First, all of you need to understand that there is no perfect "reclocking" system in any DAC. They all have drawbacks and imperfections that make the majority of them still sensitive to jitter. Maybe not as much as a DAC from 15 years ago, but still sensitive.
IMO, a lower jitter transport or reclocker after a transport is ALWAYS a good idea. If you read the reviews enough you will find that the reviewer with the low jitter source concludes that most DACs sound virtually identical when driven from this source, even $1K and $8K DACs. The conclusion is that the jitter of the digital source is actually more important than the DAC. It has actually always been the case.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
Rrgog - Maybe there was no difference in jitter between the two CD players. There were both probably high in jitter. Also, you were likely using an inexpensive active preamp. This will easily mask any differences there. By inexpensive, I mean less than $15K. The best active preamps are tube.
One thing that you all can do to improve the resolution of your systems is to sell the active preamp and reaplce it with a transformer passive linestage (TVC). These beat 99% of active preamps.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
Rrog -I dont manufacture or sell preamps.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
Slaving is only possible with a tiny set of sources and a tiny set of DACs that output master or word clocks. Thats why. Its also no guarantee of greatness. You are at the mercy of the DAC designer and the clock and clock circuit that he designed.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
Scott - I hope it is a good 1.5m glass cable, not a short plastic one.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
Rrog - see
http://www.empiricalaudio.com/products/overdrive-dac
and
http://www.empiricalaudio.com/news-and-reviews/overdrive-dac
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=108715.0
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
Elberoth - I recentky had the opportunity to do a shootout of several liner and switching supplies powering digital, USB converter, reclocker and DAC. In all cases, the switching supply followed by a fast regulator beat out the linear. I feel now that liners are just too slow to respond to be interesting for digital.
I have also had customers try various linear supplies for the Synchro-Mesh reclocker, all with dissappointing results.
Steve N. |
That's debatable. Compared to what? |
Charles - there is a big difference between a switcher and a good quality switcher followed by a fast discrete linear regulator.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
Ed - Ive tried several linears and none of them work well for digital. Analog maybe. Even LI batteries with ultracaps in parallel are not as good.
Until you have heard a good switcher/series regulator, you cant possibly understand. Believe me, the difference is incredible. There are none like this available on the market yet BTW.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
Gummy - this is about di/dt. Batteries have non-zero internal impedance and even with ultracaps they cannot compete with fast low-impedance regulators. The issue is having the same impedance at all frequencies of current.
I have designed and sold both SLA and LI/ultracap supplies in the past.
Steve N.
Emnpirical Audio |
Gumby - yes, di/dt is the change in current over time. It is the dynamics changing load and resultant current. If the load changes and the regulator cannot respond quickly enough, you get distortion, lack of focus.
This is by no means microscopic. It is a function of the power supply AND the power decoupling at the load and all of the wires and traces bewteen the two.
LI batteries, particularly combined with ultracaps can outperform most regulator designs except the very best.
Its the very best discrete regulator designs that I use. They are faster than the best LI battery supply and very low noise. Critically damped, so no overshoot when responding to transient load changes. These are designs by Paul Hynes that have been optimized by me for digital.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
There a lot of variables here. The most obvious is that the jitter when playing 44.1 may be higher. Another is the digital filtering in the DAC, which usually sounds worse at 44.1. Another is the playback software, which has a large influence on the sound of playback of digital files. Another is the ripping software you used for the CD rips to hard disk.
FLAC files do sound a bit worse than native .wav, but you must really have a resolving system to hear this. Its not that obvious. I doubt if this is the problem.
I would recommend to first do the easy stuff, namely the player and ripper. See this for recommendations:
http://www.empiricalaudio.com/computer-audio/
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
