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AfterDark Giesemann Trifecta Emperor Double Crown 10 MHz Clock - Review


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Thank you very much for this conscientious and thorough review.

I have the same model (Triple Emp. Double Crown 75 Ω) with specs. -141 dBc/Hz and -117 dBc/Hz at 10 Hz and 1 Hz respectively.

My own report is hereabouts:

I experienced a protracted and significant burn-in journey - but this was associated with a multitude of simultaneous upgrades. Settling-in lasted maybe 40-50 days.

Your square wave oscilloscope images show the Triple has a flatter top than the BG7TBL or the AD Queen. Commentary? What do you think - or are you happy that readers draw the simple conclusion that the Triple EDC has a better square shape?

Those listening tests are pretty detailed and exhaustive. Must've involved a lot of work. I can follow your notes. Texture, depth, I want to use "reverberation" but really I mean "sustain" (not distortion).

The gist - SQ correlates in expected ways (and proportionately) with phase noise.

I'm still mucking about with speaker placement and its repercussions for bass, image, freq. emphasis around mids - so I don't have sound stage remarks ass. with the clock.

Sorry if I missed it - why did you get the Triple (cf. single out for ER). Do you use just one out even now in your whole system.

Are you thinking of upgrading the internal R-Core linear power supply of the Triple EDC at any point. Have you asked Adrian about this. Voltage? Please do share any relevant info.

I agree value for money. A Mutec REF10 would have been 2 x cost.

When you say "it is good to be ready for the future, when an even better audiophile Ethernet switch will come to market", I presume you are referring to PMs with Alex ;-)

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4 hours ago, Iving said:

I experienced a protracted and significant burn-in journey - but this was associated with a multitude of simultaneous upgrades. Settling-in lasted maybe 40-50 days.

Your square wave oscilloscope images show the Triple has a flatter top than the BG7TBL or the AD Queen. Commentary? What do you think - or are you happy that readers draw the simple conclusion that the Triple EDC has a better square shape?

Those listening tests are pretty detailed and exhaustive. Must've involved a lot of work. I can follow your notes. Texture, depth, I want to use "reverberation" but really I mean "sustain" (not distortion).

The gist - SQ correlates in expected ways (and proportionately) with phase noise.

I'm still mucking about with speaker placement and its repercussions for bass, image, freq. emphasis around mids - so I don't have sound stage remarks ass. with the clock.

Sorry if I missed it - why did you get the Triple (cf. single out for ER). Do you use just one out even now in your whole system.

Are you thinking of upgrading the internal R-Core linear power supply of the Triple EDC at any point. Have you asked Adrian about this. Voltage? Please do share any relevant info.

I agree value for money. A Mutec REF10 would have been 2 x cost.

When you say "it is good to be ready for the future, when an even better audiophile Ethernet switch will come to market", I presume you are referring to PMs with Alex ;-)

Thank you for the link to your excellently detailed review of the Emperor Double Crown and subsequent posts.

 

Addressing your questions and comments:

 

1. Prior evaluations have shown that a clock's square wave shape can depend a lot on the cable. Furthermore, I have not found reliably consistent evidence that a squarer wave shape always correlates with better sound quality. However, @JohnSwenson noted that irregularities in the square wave shape can be an indication of impedance mismatches, which do affect sound quality:

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/59419-master-clock-for-your-etherregen/page/47/?tab=comments#comment-1122787

 

2. My listening evaluation methodology is a lot of work, but it provides a lot of documentation that relieves me of the burden of having to rely totally on memory for a current and future evaluations. It also relieves me of the burden of trying to "hear a difference" during a listening session. I do not listen for differences. I listen to document everything that is heard, then compare notes. I often do not become aware of differences until listening notes and sound stage maps are compared. This is especially true of more subtle differences such as small changes in image placement, changes in ambient cues, and changes in background instruments.

 

3. I only use one of the EDC's three outputs. I wanted a three output clock in case the need arises in the future. The Puccini word clock has four outputs. I thought the 10 MHz reference clock should have multiple outputs as well. The digital source in my main stereo system seems to grow over time:

 

A. SACD player.

B. Digital player (music files stored on internal solid state drive) + DAC .

C. Digital player + external hard drive for music files + DAC + word clock.

D. Digital player + DAC + word clock + NAS + switch.

E. Digital player + DAC + word clock + NAS + NAS LPS +switch + switch LPS.

F. Digital player + DAC + word clock + NAS + NAS LPS +switch + switch LPS + 10 MHz clock for switch.

 

Who knows what the future holds? I do not mind the "digital proliferation". Rather all that than the tyranny of disc-based playback. My main stereo system circa 2013:

 

173449342_MainStereoFront2013-s.thumb.jpg.64293b88d2cea7dba17577bdb19f265b.jpg

 

4. I did ask Adrian about bypassing or upgrading the EDC's internal linear power supply. He did not recommend it because the EDC's power supply was custom designed and tweaked to optimize the performance of the clock's OCXO. For now, I will assume that AfterDark knew what they were doing when they included a built-in LPS for the EDC clock.

 

5. My "it's good to be ready for the future" comment alluded to comments made by @Superdad :

 

"If we were to get fancy and situate an EtherREGEN (with further functional and performance enhancements) in a large case with power supplies and top-end clock, it would have to retail for about $3K (with a build cost that would have other firms charge $5K for).

 

John and I would much rather have thousands of people able to enter and benefit at a low price than to only offer something extreme that far fewer can afford. 

 

We might go there someday—as we know we are leaving money on the table since we see there are those anxious to spend big bucks."

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/59419-master-clock-for-your-etherregen/page/49/?tab=comments#comment-1124544

 

 

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On 6/21/2021 at 4:44 AM, DarqueKnight said:

Thank you for the link to your excellently detailed review of the Emperor Double Crown and subsequent posts.

 

Addressing your questions and comments:

 

1. Prior evaluations have shown that a clock's square wave shape can depend a lot on the cable. Furthermore, I have not found reliably consistent evidence that a squarer wave shape always correlates with better sound quality. However, @JohnSwenson noted that irregularities in the square wave shape can be an indication of impedance mismatches, which do affect sound quality:

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/59419-master-clock-for-your-etherregen/page/47/?tab=comments#comment-1122787

 

2. My listening evaluation methodology is a lot of work, but it provides a lot of documentation that relieves me of the burden of having to rely totally on memory for a current and future evaluations. It also relieves me of the burden of trying to "hear a difference" during a listening session. I do not listen for differences. I listen to document everything that is heard, then compare notes. I often do not become aware of differences until listening notes and sound stage maps are compared. This is especially true of more subtle differences such as small changes in image placement, changes in ambient cues, and changes in background instruments.

 

3. I only use one of the EDC's three outputs. I wanted a three output clock in case the need arises in the future. The Puccini word clock has four outputs. I thought the 10 MHz reference clock should have multiple outputs as well. The digital source in my main stereo system seems to grow over time:

 

A. SACD player.

B. Digital player (music files stored on internal solid state drive) + DAC .

C. Digital player + external hard drive for music files + DAC + word clock.

D. Digital player + DAC + word clock + NAS + switch.

E. Digital player + DAC + word clock + NAS + NAS LPS +switch + switch LPS.

F. Digital player + DAC + word clock + NAS + NAS LPS +switch + switch LPS + 10 MHz clock for switch.

 

Who knows what the future holds? I do not mind the "digital proliferation". Rather all that than the tyranny of disc-based playback. My main stereo system circa 2013:

 

173449342_MainStereoFront2013-s.thumb.jpg.64293b88d2cea7dba17577bdb19f265b.jpg

 

4. I did ask Adrian about bypassing or upgrading the EDC's internal linear power supply. He did not recommend it because the EDC's power supply was custom designed and tweaked to optimize the performance of the clock's OCXO. For now, I will assume that AfterDark knew what they were doing when they included a built-in LPS for the EDC clock.

 

5. My "it's good to be ready for the future" comment alluded to comments made by @Superdad :

 

"If we were to get fancy and situate an EtherREGEN (with further functional and performance enhancements) in a large case with power supplies and top-end clock, it would have to retail for about $3K (with a build cost that would have other firms charge $5K for).

 

John and I would much rather have thousands of people able to enter and benefit at a low price than to only offer something extreme that far fewer can afford. 

 

We might go there someday—as we know we are leaving money on the table since we see there are those anxious to spend big bucks."

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/59419-master-clock-for-your-etherregen/page/49/?tab=comments#comment-1124544

 

 

Thank you the excellent and pain staking writeup. Your methodology is great specially as you say it relieves you of having to listen out for differences. The diagram format you have is very innovative as well. If you had to comment on the best value for money ($/improvement ) over the BT7GL where would you say the sweet spot is, does one have to go all the way to the emperor double crown  ? fully recognising that the absolute differences still matter a lot and enjoyment to the pleasure of listening. 

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