DACs with word clock output??

It seems like you need an Apogee Big Ben. I am a little confused why you want to pass digital signals around like this?

Doug,

I think there are two schools of logic.

1) A master clock which is precisely passed around with extremely expensive and precision circuitry to accommodate that. Studios may need this if they are to keep multiple devices and bitsreams all in sync. This is the gold plated approach - everything has to be near perfect and especially the circuits transmitting and receiving the clock signal.

2) On the simple audio reproduction side it seems that the cheap way is becoming the most popular. The cheaper approach is to reclock on the DAC. Various options exist to break the link between a lower quality S/PDIF jittery input and the output clocking on the DAC. This is probably improving all the time. The idea is that a jittery interface signal is no longer the big problem it once was with older PLL loop technology PROVIDED the designer can build the best clock and DAC circuitry to "isolate" any incoming jitter from the input (either the data is buffered or an asynchronous sample rate converter is used to physically break the clock linkage/dependency. Since it is much easier to generate an accurate clock locally on a chip close to where it is needed than to transfer that precision all around to different devices - this solution seems lowest cost.

I supect you are having difficulty finding anything but pro-audio gear to do what you ask. This is beacause you are taking the gold plated approach where everything has to be of the highest precision.

FWIW: On paper I think both approaches theoretically can work - obviously some designs will be better than others and I can't tell you which one is overall "king" (certainly not on my modest digital budget) but the reason I suspect Option 2 is winning and you cannot find a DAC with a wordclock slave input is simply because this approach is difficult to achieve and very costly and the philosophy of the "reclocking engineers" believe that "reclocking" negates the need for such costly high precision on the interfaces.

Steve thanks

the clock needs to originate close to the D/A.

Then this seems to be the prevailing consensus/wisdom for playback these days.

Doug,

Hey - no problem. You are in contact with an expert and in good hands now. Actually I just tried to chime in simply because nobody was helping you. I don't have personal experience in trying to achieve what you want.