[j 2]

** Let it be known that I have been a Big Ben user for enough time to know what it does.

Well...well...WELL.

Antelope Audio.

In very quick and simple terms, here's how I would describe the differences in the two Clocks.

OCX

1) Imaging -- nearly perfect. Meaning just that, no noticeable phase problems at any sample rate on my setup.
2) Low End -- Big Ben wins in this department for BOOM and POW, but is that what we want?! It's as if the Isochrone turned off the EQ for the low end - much more precise all around. Climaxes of songs ACTUALLY climax.
3) High End -- I am getting a much more emotional response from everything than I did with the Big Ben. Which one's more accurate to the source? You guess. The upper frequencies (past 16kHz) are not nearly as vibrant and piercing as they are on the BB, and to compare it to Big Ben's overall fidelity up here - definitely smoother.
4) Sample Rates -- switching sample rates is almost too easy on the OCX. There is an up and down button...no frills, 32k-192k. The button itself feels cheap, but I'm more concerned with the sound of my audio, not how cheap the clock's button feels.

Big Ben

1) Imaging -- Bigger. Just like they claim, definitely a magically bigger sound. Unfortunately, as a rep at Apogee told me in another discussion not too long ago, "bigger doesn't always mean better." Hmmmmmm. I've noticed also that the BB sounds most phase accurate at 96kHz - certain chipset could be the culprit.
2) Low End -- Bing, Bang, BOOM. Do we have a White EQ in our room? What I originally thought was just my room's acoustics, turns out to be an EQ'd low end coming from the BB. Noticeable filtering going on here, similar to the sound of the Mini-DAC.
3) High End -- Siss, boom, BAH. Can we say, thin? I mean, 'what I originally thought was just my room's acoustics,' turns out to be a noticeable filtered high end coming from the BB. If you alter what's really going on, how do you expect to give people chills??? I will say, however, it sounds... 'half-way realistic' Almost as if during proto stages, they did something and listened and went: "Whoa, great Scott, people will FLIP OUT over this." They got me.
4) Sample Rates -- Pain in the ass, jk. The myriad of options for up/downsampling clock ouputs 5 | 6 (and the hidden DSD rates) does make the Big Ben destroy the OCX here. Vari-Speed is something some people can't live without, another missing option in the OCX. Like I said before, it seems the unit is at its best @ 44.1 and 96kHz.

So now we contemplate.

* Do we want realistic sounding digital audio ?

or

* Do we want to hear fantastic frequencies coming out of our speakers that enhances everything we are MIXING TO....?!

If I had a custom-made unit that was the innards of an OCX with the aesthetics of a Big Ben, I'd be one lucky camper. Oh yea, and an official Atomic Clock would be nice. How does that make everything sound better again?

Antelope needs to improve the construction of their unit because it's very Toys 'R Us. The plastic contrast knob fell off when I took the unit out of the box.

BUT HEY, sound > plastic