Is usb reclocking necessary?


I’m running Innuos Zenith MK3 and Ayre QB9 Twenty DAC that sounds pretty darn good. Will adding a Innuos Phoenix reclocker make it MUCH better?
hysteve

Showing 1 response by mahler123

I had a DAC over 10 years ago that did not have a synchronous usb input.  The DAC was great with S/PDIF, but with usb the soundstage completely collapsed.  On Orchestral recordings it sounded as if the bass drum and the tuba were side by side with the Conductor.  I then bought one of those cheap reclocker devices by Musical Fidelity.  It came in ugly casework, had no independent power source, and stopped working after a week.  During that week, however, it made the usb almost equal to the other inputs.
  Todays DACs come with some type of reclocker.  The question then becomes how much additional sonic benefit can be derived from an additional reclocker.  Surely the numbers would would better on a graph, but any audible improvement?  I noted with interest that with dCS, more than one respected reviewer thought there was no audible benefit to the separate reclocker, which cost around $10K