Lee Scratchy's Interface Jitter Google-Fu Skillz

As AtomicBob (who truly is experienced and deserves proper consideration in all posts past and present) demonstrated, we can have a discussion about this.
I think you'll find there is a diversity of opinions on here, with some excited to try the newest solutions, some skeptical but have noticed improvements under certain circumstances, and others who say "forget it." If you can rein in the attitude, I think you'll find you can posit your opinions and have a dialogue. But as always, it helps to get a feel for the place, convey your point in an appropriate manner, and not try to impress everyone with your edginess. I'm here for substantive discussion, subjective impressions and some goofing around. I'm not here to watch you try to talk over everyone else and get some "sick burns" in. I have read Lavry's white papers. I am an audio engineer. I've got Pohlmann's book on my shelf. Showing up parroting Gearslutz opinions and small excerpts of interviews or white papers by notable audio designers does not definitively prove a thing.

So, hello, nice to meet you, I'm Azteca, and I hope you'll use your inside voice now that you're inside the neighborhood bar with the regulars and come to these conversations with good faith.

 

He left? Sweet. Though I must admit these epic shitposters take so many chunks out of threads when you ignore them it's hard to understand wtf everyone is talking about sometimes. There ought to be a Stig like anonymous hatchet-man login on SBAF that can be granted to any actual mod and has the power to axe trolls. Make it an SBAF mythology...our unassailable deus ex machina vengeance strike. No explanations needed.

 

Very nicely said, anyway this thread seems to be about USB gizmos, not subjective impressions about obsolete S/PDIF & AES transports as far as I can tell and IME the best way to improve USB is to try having the cleanest USB signal off your computer host to begin with and then use the shortest USB cables.

All USB reclockers have always colored the sound quite a bit in my experience, it surely can be fun for a day, a week, a month but 6 months down the line you'll get bored of everything sounding the same so I think the best option is to keep the data lines untouched and only replace the bus power if of any use. I'm expecting a Teddy Pardo USB PSU, I'll be using it with a few audiophool USB cables(30cm WW Starlight, 50cm solid silver Pangea) on Modi Multibit and we'll see where I'll land

 

Are you John Atkinson?

 

I don't know donuts from bagels in this discussion (dammit Jim, I'm a metallurgist not a baker!), but I've read cabling/length/connectors have a very strong influence on determining clocking performance/jitter/voodoo. Hence the argument for using the dac clock to sync the other devices, so at least within the dac itself all clock cabling nonsense is minimized. But then assuming that you can get the rat's nest of wires under control where it is no longer the limiting factor, then you move on to "superior" external clocks or other gizmos. Maybe? Sorta? I dunno just guessing here because I'm an armchair wizard.

 

Sure, that's why I run Modi Multibit smartypants. S/PDIF was released as a crapshot consumer-grade digital protocol in the early 80's. Yes it's +35yo, how obsolete is that in the digital world lol

 

Old = obsolete. Hmm. USB 2.0 is 17 years old now. How obsolete is that lol

 

Actually some DAC's also come with Word clock input: https://repo.antelopeaudio.com/down...c_Platinum_Owners_Manual[EN]_Aug_2014_web.pdf

10M / Word Clock Input
BNC connector used to accept either 10M or Word Clock reference.
NOTE: Auto-detects a 10M Input and Word Clock overrides the Clock Signal present in AES, S/PDIF and TOSLINK

So instead of dropping 3K's on your DAC and +2K on magical USB gizmo you might as well get a DAC with such an input and make everything sing along to the same Word clock using the shortest cables. As my gearslutz quote said "Clocks are hard. Really hard" and this hits the nail right on the head, this is the best option you can find and not a subjective fairy tale.

USB2 is completely obsolete for its computer use original intent.

 

http://en.antelopeaudio.com/products/10mx/

IT’S UNBELIEVABLE WHAT CLOCKING DONE RIGHT CAN DO FOR YOUR MUSIC

you don't say, lol, but I'm sure he's never heard that rednet thingie with clock recovered S/PDIF lol

 

Wow, I've never heard of an external word clock!
Oh, wait, I work with pro audio setups every day.

Instead of reading literal endorsement ad copy, why not read several sources lol

http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/does-your-studio-need-digital-master-clock

 

Ignore @leescratchy, he is a troll, a wannabe Gonzo, trying to pass himself off as the DAC Hunter S. Thompson.

 

That's beautiful but your link proves my point:

Ideally, the receiving circuitry will be able to remove this interface jitter, but not all devices manage this equally well (as shown in the investigations into A‑D converter clock‑recovery above), and if the embedded clocks are to be used as a clock reference (as is common practice in D‑A converters, for example), then this interface jitter can become part of the overall system's clock jitter, potentially resulting in reduced D‑A (or A‑D) performance.
(..)
With S/PDIF and AES formats, clock jitter is directly affected by the audio data content to some degree, because of the different cable‑capacitance charging and discharging times that occur.

I mentioned CS8416 in 192kHz legacy mode, no matter what you will do upstream there'll be half a ns of jitter feeding your DAC chips. How are these not obsolete crapshot protocols again? Anyway, if clock recovery sounds great to you guys then it's all that matters. I'll stick to async USB

If you look anything like your avatar(which I'm sure you don't), I'd love to try gonzo someday.

 

Assuming he's still posting (from the other comments) ... he's just another one "here to school us" ... because, you know, none of us could possibly actually have real, practical, experience with any of this stuff. And he's at least as bad as those buying myriad USB-defuckifiers or S/PDIF interfaces that he's railing against ... while he's worrying about his clock deviation on a USB connection and what f'ing capacitors it uses.

Laugh-a-minute stuff.

 

I grow tired of Lee Scratchy, and applaud myself for my patience so far.

I summon the elder god @baldr. I petition you, rain eldritch knowledge on this mortal's head. Or maybe you'll agree that USB is the ideal interface?

 

Yes at this point it'll take a miracle and more than subjective impressions of elder guys to prove that clock-recovered S/PDIF & AES can better async USB I'm afraid. I'll keep waiting then

 

Fair enough but I still don't see a reason to use clock recovery using protocols from the 80's when you can go async USB, apparently the best option remains to slave your DDC to your DAC and I rest my case that feeding a mobo coax output or a megabucks DDC to CS8416 in legacy mode will still land you with at the very least +500ps of jitter, this chip can still be found in a handful of 4 figures DAC's for that matter.

Can clock recovery S/PDIF or AES be done right and provide the same low jitter as async USB using 3ppm clocks and tiny I²S traces to the DAC chip? Maybe but I've tried a good bunch of pricey DAC's and this has never happened IME, built-in XMOS or Amanero USB always sounding more focused and providing a wider and deeper SS so throwing thousands of dollars on S/PDIF & AES is a total waste of money IMO.

And I still call bs on this: https://kitsunehifi.com/product/intona-usb/#reviews

"its ability to suppress the known 8Khz USB Packet noise issue far better than most devices"

 

Wow. I'm just trying to wrap my head around just how deluded you actually are...

 

That's a 6K DAC and its designer talks a lot, it prolly runs all kind of TOTL internal reclocking using ridiculously overkill clocks, that's fantastic news if it can make Toslink sound as good as USB but tbh for 6K I'd expect no less than this kind of miracle.