitter from the sources”. This is the right position in which to place these.

A clock is essentially a timing reference. I don’t think we can assess the quality of a server by whether it has a good clock. It has to be judged by what the clock is aiming to do. I really don‘t know enough about how computers work to say how many clocks a motherboard should have. I do know that interfaces need a reference but sometimes that reference is downstream.

 

[kennyb123]

4 points connects the Antipodes dx mobo with stock connection cut and reclocked by oxco in separate pcba done by SOTM.

Ah ok now I see what you are getting at. It’s beyond my understanding to explain why Antipodes doesn’t do something similar. This would be an interesting topic for a forum with people knowledgeable about building music servers.

Those long wires are usually a no-no when it comes to clocking. The clock should be placed as close as possible to the circuit as possible.

 

[richardloh]

Hi Kenny,

Sorry but not sure what is your point here ... switches like etherRegen has a clock, mobo of server or player probably has several clocks, dac has a clock etc.

Just wish for my Antipodes to have the option of better clocks like etherRegen, Denafrips dac etc. which cannot be worse for SQ.

Cheers.

Richard

 

[richardloh]

https://www.pinkfaun.com/shop/bridge/44-usb-bridge.html

 

[kennyb123]

Just wish for my Antipodes to have the option of better clocks like etherRegen, Denafrips dac etc. which cannot be worse for SQ.

Yes I know we’re going in circles. You keep bringing up devices that aren’t servers and I’ve been trying to explain that servers are different. It’s not apples to apples.

I’ll drop it.

 

[kennyb123]

https://www.pinkfaun.com/shop/bridge/44-usb-bridge.html

Again, not apples to apples. That is a USB bridge. It is not a server.

Ok now I will really drop it.

 

[richardloh]

You keep bringing up devices that aren’t servers and I’ve been trying to explain that servers are different.

Hi Kenny,

All in digital domain and all have clocks

The pink faun's mini pcie extension card is to upgrade the computer's usb output that IS being used as a server and/or player ... Antipodes server/player is also a computer that also has mini pcie slot used for internal ssd ... and also usb output just like the pink faun's.

Cheers.

Richard

 

[kennyb123]

All in digital domain and all have clocks

And who is in the best position to decide if it’s worth the up-charge to their customers to use better clocks in their servers? If you are going to trust other decisions that Antipodes makes why not trust that they made the right decisions with the clocks used in their servers?

Many manufacturers don’t disclose what clocks they use to avoid customers making purchasing decisions based on for buzzwords for buzzwords sake.

By the way, I was only trying to help! I have liked your posts a lot and have appreciated your contributions. I didn’t mean to quarrel.

 

[richardloh]

And who is in the best position to decide if it’s worth the up-charge to their customers to use better clocks in their servers? If you are going to trust other decisions that Antipodes makes why not trust that they made the right decisions with the clocks used in their servers?

Hey Kenny,

Just a miscommunication and was hoping for info on anyone with such internal mods for consideration since Antipodes is not pursuing that direction which I believe will help in SQ ... you can measure phase noise from these clocks.

I had also wish for the same on your statement to avoid all these boxes, cabling, lps etc. and associated costs but I am sure stock ethernet input/processing of Antipodes lags behind specialised improvement made by Uptone EtherRegen at least in my system that I can vouch since I have them. And then there are others who are using usb regen solutions that I avoid ... no more space on my rack !

With apology if I sounded impatient but was just trying to share my wish/query, some experience, available fixes from SOTM/Pink Faun etc. and not on how it should not be done without more specific info.

Cheers.

Richard