Implications of Esoteric G-0Rb atomic clock


The latest TAS (March 2008) has an excellent piece by Robert Harley: a review of the Esoteric G-0Rb Master Clock Generator, with sidebars on the history and significance of jitter. This Esoteric unit employs an atomic clock (using rubidium) to take timing precision to a new level, at least for consumer gear. It's a good read, I recommend it.

If I am reading all of this correctly, I reach the following conclusions:

(1) Jitter is more important sonically than we might have thought

(2) Better jitter reduction at the A-D side of things will yield significant benefits, which means we can look forward to another of round remasters (of analog tapes) once atomic clock solutions make it into mastering labs

(3) All of the Superclocks, claims of vanishingly low jitter, reclocking DACs -- all of this stuff that's out there now, while probably heading in the right direction, still falls fall short of what's possible and needed if we are to get the best out of digital and fully realize its promise.

(4) We can expect to see atomic clocks in our future DACs and CDPs. Really?

Am I drawing the right conclusions?
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Showing 6 responses by dazzdax

Do you really think jitter is the only reason for awful digital sound? The P-01 transport has very low jitter but still benefits from the Rubidium clock. There are other transport that have more jitter but sound as musical and with the same detail resolution as the P-01.

Chris
So, now we are finally approaching the pure "bits-are-bits" theory with the USB based digital music reproduction (as was intended from the beginning) and we're leaving the vagueness of the bits-are-bits + something magical concept. This could be a manifesto. To all audiophiles worldwide: Get rid of those mediocre CD transports!

Chris
Sean, is it possible once jitter is introduced into a specific recording to remaster this recording in such a way that the jitter could be eliminated? If this is not possible, why not? Are those early digital recordings sounding bad because of the high jitter content? There are also oldskool digital recordings (from 1980/1981/1982) that sound great, how could you explain that? Pure luck?

Chris
Why is it not possible to repair a jitterized recording? Jitter is the minute variations in the time intervals between the bits, so if you remaster the recording using some form of reclocking device, you can get rid of these minute variations. How would a jitterized recording sound if it was remastered using the atomic clock in the reclocking circuit?

Chris
Ehider, are you talking about the Daniel Hertz USB DAC with the proprietary Burwen Bobcat DSP?

Chris