Budget wordclocks that work better than the 192 i/o clock?

LeeRosario

LeeRosario

New member
For the mastering guys in here...could you recommend a budget wordclock that would work well with a 192 i/o?

So far I've been looking at Black Lion audio's word clock (set at 500 bones), but perhaps there's a secret weapon out there? Between 500-1000?
 
Not quite within your price range but I've seen the Apogee Big Ben for as little as $1345 on several internet sites. For only $345 more than the budget you state, why not go with what is pretty much the industry standard?

Bob
 
It will be difficult to find ANY external clock that has higher accuracy than the internal crystal clock of any ADDA is it is reasonably well designed. Any Wordclock I/O will rely on a PLL circuit which is another layer of ambiguity in your chain.

I would only use external clock for synching multiple digital devices such as in a post production house or a digital hardware mastering scenario where multiple digital devices can run on wordclock (very, very rare these days).

cheers
 
SafeandSound said:
It will be difficult to find ANY external clock that has higher accuracy than the internal crystal clock of any ADDA is it is reasonably well designed. Any Wordclock I/O will rely on a PLL circuit which is another layer of ambiguity in your chain.

I would only use external clock for synching multiple digital devices such as in a post production house or a digital hardware mastering scenario where multiple digital devices can run on wordclock (very, very rare these days).

cheers
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+1. I was going to post the same thing but had a flight to catch.
 
Agreed if we're talking a stand alone device--I assumed the OP was asking because of the need to synchronise one or more other boxes. In that scenario I always prefer distributed wordclock rather than trying to sync to signal feeds or whatever. However, just trying to get a "better wordclock" is a mugs game. I've had this discussion with various "audiophools" who think they can "hear" a different wordclock.

The last time this happened somebody tried to show me a waveform to prove how bad the internal wordclock was...except he looked at it unterminated. As soon as a BNC term was slapped on, it suddenly looked perfect.
Bob
 
Just finished reading the post... I have to disagree with clocks not making a difference! I purchased a Big Ben (Apogee) and synced it with my Profire 2626! Made a difference in my A/D D/A big time. After that I modified my audio interface with Black Lion Audio and WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.. So i tried there inexpensive Clock and WOW!!!!!!! AGAIN!!! I understand what everyone says.., but i trust my ears alot more! My friends here in chicago could not understand why my reacordings sounded full, the low end seemed to grab their attention everytime! All 3 own HD systems! It wasen't even a few weeks til 2 of them called me and asked for BLA number! They are extremly happy and all three own clocks now. These are everyday engineers and producers.
 
drmusic said:
Just finished reading the post... I have to disagree with clocks not making a difference!
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No one's saying they don't make a difference. They're saying that there's no measured improvement using an external clock. That doesn't mean you aren't hearing a difference that you like, just that it isn't from more accurate clocking. It could be that the sound you like is from jitter.
 
drmusic said:
Just finished reading the post... I have to disagree with clocks not making a difference! I purchased a Big Ben (Apogee) and synced it with my Profire 2626! Made a difference in my A/D D/A big time. After that I modified my audio interface with Black Lion Audio and WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.. So i tried there inexpensive Clock and WOW!!!!!!! AGAIN!!! I understand what everyone says.., but i trust my ears alot more! My friends here in chicago could not understand why my reacordings sounded full, the low end seemed to grab their attention everytime! All 3 own HD systems! It wasen't even a few weeks til 2 of them called me and asked for BLA number! They are extremly happy and all three own clocks now. These are everyday engineers and producers.
Click to expand...

I distrust advice from people who use ALL CAPS and MULTIPLE EXCLAIMATION POINTS!!!!!!

I think the difference between my MOTU 896HD pre and post BLA mod is pretty subtle.
 
This is an entirely other world for me. I've read and tried to comprehend but, given the antiquated nature of my rig I decided that it was all too too.
Nice to know that Earth isn't alone though.
 
Graham Boswell of Prism Sound demonstrated to us in his "Mic to Master" tour that it's not so much the quality of the incoming clock, but the quality of the clock recovery facility of the unit in question. In the demonstration he generated a highly jittered clock from Prism DScope and fed it into an Orpheus and (if I remember correctly), a Behringer something or other. The results were then relayed back to DScope and he was able to show that the Orpheus reconstructed the clock to perfection whilst the Behringer (rather unsurprisingly) failed dismally.

Now, I know the 192 would be heaps and bounds better than the Behringer but nonetheless, the basic idea he said was to run your worst clock as the master clock and slave your better converters to it, based on the idea that their clock recovery facilities would be better than lesser units. I know it seems backwards but it was clearly shown to us as a valid argument.

I know there are a million ways to clock your system and they're all valid, I just thought that this was another way of looking at it since clock recovery is never really thought about.

Cheers :)
 
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