Using a seperate Word Clock

Yeah I wondered that???

Well you know how these things go, what if i did want a clock, two sets of boxes are £1000, or a two rail only £850. Just want to make sure a 2 rail sounds better. Plixir on their website do make a special version for router and switches, the Etherregen is on their list. So i may change my mind?

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A ha…I knew it!

Yes. But the clock you add to the ER needs to outperform the onboard one. It’ll cost you a lot more than the ER itself.

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Yes falling down the proverbial rabbit hole. Can the last one coming down bring a box of matches, it’s getting dark. VABOOM :sparkler:

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Yes, I’ll bring a clock too.

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I see Signals are open for collections.

Out of interest, when you try the Plixir PS, will you also be trying a posh (silver?) DC power lead? Apparently they can make a difference.

Onwards men….I’m right behind you!

Not exactly. What your ER sends to the ND555 is data frames.

In simple words, what you need from your switch is some kind of “noise isolation” and a precise clock to “ease” the ND555’s streamer work.

Both together, will allow your ND555 to do its job.

The ER won’t enhance the ND555, it simply allows it to show its full (or nearly full) potential.

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Plixir do sell a posh silver cable, i will ask nearer the time. Currently daughter is using the lease car for her first job. Strangely it is spitting distance from Signals so she can pick it up…or it needs to go back to Dagenham to Ford motor company for replacement, very soon. So i can drop her to work, pick it up myself…sort of a plan.

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But your premise adding an external clock improves your DAC… why? Your DAC might have a highly stable internal clock at the predefined sample rate frequencies with extremely low jitter… as with Naim, Linn and Chord devices for example. Modern electronics has made this affordabley possible.
With regard to powersupplies, then yes there are many ways of providing powersupplies. There is the traditional method of using large electromagnetic transformers… these produce quite a field strength, and benefit can be had by decoupling by physical distance and shielding. But there are equally valid other methods too… you chose your compromise…

Clocks are very different. High frequency highly stable stable clock signals don’t like travelling distances and so often highly stable high frequency clocks are best physically closely located to the signal sink. Clocks do benefit from local EM shielding, powerline, ground plane and temperature regulation.

No, I suspect you have crossed your beams… :grinning:

The switch clock is about noise shaping and noise coupling. The suggestion is that an external clock might provide an even more stable than the internal clock. These clocks are used to modulate the serial encoding lines. They are nothing to do with the timing of frames or anything like that.
These frequencies vary on line encoding rate, and far from an even multiple of 10MHz, therefore I would suspect multiplying up may well produce multiplier errors… I would want to see any meaningful measurement of any benefit… This timing and frequencies are very precise and so measurable.

Reconstruction is about converting a sample data word stream into a reconstructed analogue signal. Chalk and cheese.
The only conceivable consideration of interaction is noise from the Ethernet analogue serial encoding lines coupling into the ground plane, EM fields and powerlines of your DAC, superimposing noise into your DAC clock / transport clock and onto your reconstructed signal.

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I do agree, but reading some of these theories can be entertaining… I guess as no one take them too seriously :grinning:

Blimy the more you look into its a miracle that it works in the first place…

Mmm. Just to note, clock accuracy has nothing to do with jitter. And with practically any clock you won’t get a bit slip on a CD. The level of self-noise from a Naim amplifier is way higher than any noise contribution from jitter…let alone the noise from (for example) the transformer. So don’t sweat it.

As you have a Bartok, i have a rossini by the way, the dcs clock is a strange one, its not an instant difference, but it does certainly change it, and for the better.
I found that, i missed it, rather than felt i needed it from the start, if that makes sence. The first time was one evening when i had put my rossini and clock into standby, well i just started playing a track, and after a short time, i was feeling thats not sounding as good as normal, so played another track, felt the same, it took me a few minutes before i finally realised that the clock wasn’t on, and that i need to manually switch it on, unlike the rossini. Once on, all was back.
So what i am trying to say is, its not a night / day difference (hate that saying lol) its more like the different maps and filters, but having had the clock, i wouldn’t want my rossini with out it, as it just doesn’t sound the same.
If you ever get the chance to try a dcs clock on your Bartok, definitely give it a go

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There are some second hand DCS clocks, like the Paganini for example, or Puccini. Personally I would go for that , if less than 2k.

I have the DCS Vivaldi set. One of the boxes is the master clock. This clock can spit out word clock in 2 different (or same) frequencies in 2 banks of outputs. This is to cater for situations in upsampling where the input sampling frequency may be different from output sampling frequency. Example, 24 / 96 upsampling to DSD. The master clock can also be fed with a reference clock of 10mhz. In my case, I use an Antelope 10M.

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I’m glad there are other clock aficionados rearing their heads. It was starting to feel like I was in an empty aircraft hanger shouting at the walls.

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Absolutely… there is a big difference between precision and stability. … one of the first things you learn when studying DSP engineering and techniques.

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I have a No 5 Esoteric and it does pair well with Naim, I have it plugged to an 252 and 250 DR with a supercap DR but NO5 does have it’s own unique sound profile. If I was to describe it, I would say it is a tad more neutral then the Naim sound. I had an HDX and I found it less enjoyable then my Naim Cd player. So to have a Streamer with an inferior sound, why bother. At least the Esoteric gives a different experience and works well. However extremely expensive, I got mine as a trade otherwise it would be too much for me.