Ummm, the Krell does happen to have a clock output, the only problem is is that it's an optical AT&T connector & all the word clock connectors on the dCS kit are 75 Ohm BNC connectors :lolsign:
Not so easy as it at first sounds :doh:
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Ummm, the Krell does happen to have a clock output, the only problem is is that it's an optical AT&T connector & all the word clock connectors on the dCS kit are 75 Ohm BNC connectors :lolsign:
Not so easy as it at first sounds :doh:
Understand that but is it possible to set the Delius to just lock to it's input rather than to the word clock?
If it is trying to lock to a reference that is'nt there this would explain your occasional muting problems - setting it to lock ONLY to it's input will solve this problem.
I understand what you are getting at, but to run DSD via firewire (IEEE1394) the Purcell upsampler needs to be locked to the Delius, so it's kind of arse about face. So the problem is the difference between the Delius clock & the Krell clock but at the Purcell upsampler & not the DAC.
I have had an idea though that might just work :scratch: If i take a look at the wordclock waveform it shouldn't be too difficult to reproduce that in the Krell from it's own clock & give the Krell a couple of clock outputs via BNC connectors & lock both Purcell & Delius to it.. With any luck it might be damn near exactly the same as that feeding the optical (AT&T) converter which would make life very easy indeed :)
Jeez, i figured something was a bit of a cock up (not clock up :eyebrows:) so i wondered if i could slave the Delius to the Purcell, after all the Purcell will lock itself onto the datastream from the CD player.
When i originally connected it up i followed the wiring diagram in the Delius manual, but i thought i'd now take a look in the Purcell manual...
What did i find :scratch: :rolleyes:
I found the opposite of what i saw in the Delius manual :steam:
Looks like the problem is about to be solved, i just need to connect the word clock out of the Purcell to the word clock in of the Delius :cool: Apparently the IEEE1394 connection produces a lot of jitter & the word clock connection syncronizing them sorts it out. Something tells me the sound quality is going to improve a tad & these occasional drop outs will be a thing of the past :)
Fancy messing up the diagram in one of the manuals :mental:
Right, that's sorted it :) In more ways than one though as all of a sudden i need to get to know my whole CD collection again :lolsign:
Stuff buying a word clock, this is more than good enough & frankly far better than i was ever expecting Attachment 3551
Mark, the Delius manual shows the word clock out to a dCS transport. In that config, the Delius clock bypasses the Purcell. If a non dCS transport cannot take a word clock signal, then dCS requires the Purcell to deliver the clock to the DAC, which is what you now have.
To my ears, a dedicated clock delivers a subtle change but one which is hard to live without once you've heard it. Equally, in your system, I'd upgrade to an Elgar Plus before buying the clock.
Steve Dickinson reviewed the Puccini in HiFi Plus and, whilst praising it, questioned the quality of the analogue output stage. Later, he reviewed the USB Word Clock with the Puccini and felt his questions about the analogue output stage were answered. The review is on the dCS web site.
Steve
Hi Steve, cheers for the reply & the information ;)
The combo has been working perfectly since about 4PM, i haven't stopped listening to stuff with vocals since then as i want to make sure i get a bit of a grasp of the things i'm hearing :eyebrows:
My last DAC had a pure class A output stage & these things are a reasonable leap up the evolutionary chain of DACs etc, if this is a poor output stage then i'd like to hear it with a good one :lol:
Warranty runs out in less than 2.5 months so i might take a look inside & see what i can see ;)
A master clock makes no sense when you are changing sample rate from the 44.1k of the Krell to 192k from the Purcell. The Purcell should lock onto the Krell at 44.1k, and the Delius onto the Purcell at 192k.
If you want to link clocks, you don't need a master in this setup - you need to clock out from the Delius to Purcell at 192k, and 44.1k from Purcell to Krell. Unfortunately the dcs kit does not have this functionality.
Actually it would make some sense if the Krell had a word clock input, but it hasn't ;) One clock which has the same length cables feeding to each bit of kit would result in everything clocking at precisely the same time with zero delays between each bit of equipment.
You are correct that the Purcell has locked onto the Krell, but the Delius has locked onto the word clock output of the Purcell at 44.1KHz. The output from the Purcell isn't 192KHz, it's actually 2.822MHz (using the firewire connection & DSD output) which if you do a bit of math is precisely 64 times 44.1KHz :)
Oh my Purcell was non-firewire, so I used 192 into my (also non-firewire) Elgar.
I must say that I was never convinced by the theory of the master clock. It clearly makes sense in a pro environment, where you have all sorts of components and they do need a single clock. But when you only have one source and limited or no processing, then the theoretical best place to have the clock is right by the DAC, and to have the transport act as slave to this. This is a perfect solution, whereas a master clock is less so, as both DAC and transport have to deal with clock recovery.
But that's theory, and practice is always different: presumably they engineered out the issues with clock recovery. I never got to try a clock with my setup, but I would be keen to try it.
The other problem with using master clocks is much more important now than it was: the different sample rates of source music. I know there was a thread on the Slim Devices website where there were all sorts of problems playing 88.2 and 96k source material at half speed, as the clock was a 44.1k one, and the Transporter was therefore transferring at that speed! You'd need some metadata transferred to the master clock (or remote control, I guess) to control the speed. I imagine that USB async in modern DACs sorts this.