The spring 2 and may had pretty good usb though, the spring 1 did not lol. But if you have a nice DDC that can improve sound quality later on, but you arenāt missing out on much with only usb on the spring 2 or may imo
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We used a high end master clock for our encoders at work. It would sync rhe encodes and the camera times. Im guessing its aomething different but you didnt go out and get an evertz master clock did you?
Also what does badly clocked audio sound like? Clicks and artifacts or just not as clean?
Itās an auralic leo gx.1 and itās really damn good. A good clock can really improve sound quality in a dac, so typically clock upgrade are pretty worthwhile if you have the option to (but it really depends on the clock, the dac, and the situation)
I mean typically if you have poorly clocked enough you will just get errors or garbage, but a mediocre but not terrible clock might add some artifacts that arenāt apparent at first listen but you realize that you get poor spatial recreation and time domain issues, just generally doesnāt sound as good and sounds more spatially lifeless. For studio a master clock is important so you can properly make sure they are all working together lol
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Yeah on set we have clocks built into our audio recorders to sync time code and video via limo so assistant editors can automatically sync stuff for edit. Where before that you had to do it via Clapper board
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That sounds painful lol
Eh Iāve done it before so long as the clap is loud there is a spike on the waveform to match to the strike point via markers
It takes longer but you get into a rhythm
In avid you just mark the peak on the wave
Mark when the Clapper strikes in the video and there is a sync to markers function in a sub menu somewhere.
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Iāve had to do that, I just have a really shit mouse and I tend to be a bit shaky so I would line it up just right then screw it up later on, which would piss me off more than it should lol, but I was just using an older copy of vegas so no cool features
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Oh god I hate Vegas so much lol
But yeah. Each nle has itās own quirks
Avid is submenus and customization to the nth degree and break everything if you flip the wrong switch
Premiere is fluidity between the Adobe ecosystem and ease of use and break everything if you flip the wrong switch
Davinci resolve is complex integration with ecosystem and deep control of the image chain and absolutely break everything if you flip the wrong switch
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Yeah no idea about video editing lol I just had to use what I had on hand, for audio I mainly use magix sequoia, steinberg wavelab and sometimes audition lol
Iāve used protools and audition myself
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Gotcha, i know the ones we use are 30-60k and i know youre really into this but that into it?
At the mlb we had to sync cam feeds from the stadiums to a strobe light. Crews on site had to turn all cams on and look at the light which blinked ever few seconds. That light could only be turned on for 2 minutes and it was a manual switch. We then had to line up the frames so they were in sync with the blinks. This was their master idea. No clue on the on/off light decay, camera walk, etc that made it very troublesome
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I canāt really see myself needing another clock anytime soon lol, although perhaps I might need one for my desk (prob not lol)
Is there a good video or article that explains their function? Seems like this is always a recommended next step up by many but Iām just not sure I fully grasp the concept and why itās better.
Iām sure there is somewhere, but I none come to mind off the top of my head (I typically donāt watch/read reviews and stuff like this anymore)
Why itās better is easy, your removing a PC from being directly connected to the output chain, outside a hairdryer or electric drill youāre not going to find a noisier piece of equipment to connect your DAC to.
The secondary POTENTIAL win is bypassing the internal USB conversion, which is additional noise and probably has a lower quality clock than the one in the streamer.
Basically your reducing the amount of possible noise (Electrical and RF) being injected and potentially getting less Jitter.
Itās unlikely to be a night and day difference.
Been doing some more reading, thanks for the response. So basically since Iāve already gone the PC > DDC > DAC route, Iām getting a good bit of the benefit already I would have gotten from a streamer bridge? If the quality of the external clock on the DDC is equal to or better than whatās used in the streamer?
Iām reading about higher end bridges being able to reclock signals coming in from ethernet connections as well. Thatās nice but not nessesary on a desktop solution. So is a bridge an option if your music library is already set up on a NAS?
For some dacs it very well can be, others itās not worthwhile, really depends on how good or how poorly things have been implemented (also depends on streamer quality)
Imo yes
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Usually you run a server like Roon, or depending on the Bridge it might pull it over SMB/CIF/NFS.
Iāve had some discussions already with @M0N my decision to move to an external re-clocker has made the most dramatic impact on anything audio Iāve ever spend money on. Probably not as big of a difference once you move up in quality DACs as theyād have better USB implementation, but I was floored with the impact.
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