Digital clock - any recommendations?

How much are you willing to spend?

Any excellent DAC will not benefit from an external clock. The good ones, like the Benchmark DAC3 reclock S/PDIF themselves, so the only jitter is internal.

Why buy a $700 reclocker when you can get $700 or cheaper DAC with external jitter reduction?

For instance, the Schiit Modi 2 showed improvement when the Empirical Audio $700 reclocker was added, but pretty much no difference when used with the Topping DX7s ($500 DAC+headphone amp).

Going digital out of your Marantz to say the SMSL SU-8 would give you similar results to using an external reclocker, in that the jitter from both would be well below audible levels.

@folkfreak
If it is a good DAC, then what OP heard is not real. People wanting to believe expensive “tweaks” actually matter. However, going off the Stereophile measurements of the Esoteric D-07, even $100 DACs have better jitter than that, so...

If the Topping DAC did not benefit from a reclocker (meaning the issue is internal jitter and not external jitter), then why would the Esoteric be worse.

@dgarretson

Same thing, no. The better your DAC, the less improvement an external clock/reclocker makes.

To restate, if your >$500 DAC benefits from an external clock, it’s a piece of junk. There is no reason why it should not internally reclock it’s inputs, that’s just a company selling a lamborghini body with a corolla engine.

For any good DAC, the only jitter is internal, meaning external clocks, which affect external jitter, will have no effect.

@folkfreak

OP has now stated whether he uses SACD or not, but good point.

I would argue though that regular Audio CD through an SMSL SU-8 or similar would sound be better than even a $10,000 master clock hooked up to that Marantz. Granted, Stereophile measurements show it to be pretty good, except Filter 2.

Did not know the Esoteric was multi-box (I know the DCS is; I still see no reason to have an external upsampler).

Still, I believe OP is asking for a reclocker and not actually a master word clock.

I know that Marantz has a clock input, but unless the source also has one, then it cannot be used. Even if so, the internal jitter from the Marantz would still exist.

It would make much more sense to instead buy a $250-$2000 DAC that reclocks internally, and simply use the digital out from the Marantz and plug whatever other sources into the DAC as well, instead of into the Marantz.

@folkfreak

riddle me this then. Why are the suppliers of external clocks primarily suppliers to recording studios? Presumably the studios can afford the clock impervious DACs of which you speak so highly yet they somehow seem to think it worth investing in master clocks?

To quote someone else:

This is so all digital processing, DAC’s, ADC’s all sample at exactly the same time and all data words...are generated/read at the exact same time.
When this was not done the drift in each clock of every ’device’ would make them all different in frequency (very slightly) and timing.

What a studio needs and what a residential setup needs are totally different. 24Bit provides 0 benefit for consumers, but is needed for studios so they can gain recordings without increasing the noise floor to audible levels.

We are not talking about audio production, we are talking about audio reproduction, specifically reducing jitter from the source to the DAC by using external clocks. Any good DAC will reclock internally, so unless you have so much jitter that your DAC is losing lock, there is no need for an external clock on a good DAC, because it would make no difference, the only jitter from a good DAC is internal.

What are you gonna use the external clock with? Does your preamp/integrated also have a word clock jack? You don’t just plug it into your transport/player. 
 
Or are you talking about a re-clocker? 
 
As I’ve stated on this forum, there is no real technical benefit to DSD in regard to music listening, so I wouldn’t be worried about losing it. 
 
As also discussed, the Esoteric is a multi-box digital system, the clock is used to sync all the components, it is not needed if you are just going analog out from your Marantz to your preamp/integrated.  
  
Room treatment, room correction, and subwoofers would add magnitudes more benefit.

@folkfreak

Name an audible benefit DSD provides over PCM; or explain an audible defect of PCM. To save time, “smearing” isn’t a valid response. PCM perfectly captures the waveforms below Nyquist and even undithered 16Bit has a larger dynamic range than our rooms allow. 16/44.1 is audibly perfect, assuming your DAC is good enough, it is easily verified by measurements/math as well as human trials; it’s all marketing.
  
Here’s a preamp with an internal word clock in/out
 

Direct experience makes no difference if it’s under sighted conditions. There is a company that sells anti-vibration stickers, and people believe they work.

And again, OP has never stated what he owns except the Marantz, so maybe an external word clock can’t even be used. Multi-box systems for residential use are extremely rare. I stated pre-amp for if one had a digital input that OP would use for plain CD, meaning if it was better than the DAC in the Marantz, which would be used for SACD. As again, What would this external clock going to be syncing, the Marantz and what?

And I still don’t buy that an external upsampler vs an internal one makes an audible difference, 44.1kHz filter performance by the Benchmark DAC3B, which internally upsamples to >200khz, no audible aliasing or imaging, or are you saying the Vivaldi performs worse than a $2K DAC?

Stereophile measurements show the Marantz is of transparent performance, so there is no need to add any tweaks for analog output.

Spending $4K on an external word clock for residential use is just throwing money down the drain.

@tzh21y

It does have a clock input, but what are you syncing it too? A master clock is to make sure all the components are in-sync.

All you have is your Marantz going into whatever preamp/integrated you have. Does that have a clock input as well? If not, there is nothing to sync the Marantz too. As pointed out by the other user, the Esoteric was using the clock to sync all of its separate components together, not a common layout for the majority of setups. 
 
DSD can’t sound more accurate, because PCM is already 100% accurate (down till -95dBFs at a minimum). Now, your DAC’s filter for DSD may be more pleasant, but that’s a case-by-case basis, and has nothing to do with the actual format.

The fact that the clock is external and thus needs a relatively long cable to connect is defeats any benefit in the increased accuracy. Even if the clock is better, the internal clock of the Marantz using a very short cable will be much better.

Also, I would wager that <10% of producers and musicians don’t even know what DSD is; so it is very inaccurate to state the majority favors it.

@folkfreak

If you think a multi-thousand dollar CD player has such issues, you’d be mistaken (or the product is garbage).

https://www.stereophile.com/content/marantz-sa-11s2-reference-sacdcd-player-measurements

Repeating the test with the Marantz’s word-clock input locked to a high-quality external source (a dCS 972 digital/digital converter) at either 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz increased the measured jitter slightly, to 271ps p–p, but with an almost identical-looking spectrum, including the rise in the noise floor to either side of the central peak. I couldn’t find any other measured differences resulting from externally clocking the player, but it could be that the dCS clock offers pretty much the same degree of stability as the Marantz’s own.

So yeah, like I said, there is no benefit to externally clocking any decent player; it helps in studios because it’s a multi-component chain and they want to be in-sync, a totally different thing.