Mini - Circuits BLP - 10.7+ Low Pass Filter for Giesemann Clock (Group Buy for audiophilestyle.com)

[Superdad]

3 hours ago, AfterDark. said:

Yes, we order 50 units from vendor, and they will be in stock next week.

Wow Adrian, you are fast. Considering that 50 pieces is about all that Mini-Circuits had in stock of this filter—and the lead time for more is about 6 weeks—it seems you have “cornered the market” for it for a bit. 

Hope your shipping rates for USA and Europe customers are low enough to make it practical for them to buy from you for a while. As mentioned, UpTone is considering stocking this filter for convenience of our clients (mostly for overseas as Mini-Circuits charges $125 freight to ship one piece out of USA!). But you know we are always too busy here and are a bit slow to move on small low-priority things. 
So good for you in taking the lead.  This piece will allow sine wave clocks to work even better with EtherREGEN—without people having to worry at all about clock cable quality or impedance match.

[Superdad]

1 hour ago, James Stephens said:

Are there any other clocks, besides I imagine the Mutec Ref 10 and Ref 10 SE 120 (?), for which we might expect the square wave output into an ER to surpass its sine wave output (+ of course the Mini-Circuits filter)?

Hi James:

While I understand what you are asking, the phrasing of the latter part of your question does not really fit. You seem to imply that there are first-rate clocks that offer both square and sine waves from the same box. That’s not the case with the Mutec (square only) nor any of the better boxes from Asia (mostly sine) that I am aware of.

 

As John explained in his paper, it takes a lot of care to both produce a really good square wave AND to preserve that quality (via cabling) all the way to the target device. Not that it can’t be done.  And OXCO modules (the circuits in the cans along with the crystal) are available with square wave output. But how that is implemented and handled varies greatly.

Also, some companies (and I have no idea about what AfterDark does to offer square wave in some models) use sine>square circuits between the OCXO module and the output.  There exist a couple of chips that do this extremely well, but then there are the rest which are rather poor at it (and then the truly terrible squarer mess that is in the BG7TBL boxes).

So with inexpensive square wave output clocks you really never know what you will get. Yet with sine wave clocks you need to be very careful to filter to a very clean wave—best done at the endpoint target device end.

 

Back to your question—which likely was more meant to be something like:
“Can a really low-phase noise sine wave output clock—terminated with the Mini-Circuits filter—outperform a first-rate square wave box such as a Mutec REF10 SE20 (assuming $$$ also spent on a cable for that square wave)?

 

I certainly can’t answer that and I think John would decline to as well without making extremely careful (and rather difficult to set up) measurements.  And even the characteristics of the receiver in the endpoint target would likely have significant affect on such a comparison.

 

I write all the above primarily so that we can all begin thinking about these things from the proper angles. It’s confusing stuff! 

[Superdad]

2 minutes ago, LEO SOUND said:

If I understand correctly, you are saying that the After Dark queen Square Wave clock, which is quite cheap, which seems to be a special version for the ER, is not necessarily as good as a sine wave version with this filter?

Guess you missed the part where I said:

8 minutes ago, Superdad said:

I have no idea about what AfterDark does to offer square wave in some models.

AfterDark would need to explain their techniques for offering square wave output. They might be switching to an OXCO module that has a built-in squarer circuit, or the might be using some other technique or chip to go sine>square.

You would have to ask them.

 

But one of their best sine wave clocks combined with this filter should yield exceptional results.

[Superdad]

10 minutes ago, Mouna said:

  I found it too and ordered already - more expensive than the chinese clock

HK$350 is equal to about US$45.  So not sure why you say that AfterDark is selling this filter for more than the price of the BG7TBL clock—which is about US$100.