Is the Monarchy DIP effective?

I have a MkI DIP that I've used for several years. I've found its effectiveness ultimately hinges on both transport quality and the DAC's receiver section in particular. It brought significant improvements to a older CD player's toslink signal when feeding an older receiver chip. However, with either a quality low jitter transport or a newer Crystal receiver chip (the CS8414 for example), the results were marginal. I would imagine that for the best low jitter transports and DACs, the DIP may actually degrade performance. I suspect the DIP reclocks via its PLL no better than a certain design limited level of jitter (I can't imagine it would ever be better than 250 ps, considering the age of its design). 250 ps was considered a very good jitter specification five years ago - if that's better than your transport and DAC's native jitter levels, you've gained; if not, you've taken a step backwards. I believe the latest Crystal receivers have intrinsic jitter around 150-200 ps. The DIP doesn't compare to the new technology jitter busters, IMHO (the 2 ps output D2D-1 that I now use comes to mind). But at its price and in the right system, the DIP is still a good value.

Postscript to my earlier post: I also had a Sigma II 24/96 and it had the CS8414 receiver chip. The results using a DIP with this DAC (coaxial digital - not toslink) were slightly noticable, but undramatic, and undetectable with a quality transport. By the way, the current jitter boxes still use PLL to some extent, so it should not be discounted as passe. The difference is that the new boxes use a high precision second reclocking stage that the DIP does not.

I am not familiar enough with that machine to say. If you can ever get a response from them, you may want to try asking Sony or perhaps your dealer. Jitter is a more mainstream design issue than it was five or six years ago, so I would think all manufacturers consider jitter attenuation within their price point constraints. I have a CEC transport, which I know has low design jitter. By the way, don't overlook your cables as an additional jitter source. Improper cabling can add tons of it via reflection.

I'm presently using an Assemblage DAC 3.1 with D2D-1 connected with an I2Se cable. Transport to D2D-1 is a one meter Illuminations DV-75 RCA. I've actually got an extra DV-75 that I was considering selling, as I'm on the lookout for AES/EBU digital right now. Cardas makes a good cable, though. For the Sigma II, you don't need a super premium cable - a good one will do. Also, give some thought to trying an NOS 5751 in place of the 12AX7. A Raytheon 5751 really transforms this DAC. Tube World occasionally has them for around $20. A bigger pop than spending $300 on a digital cable. Also, clean the tube pins with DeOxit for an extra "tweak".

CEC transport, Assemblage digital front end, SF Line 1 with NOS 6922s, MF A3cr, Thiel CS1.5s. Cables are Tara RSC Master Gen II and Kimber 8tc. Tice conditioning with dedicated 30 amp AC circuit. And a Magnum-Dynalab FT101A to catch NPR once in a while.