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In the Forum: Didital Things
In the Thread: Myth of CD clocking = True/False
Post Subject: Myth of CD clocking = True/FalsePosted by Romy the Cat on: 2/24/2006

I wonder how myth in all those digital gismos and how little what we considering in digital is obvious and self-explanatory in reality has not relation to Sound. Also, how much those people with who just learned how to solder and let their blind (and deaf) solder to put themselves on a position of audio experts, in reality, how much they get the results that worth any attention?

Playing with Lavry AD, DA and Lynx 16 digital interface I was wondering how much the rumors about using one clock as master and others as slave would actually affect sound. I’m not talking about some conceptual justifications but the actually auditable sonic BENEFICIAL results.  Different Morons assured me that “the external master clock or a master-slave scenario is the way in which it should be done”. They also proposed that I should buy $4435.54 cables to synchronize the clocks…. :-) I’m a gullible person and I extend a credit to anyone who knows a difference between faraday and coulombs but I am very suspicion to the judgments of the people who do know a difference between Bach and Bax. They bring different technical justification why master clock up-stream and down-stream would be better or worth, dropping the big professional names and mention as their hi-fi references the digital crap like Wadia, Spectral, ML and so on. I was little suspicion, as I know that those digital experts personally can’t perceive Sound and they have very primitive reference points regarding Music reproduction. Well, after the actual experiments and the actual listening of the external clock configuration I surmised that what I expected was correct – the internal clocks and the master-slave scenario did work better. I have no explanations why, nether do I care why …

Another example: I have a Superclock lying around and I decided to listen the Morons and to put it in my CEC TL0 CD transport.  The Audiocom’s Superclock is an aftermarket $300-worth discreet clock generator made to minimize jitter.

http://www.audiocom-uk.com/control/news/anmviewer.asp?a=162&z=15

The substitute clock has very good publicity from the average audio crowd… and this made me always little afraid. The guy who suggested me the Superclock was Kyle form Reference Audio Mods. Kyle-like operation is kind of become very typical: those people run their mouth about anything using like parrots the very same words and the very same thoughts that were pre-developed for them. They usually have very little real meaning behind the words and have very primitive actual sonic results in their listening/demonstrating rooms and very-very, extremely low, reference points in regard of ASSESSMENT of reproduced Sound. For year I use those tweakers guys as an indicator of the most revolting tendencies in audio. Black Gates Capacitors, silver cable and the rest audio foolishness derive directly form the efforts of those audio vandals.  Do not get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with Kyle and with those people. They all run the honest businesses where they provide the services with a scope of own knowledge and understanding – unfortunately very limiter understanding and very irrelevant knowledge. They juts server completely different domain of demands in audio and they regrettably to unable to understand neither the real Sound not the civilized method of accomplishing Real Sound. Am I wrong? Well, visit Kyle, listen his playback, paying attention to his system’s intentions and the system’s objective. It will be enough for you to learn what you deal with. I made my mind after attending the Reference Audio Mods demonstration at CES…

Anyhow, coupled days back I put the Audiocom’s Superclock into the TL0. The rational was reasonable: since my DAC has no own clock then putting better clock into the transport would presumably improve the entire digital chain. Well it was a purely intellectual rational that had no relation to anything else besides juts an abstract logic….. In realty,  the Superclock completely killed Sound. Ironically the Sound did become “better” but this “betterness” was only in scale of the Kyle’s reference points. The system gained “resolution”, the resolution that Kyle’s people love to mention; but was it really resolution or it was some kind of surrogate that fulfilled the barbaric expectation of the typical audio-Morons ™?

The Superclock’s effect has nothing to do with resolution. The Superclock made the different sounds separated from Music converting Sound into a back of a porcupine. Interesting, that my attention, listening the Superclocked TL0, did not listen Music but juts jumped form a Sound to a Sound, form pitch to pitch, scanning the differences, impressed by the boosted irrelevant effectiveness, without associating the tones but with purpose of musical reasons of the musical program. It was some kind of listening of Music Lite ™… or the very same audible crap that you will be able to listen in 99.9999% of those audiophile’s listing rooms.

Also, the Superclock completely screwed up bass. I was very surprised, as everyone with whom I spoke was absolutely thrilled with the bass results they were able to get out of the Superclock. However those people, all of them, are wrong.  Superclock does jack up midbass and make it very nice and softer. So, what? The region around 40-150Hz suddenly become too prominent and the lower bass got completely lost and masked out. The midbass prominence made music too heavy and too weighty, very unbalanced. I understand why the Morons ™ out there find this effect very positive. Thy listen their speakers with undeveloped mid-bass channels (99% of them)

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=1414

and when this Superclock suddenly pushes out a huge amount of fictitious upper bass then they go crazy. I am sure if I would use the back-loaded speakers than I would lover more and better upper bass. Probably they would love to have an EQ and well, they would also love that my Superclock prevent their MF drivers do not produce 90% distortions in upper bass region….

It is was not enough I would tell you, the Superclock sound has a “double ping” imaging that most of the Morons consider as “space”. It is very minute and infinitesimal but it is VERY annoying.  I could go on trashing the sound that I got from the Superclock but what would be the point? I put the default oscillator back to TL0 and it was like a return home after many year of journey…

So, what the digital experts-tweakers are saying? As far as I concern their opinions and their expertise worth …  and in fact is…. juts a jitter of audio practice.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

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