Author Topic: Interesting clocks  (Read 44285 times)


Offline kajak12

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« Last Edit: August 09, 2011, 06:51:05 PM by kajak12 »
still discovering the link between electronics and audio reproduction.so much to learn and so little time

Offline ozcal

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2011, 07:21:19 PM »
Too expensive for me to try Mario.
Lukas's comments on the psu :
"I use reliable vendor MRelektronik from Poland and I ask for the best - 2nd gen (not 3rd) and with OMIG quartz (the best money can buy). Then you need a 10 V PSU with at least 5 VA transformer for 12 VAC and 7810 or 7809 regulator, small bridge and two good electrolytic caps before and after the regulator. The difference in sound is huge."

Listening with my ears :)

Offline kajak12

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #3 on: August 09, 2011, 07:34:06 PM »
Too expensive for me to try Mario.
Lukas's comments on the psu :
"I use reliable vendor MRelektronik from Poland and I ask for the best - 2nd gen (not 3rd) and with OMIG quartz (the best money can buy). Then you need a 10 V PSU with at least 5 VA transformer for 12 VAC and 7810 or 7809 regulator, small bridge and two good electrolytic caps before and after the regulator. The difference in sound is huge."


i have read that before the electrolytic used are junk
still discovering the link between electronics and audio reproduction.so much to learn and so little time

Offline ozcal

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #4 on: August 09, 2011, 07:41:31 PM »
What would you replace them with ? ;D
Listening with my ears :)

Offline kajak12

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still discovering the link between electronics and audio reproduction.so much to learn and so little time

Offline zenelectro

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #6 on: August 10, 2011, 01:24:17 AM »
The last clock looks good besides the smd components used but the power supplys used is a joke http://www.mrelektronik.pl/60.pdf
i hope mr.fikus doesn't use them.
ozcol buy one and try it

These clocks (NDK) are fairly cheap TCXO's with reasonably good performance.

The one I sent to you would have at least 10 x lower (phase noise) jitter.


T

Offline ozcal

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #7 on: August 10, 2011, 11:23:13 AM »
Good to know T.
Listening with my ears :)

Offline stevenvalve

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #8 on: June 29, 2016, 03:49:34 PM »
What price for performance. I wonder if graham will buy me one of these for Christmas. How can these toys be justified at $22000.

 http://www.esoteric.jp/products/esoteric/g01/indexe.html

http://www.krispyaudio.com.au/products/Esoteric-G%252d01-Master-Clock-Generator.html

Offline matt200sr

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #9 on: June 29, 2016, 10:04:02 PM »
What price for performance. I wonder if graham will buy me one of these for Christmas. How can these toys be justified at $22000.

 http://www.esoteric.jp/products/esoteric/g01/indexe.html

http://www.krispyaudio.com.au/products/Esoteric-G%252d01-Master-Clock-Generator.html


How the hell does one fit that inside a Wadia or CD94?

 :o :o :o

Offline Jehuty

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #10 on: July 01, 2016, 06:33:24 PM »
What price for performance. I wonder if graham will buy me one of these for Christmas. How can these toys be justified at $22000.

 http://www.esoteric.jp/products/esoteric/g01/indexe.html

http://www.krispyaudio.com.au/products/Esoteric-G%252d01-Master-Clock-Generator.html

I would get Zen Clock and be done with it  8)
Not all that matters can be measured, not all that can be measured matters.

Offline kajak12

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #11 on: July 06, 2016, 08:29:14 PM »
What price for performance. I wonder if graham will buy me one of these for Christmas. How can these toys be justified at $22000.

 http://www.esoteric.jp/products/esoteric/g01/indexe.html

http://www.krispyaudio.com.au/products/Esoteric-G%252d01-Master-Clock-Generator.html
very easy steve one has a credit card which is stolen or they have very rich parents
still discovering the link between electronics and audio reproduction.so much to learn and so little time

Offline kajak12

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #12 on: July 06, 2016, 08:30:01 PM »
I would get Zen Clock and be done with it  8)
SHHHH he might charge 22k for one in a box
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Offline stevenvalve

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #13 on: July 15, 2016, 04:16:53 PM »
A picture for V of my Battery powered tricord mark 2 clock. As you can see it's super modified. It's a simple design, much simpler than his later version, and far better. I even listened to about 6 crystals till i found 2 that sounded best. Yes crystals from the same batch do sound different. Even the battery's i tried sounded very different. most poor, one brilliant. This is the battery to get.  Crazy hobby.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2016, 04:34:39 PM by stevenvalve »

Offline kajak12

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #14 on: July 15, 2016, 10:31:23 PM »
A picture for V of my Battery powered tricord mark 2 clock. As you can see it's super modified. It's a simple design, much simpler than his later version, and far better. I even listened to about 6 crystals till i found 2 that sounded best. Yes crystals from the same batch do sound different. Even the battery's i tried sounded very different. most poor, one brilliant. This is the battery to get.  Crazy hobby.
Zens clock pisses on trichord its like killer dac vs mp3
still discovering the link between electronics and audio reproduction.so much to learn and so little time

Offline zenelectro

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #15 on: July 20, 2016, 02:46:53 PM »
SHHHH he might charge 22k for one in a box

Hi All,

10M clocks

Just a few words WRT Esoteric and other 10M / Rubidium clocks.

Firstly the Esoteric is by all accounts based on a Stanford Research Rubidium core with a lot of other stuff thrown in.
There are others such as Antelope Audio 10M and Stanford Research make their own 10M clock with very low jitter.

Here's the problem - DAC's (the convertor chip itself) don't require a 10M clock frequency. 10MHz is all but useless to
a DAC running at 44.1k / 48k or any higher multiple such as 96k etc.

The DAC will require a mclk or bclk that is a multiple of 44.1kHz which will be anywhere from 2.8224MHz to
22.5792 MHz. In the case of CD94 type transports it is 256 x FS = 11.2896MHz. Bingo - Zenclock freq.

Any audio DAC or transport that has a 10MHz IP will somehow have to either slave to it via a PLL or convert it via DDS (direct digital synthesis).
As such the jitter induced by that further process will be far greater than the 10MHz clock itself.  So it's basically not a smart idea.


******************************

Latest Zenclock and reclocker

Let's get back to 11.2896MHz and the CD94 type transport.

If we look at Steve's custom 11.2896 clock, this will then feed the SAA7210 decoder chip which then creates the 3 x I2S signals (data/bck/wck)
and we send those directly to the 1541 DAC.

As such the pure clock signal is corrupted by the SAA7210 itself. This is easy to see on even a 100MHz cro. The clock outputs a nice clean
square wave but the I2S signals coming from 7210 chip are full of rubbish, noise and jitter.

Many people try to alleviate this by upgrading various caps, power supplies etc etc on the transport and it certainly improves things to some degree
however there is no getting around this issue of the 7210 chip messing with the clock - regardless of how many esoteric parts you put in the transport.

I decided to address this by using a reclocking board after the 7210 chip that cleans and re aligns all 3 I2S signals to the low jitter master clock.
So all the damage that the 7210 chip does to the pristine clock signal is, to a very large extent reversed. The re clocking board uses a separate
chip for each of the I2S signals and they even each have a separate power supply so there is minimal interaction of the 3 signals.

All of the PS bypass caps are special high speed film caps that or not microphonic like ceramic caps. The whole board is on a solid copper board that is
right next to the Zenclock so there is absolutely minimal noise and corruption of the signals. The three re clocking chips are super fast, low jitter chips
that have very good drive capability to get the signals to DAC.   

Further to this I have experimented with types of resistors and I2S signal levels. The standard 5V OP levels of the 7210 are not optimal for the
TDA1541 and this is pretty widely know these days. 

To my ear this re clocking board made as much or even more difference than the clock itself. 

Here's a pic of the latest Zenclock install just about finished for Rob. The reclocker board is just left of purple oscon and mounted right on the Zenclock
board itself. It's also right next to the I2S OP connector. Long runs of cat5 and esoteric parts look great but this tight, copper planed layout works
better WRT keeping those precious I2S signals clean.

cheers all,

Terry   
 
« Last Edit: July 20, 2016, 02:50:07 PM by zenelectro »

Offline brenden

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #16 on: July 20, 2016, 10:01:13 PM »
Love your work Terry .  Just interested in the ps caps .what size and brand  are they ?
    Just trying to figure out how to get one  of these clocks in a 94 mk2 .

Offline zenelectro

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #17 on: July 21, 2016, 12:03:14 AM »
Love your work Terry .  Just interested in the ps caps .what size and brand  are they ?
    Just trying to figure out how to get one  of these clocks in a 94 mk2 .

Thanks.  :)

The main filter cap for clock voltage reference is a Solen but I'm not sure how much difference it makes.
All resistors on clock board are carbon - non mag and non inductive - not just smoke and mirrors.

Most all of the caps on clock board are film caps, no ceramics as they are microphonic.

But anywhere there is high speed the caps are special high speed film caps soldered directly to copper plane.

The clock and reclocking board are powered by Battery.  So the transports power supplies don't have a huge effect.

The clock will go easily in a 94Mk 2 but unless you run a DAC it's a bit of a waste of $.

I would say if you don't want to go with a separate DAC then a lot of PPL are using AD844 in open loop config with apparently great results.
I haven't used them so no personal experience.

When this player is done it will go to Craig C for setup with a KDAC so we can also do some tweaks.

cheers

Terry
 
« Last Edit: July 21, 2016, 12:06:40 AM by zenelectro »

Offline zenelectro

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #18 on: July 21, 2016, 12:11:09 AM »
FWIW I'm currently looking at next gen higher freq Zenclock for Pro Audio ADC that I'm working on for recording applications.

These require 22 / 24MHz. These can also be used for PC -> USB DAC playback.

Unfortunately as clock freq goes higher the performance suffers slightly so these will have to be a higher spec clock but will cost more.


Offline brenden

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Re: Interesting clocks
« Reply #19 on: July 22, 2016, 02:24:43 PM »
Quote
[/quoteMost all of the caps on clock board are film caps, no ceramics as they are microphonic.

   Hi Terry .  I am glad u made this comment as it is very important . I have been modding up my teradak clock (valab) for a while now .
      I have one by one replaced  the caps with the best ones I have ,and increased the  size of the filter caps to multiples of the originals .

     But one cap that made a bigger improvement  than all of the others was changing a 100pf ceramic in the onboard regulator in the clock . I assume it was there for stability .I chose a copper foil polystyrene  for its high frequency performance .
     The valab clock  is good value for price but if u want super high end then general purpose capacitors are not good enough .Its clear that the clocks are very sensitive to the  quality of the power supply fed to them .
      Here is a pic of the clock .The little yellow cap is a source of grain and glare .

  I have since  changed out some ceramics in the 94 mk2  power supplies withe similar results .
  My experience seems to support the view that ceramics have no place in audio circuits .