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2 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Wow, excellent report!

 

If @romaz's impressions are any indication, then the application of Ref 10 reference clock to the SOtM Ultra via the 50 ohm cable should give you another positive SQ bump.

 

i look forward to your findings!

 

This is bad news, I now find myself making room for a Ref10 on the audio rack ....

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48 minutes ago, SwissBear said:

A few more observations:

 

I have listened to the system with the sMS-200 Ultra being fed a clock signal from the Ref-10 and, either with internal reclocking (Mutec MC-3+ USB processing without the input of the Ref-10) or with external reclocking (Mutec MC-3+ USB using the input of the Ref-10 for reclocking), there is no audible difference in feeding the sMS-200 Ultra with an external clock on my system.

This can be the consequence of:

  • the 50 Ohm cable I bought not being 'good enough' for the magic to happen (I did not buy the 500 USD filtered 50 Ohm cable proposed by SOtM)
  • my ears not being able to discern the subtlety of the improvement
  • an aysnchronous signal (USB) fed into the Mutec MC-3+ USB not being sensitive to high precision clocking before being fed
  • the reclocking made by the MC-3+ USB is 'good enough' to take over any attempt of reclocking made before

Conclusion: I will leave it here for the time being, and try again when I receive my own sMS-200 with 75 Ohm clock input.

 

Excellent feedback although somewhat surprising.

 

Is the switch that you have as a loaner from Aqvox? I am assuming that you have the 200 Ultra connected directly to the switch and not via bridge, correct?

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1 hour ago, SwissBear said:

Hi Bacon,

 

Can I ask what you find surprising ?

 

The router is a D-Link which clock has been changed by SOtM together with a few other changes. And yes the sMS-200 is connected to the router and not in bridged mode.

 

I had anticipated that there would be an improvement in the SQ with the Ref 10 providing the clock signal to the sMS-200 ...

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  • 11 months later...

I have been considering investing in a REF 10 for my system but am not certain if it would be a good fit.

 

My signal chain is currently setup with the Melco (connected to my router ) hosting the first ethernet bridge to the Zenith SE and acting solely as a NAS. The SE hosts the second ethernet bridge to the Trinnov (so to say a a bridge withia bridge) and is the Roon Server. The Trinnov functions as a Roon End Point. The Trinnov is then connected via AES to my Kii Threes.

 

Considering the benefits of RAAT from a clocking perspective, the most logical placement of the REF 10 would appear to be between the Trinnov and the Kii’s utilizing a Mutec Reclocker via AES. This also had the benefit of being able to sync the Trinnov via a Word Clock signal between the Mutec Reclocker and the Trinnov.

 

Curious as to your thoughts?

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12 minutes ago, Patatorz said:

Hello Baconbrain, I think that if you want to use a ref10 the best solution is to reclock the signal (aes or spdif) between your amethyst and kii. It means that the ref10 would be linked to the mutec reclocker (mc3+ ?) with the bnc in order to provide the reference 10M signal and you can send the wordclock signal of the mc3 to the amethyst through a bnc. 

If you are looking for a ref10 i’m Selling one (PM)

 

Best regards

Hey Patatorz,

 

Thx for the response!

 

Yes agree, that would seem to be the most logical way of going about it. One thing that has me somewhat skeptical as how effective this would be is Kii's claim that there is no preferred sample rate when utilizing the AES signal path. Seems a bit skewed, given that the DAC's withn the Kii's must be working with a native (or common) rate. What has been your experience?

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On 8/29/2018 at 8:08 PM, str-1 said:

I yesterday posted this question on the "A novel way to..." thread but then remembered this thread which I had read through part of last year, so thought I would post here as well.

 

It's about the aging of the crystals these reference clocks use.  How long under normal use would it be before I might expect to hear an aging crystal's contribution to a dropping off of performance from a Mutec REF 10 (or any other similarly specified reference clock)?

 

The aging figures quoted for the REF 10 and for other clocks I have looked at indicate very, very small deteriorations under normal use.  But can the aging process be accelerated by persistently adverse environmental factors, such as the increased heat from stacked and poorly ventilated equipment arrangements, or week on week of 30C degree summer heat in London where domestic air-conditioning is the exception rather than the rule?  I could also mention variation in power supply, but would do so accepting that Mutec and other clock manufacturers have taken steps to ensure that that should not be an issue.

 

I am interested in this because the benefits of using a reference clock with their equipment reported by many on CA and other forums range from the subtle to the profound, and I find myself wondering if I were to buy a REF 10 and found the benefits to be subtle, how long it would be before I lost even that due to deterioration of the crystal (accepting that other components would also degrade over time).

Certainly not an expert on this, but I believe the influence of external factors to the rate of deterioration must be a given. The question I would have back to you is: If the amount of benefit from the Ref10 is so subtle that one is concerned about a rate of deterioration +/-0.2 ppm (over 10 years), then is the total investment (Ref10 + cables + ....) warranted to begin with?

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1 hour ago, str-1 said:

 

I see that you have over 150 posts to your credit on CA, and may well have many more on other forums.  So I find it strange given the discussion you have been exposed to around this hobby that you would seek to have one person justify their personal sense of value, and especially when discussing a scenario that they as yet have no experience of.

 

Even if you have not experienced this for yourself, you must surely by now appreciate that even the smallest of improvements can have the potential to take you across a threshold into a higher level of personal listening satisfaction, leaving you with a sense of value well above what the size of improvement might suggest.  Your are familiar with the idiom ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’?

 

Let’s leave personal perspectives on value out of it.  My question was about the ageing of crystals and when the impact of this might become audible.  Pitching the question at the level of subtle improvement seemed to me to be the best way of getting some kind of handle on this.  But I am happy to have any changes described/explained in whatever context is helpful.

 

Perhaps if I put the question another way.  At what level of aging, as a ppm value, would we likely start to hear a drop off in performance from the crystal given average hearing and a highly optimised music system - 0.5ppm, 1.0ppm, 5.0ppm, or more than this?  This consideration would of course need to take account of the fact that the performance of other components within the clock (Mutec, SOtM, or any other clock) would also drop off over time.  I am assuming the aging figures quoted are for constant use (24/7) but it would be nice to have that confirmed, or to have more information if that was not the case.

 

For any value offered in answer to that question, the next question would be, was there any reasonably foreseeable usage-case (including environmental factors) that could reach that level of aging over periods the buyer would be interested in - e.g. 2 years, 5 years, 10 years etc.  Just to be clear, in asking this I do mean aging and not the purely temporary impact of external factors.

 

Hi str-1,

 

No offence intended and I understand your point regarding the merit of leaving personal perspectives around value out of the discussion. Personally, I am more concerned about the deterioration of my human hearing over the next 10 years... ? 

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  • 2 weeks later...
23 hours ago, julian.david said:

 

It's something we're still looking into, but progress has been a little slow because we're currently focused on a much bigger, and (I think) more exciting project... 

I'll let you know as soon as there's news on the cable front though. 

 

Julian

 

I would be curious to know if the new project / product will be released in the near (next 90 days) or distant future?  ?

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  • 8 months later...
2 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

 

While a good article it is all subjective without explanation.  I often go with opinions like this when comparisons are made with low cost solutions in the mix because there very well may be a difference that is just unexplained by today's science or understanding.  It is very difficult to take bias out of the experiments and I suspect even the best of us are guilty of doing that despite our efforts.

 

In the end, one has to trust their own ears.

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2 hours ago, Confused said:

Not with dCS gear, no.  The only cables I have used are RG216 cables made by Pasternack and the Habst 75 ohm, with the Habst replacing a RG216 between my REF10 and MC3+USB.  I have not performed blind ABX comparisons, but as I recall I subjectively found quite an decent improvement with the Habst.  As to why the cable offers such an improvement it is hard to say, but it is generally reckoned that cable length is absolutely critical, so maybe there is some kind of signal degradation in the cable that influences the clock sync?  I too would like more hard information with respect to this point.

Cable length and the quality of the shielding are definitely contributing factors according to Mutec.

 

@Confused Are you leaving the BNC Connection Terminal on the Ref 10 active, or inactive, for the additional Habst Ground connection?

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19 hours ago, Confused said:

Inactive.  But now you have asked, I am wondering what happens when the terminal is inactive?  I presume it provides the ground as required?  I will need to investigate, unless someone has a definitive answer.  It instinctively seams wrong to send a 10 MHz clock signal down an earth wire?

Agree, mine is also inactive. The only thing which got me wondering was that if the terminal is inactive, is it then properly terminated, and if not, does that affect ground?

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