Jitter and clocks

Ted Smith explains clocks and their importance in the audio chain. All audio systems run on clocks and the quality of those clocks contributes to one of the major problems in sound, jitter. How do expensive, specialized clocks like rubidium devices affect the jitter? You might be surprised at the answer.

[GriffinKirby]

Explained it better than my textbook! Thanks for helping me get a few extra questions right on my final!

[kwacked]

What a good explanation. This is the one thing that the bits are just ones and zeroes folks don’t understand.

[johnh]

My hat off.
You can always tell an expert by the fact he does not fudge any part of an explanation.

[koblongata]

Finally... after participating/witnessing so much arguments about how could "fill in the blank here" matter if it is digital ...I wonder why there isn't an answer coming from someone with the knowledge, because I can hear the differences but why? and now a real engineer/audiophile master explains it... Thank you!!

[dihydrotestosterone]

2 thumbs up!! this guy is very good teacher!!

[BurstNibbler]

Very interesting, this is exactly the kind of technical video I'm looking for. I bought a Beresford Caiman SEG DAC with a linear 15v PSU and I'm very impressed with it. So good that my CD player is now relegated to being just a transport. I'm now interested in the various modes it offers - 1. S/PDIF clock signal, 2. optimized XTAL processing, 3. PLL clock processing mode and 4. DATA recovered clock processing mode

[corystevenponzo]

I have a Master Clock for my (4) 8 channel converters. I ended up using the master clock from my PCI soundcard as it has the ability to use a syn check with every converter. Ive read many say a dedicated master clock will get better results. I have a master clock and a clock distributor, but I'm going to clock over over ADAT for simple ease of use. Unless someone here tells me differently. I trust this guy over any one on any forum. Thanks-

[AudioTalk]

Thank you so much for this video! A fantastically clear explanation! 

[pracheerdeka]

How to sync clocks with data on o percent delay

[ThinkingBetter]

I don't agree with the assertion at 2:40 of "Jitter doesn't matter until you get to the very point of where you get from the digital to the analog". Well, how about the sampling jitter (analog to digital conversion) on the original digital master? The era of digital music started in the early 1980s and if oscillator jitter is such a big topic still today (which I will claim it is not with proper engineering), we should have some serious issues with recordings of the first CDs using digital sampling with 35 years ago oscillators, right? An audiophile person believing that he can hear jitter issues in modern equipment should easily be able to identify jitter issues in CDs from 35 years ago. Or what? :-) So which title of song from the early days in digital audio has audible jitter issues in the recording?

[ChristianGoergen]

Are those time based errors in the same range (or smaller, or larger) than analog time based errors, i.e. belt elongation, wow, in the groove accelerations of the needle?

[kamil_trzaska]

great video, could you tell me please if the music played with the pure quartz frequency, without PPL would be better quality than for example played on a 2, 4 ghz machine?

[stroker]

Can you explain why company "X" says that their rubidium clock is only used to stabilize or discipline your other quartz clock? Is this technique possible and does that method reduce jitter from the quartz clock? By the way, company "X" will never ever produce their product's jitter specs. Smells fishy.

[SyberPrepper]

Love the information.  Maybe I missed it in an earlier video but how have you overcome the jitter problem in your products?  Did you get a vendor to build special components (crystal or whatever), or did you build specialized pieces to handle the jitter problem?

[bloguetronica]

Hi Paul. What is your opinion on a 10MHz reference clock with 461fs RMS of phase jitter? Is it usable for audio? The device has two synced outputs, by the way.

[zclb]

Excellent presentation ....thank you sir!

[Leo-ynfx]

Definitely either add a ddc or use a streamer if you're using a beefy pc like me. Connecting the dac directly to the pc is horrible recipe for audio. It sounds like a like an fm station that's mistuned. That is what jitter is.

[dihydrotestosterone]

the 'directstream' mastermind finally revealed !! The Oracle of Boulder !!

[TheMadComposer]

lmao screw you Antelope. That's basically what he said in the beginning hahahaha

[pepe]

oh MAN this is the cmos dead zone. it saves your ass some times, but yeah shit when ya put it like this. they must have some pretty damn precise tight tolerances.