After-Market Sync-Link

Hey you denizens of the DAC brotherhood and victims of cable-induced jitter, salvation is at hand. Maybe this should be onthe DIY forum, but it may be of wider interest.

Was just having a hoover around on the LC-Audio website, and found this - a recipe for making up your own sync-link (as used by TAG, dCS, Wadia, DPA). I've no need for it - but I remember e.g. Merlin going all round the houses to try and do something similar. And I remember HenryT bemoaning the fact that his system was a bit grittier in the treble than it should be as he couldn't clock-link his transport. (Not entirely sure I'd want to be poking about inside a Delius though).

(May not be such good news for peddlers of foo-foo-dust digital cables though )

 

My thoughts exactly as well Graham.

This solution from LC Audio would certainly work out a lot cheaper than shipping the Delius back to dCS to have dCS's own revised internals retrofitted that would faciliate clock-link, but the other issue is will these boards from LC fit inside the Delius as is (and would it need mounting/drilling of some kind). I've still got another 2 years warranty to run on the dCS kit, so will probably want to avoid any kind of unsanctioned box opening procedures in the meantime. That's if I haven't decided to go one box by the end of that period, but seems unlikely as my currently desired one box solution would probably be a Wadia 861SE with Great Northern Sound Company mods (and probably some more WM mods on top of that) - hellishly expensive! :MILD:

The most accurate clock in my replay chain currently resides in the transport, courtesy of the Clock 4 its dedicated Never-Connected PSU. The speil on LC's site suggests that the optimal config is to have the clock link transceiver board in the DAC as close as possible to the clock. Erm, so that would mean putting the Clock 4/NC combo in the DAC - physically impossible - seeing as the Delius theoretically now has an inferror clock to the one in the transport!

So I think the best bet for now is to continue along with current path, and try and get as jitter free and accurate a signal transfer from transport to DAC (and do without sync). There's still one or two bits that I could add to the transport to jitter reduce the transmission path even more - a digital outboard board with it's own dedicated N/C PSU but space is getting tight inside the Accuphase too now - those NC boards aren't small. Having a seperate upsampler in the signal path makes the issue of jitter presence even much more of an issue, getting rid of that extra box would be nice and then having a one-box DAC/upsampler... Wonder if slaving the DAC from the transport's clock would be of any benefit as the dCS boxes are capable of that (but I would still need to send them back to dCS for a factory retrofit and a still substantial outlay).

The more I think about it sometimes, the more I think you one box guys have it right!!