sensibly-priced but the best (of course) clock - advise pls

[trane]

i am looking to find a 16.9344 mhz clock for my cdp that does not cost a fortune and truly improves sonics. budget? dunno, really, but somewhere between 0-150 gbps. thanks for your advice :)

[Vincent Kars]

Don’t know much about electronics.
I understand that replacing the clock only won’t do much.
You need a very very clean PSU too.
http://www.tentlabs.com/Components/XO/index.html

[trane]

...
I understand that replacing the clock only won’t do much.
You need a very very clean PSU too.
http://www.tentlabs.com/Components/XO/index.html

thanks for that :) - agreed, too - and i meant the complete thing

[roob]

http://www.chevronaudio.co.uk/html/upgrades.htm
I can recommend these clock upgrades.

[dowser]

PFM Flea fitted with a tentlabs oscillator - original boards are now scarce, but someone is remanufacturing them; search on PFM.

Richard

[trane]

hi, guys, thanks for your precious input :) checked all links and now have some direction to head for.

Richard,
i just let a flea for not truly understanding (still so - could you explain, please?) what that is actually for go at a silly price... :(

[dowser]

Attila - the PFM Flea was a purpose built clean power supply for a Tent labs oscillator (Guido at Tentlabs is the only individual I have seen who actually tried to measure performance of these oscillators, and the jitter they can introduce into CD replay). It was a community DIY use only project using the collective wisdom of Andy Weekes (who designed the ALWSR based on Walt Jung principles) and Martin Clark (audio electronics guru - maintains http://www.acoustica.org.uk; DIY bodgers golden source of data!), driven (and organised) by the desire of Carl to fit the best clock upgrade possible his Naim CDP.

When you say you let one go - you sold one, or missed one? I just bought a second (assembled and tested) one off PFM for £20, which for me is a great price (think original board, parts and oscillator was around £40-45). If you can get one, do. Do a search on PFM (or Google) for more info than you ever wanted to know.

What frequency oscillator do you need for your CDP? The kit I recently bought has the wrong frequency for me, so if it matches your needs you can have it cheaply.

Buying my recent Flea has motivated me to actually fit it to my Naim CDI - I have been sitting on the project for 3 years now, but it is time to see if I can get the performance of the CDP to compete with my LP12 :)

Richard

[trane]

hi, Richard,
i just missed one though asked about it - but by the time i had read some bits of that a guy just took it (you - at pfm, btw ;) ?) ... no prob, anyway.
one question: how does it compare to the tentlabs xo2/burson/trichord clock3/audiocom clock, should you happen to have gathered some experience in this aspect?

[dowser]

hi, Richard,
i just missed one though asked about it - but by the time i had read some bits of that a guy just took it (you - at pfm, btw ;) ?) ... no prob, anyway.


'Fraid so :D

I have no direct experience of the other clock upgrades you mention, but the Flea was designed as a no compromise lower current PSU (around 50mA) and I doubt can be bettered commercially.

Richard

[UV101]

I have experience of the following

Trichord Clock 4, audioupgrades.co.uk C1, audioupgrades.co.uk C2 and my own DIY clock based on the best smt oscilators I can find!

I ran the Trichord for several years in my philps CD850MKII then moved it to a Marantz cd67. The Cd67 got a C1 when the Trichord went into my now main player philps cd960. I've used serval C1's which are ok and reasonable vfm.

As soon as the C2 came out, I put one in my 960. the results were amaizing. Much more than I had expected! I think its the combination of a premium (SPower) regulator and the very low jitter oscillator that Brent uses that really work well. The C2 cost £145 which is considerabl less than I paid for the Trichord several years earlier.

I've since made a couple of my own clock similar in style to the C2 but without the mutiple output options you get on the C2.

IMHO, you'll not better the C2 VFM unless you can build somehting similar yourself. The onboard regulator is miles better than any other commercial regulator I've heard! You should definately consider it as its within your budget! ;)

FYI clock is on the bottom right. Althought I use multiple clock feeds, its just as happy as any other single clock feed replacement.

http://theartofsound.net/forum/picture.php?albumid=41&pictureid=199

[trane]

I have experience of the following

... and my own DIY clock based on the best smt oscilators I can find!... I've since made a couple of my own clock similar in style to the C2 but without the mutiple output options you get on the C2.

IMHO, you'll not better the C2 VFM unless you can build somehting similar yourself...

hi, Ian, thanks for your input - appreciated :)
if there is a way to realise that named diy clock would you please let me know? cheers,

[UV101]

Hi Attila, The clocks I have made myself are nothing more than oscillators sourced via audioupgrades for the non std cd freq's like 11.28Mhz and 16.934Mhz or Farnell and RS for 6,12 and 24.576Mhz. They are supplied from a 3.3v low noise std 3 pin regulator like a mic5209 which is also low drop out. This is supplied from a 5v home brew SPower type regulator. Decoupling is carried out with OsCon SEPC caps.

The combination of a decent oscillator, a decent 3.3v reg driven by a discrete ultra low noise reg and all decoupled by the new very low esr OsCons makes for a very good clock!!

[trane]

hi, Ian, thanx for the info, will see... btw, you've got a pm :)