Word Clock, do I need one?

[Pronecobra]

I am running three Presonus Firepods daisy-chained - this gives me 24 simultaneous 24 bit 48kHz tracks all running into my PC which runs Nuendo 3. I use outboard analog preamps but other than the Firepods and my computer, I have not integrated any other digital hardware .

Do I need or should I get a word clock? Would it do anything for me to have a word clock? The Firepods do not have the typical BNC clock input, only S/PDIF. If I was to get a word clock it would have to have S/PDIF outputs to work for me - not exactly the hallmark of high grade audio equipment.

My understanding of the usefulness of a word clock is to sync up all of your digital audio equipment. I don't have a bunch of peripheral digital hardware in my set-up. Is the internal clock of the primary Firepod good enough?

I don't know much about word clock or the workings of high grade digital audio equipment. I would really appreciate any information or help. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

P. Cobra

[theblue1]

There is much heated discussion on this -- but the science seems fairly clear: a single (modern, professioanal) converter unit will almost always tend to have its internal timing somewhat degraded by synching to an outside clock source -- but it is ABSOLUTELY necessary when running multiple yoked units simultaneously.

(The reason for this degradation is that the internal clock is always involved in the time-slicing involved in digital audio conversion. When you synch it to an OUTSIDE clock source, it must continually adjust itself to the incoming master clock -- and that tends to increase internal timing imprecision from sample to sample, ie, jitter.)


Now, you NEED to synch multiple units.

In SOME cases, particularly complex rigs, it may be helpful or more convenient to synch to an external dedicated clock source (like a Big Ben, etc) perhaps in a star cluster configuration -- but as I understand the writing of experts like Dan Lavry and Bob Ohlsson, you will tend to get the least amount of jitter with a properly terminated daisy chain fed from the first AD unit in the chain (rather than an external clock source).

So it sounds to me like you're in the right ballpark with what you've got.

[sleepwalker]

Your Firepods should be clocked together by something proprietary Presonus has done to get multiple units working simultaneously. If you don't have BNC clock inputs, don't even bother trying to clock them with an external source.

Originally Posted by Pronecobra

I am running three Presonus Firepods daisy-chained - this gives me 24 simultaneous 24 bit 48kHz tracks all running into my PC which runs Nuendo 3. I use outboard analog preamps but other than the Firepods and my computer, I have not integrated any other digital hardware .

Do I need or should I get a word clock? Would it do anything for me to have a word clock? The Firepods do not have the typical BNC clock input, only S/PDIF. If I was to get a word clock it would have to have S/PDIF outputs to work for me - not exactly the hallmark of high grade audio equipment.

My understanding of the usefulness of a word clock is to sync up all of your digital audio equipment. I don't have a bunch of peripheral digital hardware in my set-up. Is the internal clock of the primary Firepod good enough?

I don't know much about word clock or the workings of high grade digital audio equipment. I would really appreciate any information or help. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

P. Cobra

[theblue1]

Well, extracting wordclock synching via S/PDIF is somewhat standardized, I'm thinking. but I suppose there could easily be something proprietary in these units -- I certainly don't have any specific knowledge here. Anyhow, I think it's more or less moot. I think we agree he's got probably got the optimal set up for his gear.

[Pronecobra]

theblue1, I suspected that because my units are identical and daisy-chained, that no outside clock source is needed. However, if I had digital equipment of different makes that all needed to be synced, at that point I would have to get an external clock, right?

I was surprised to learn that a clock can actually add jitter, very interesting. I guess that my set-up is still too low on the digital audio quality hierarchy to need a clock.

Anyhow, I appreciate both theblue1 & sleepwalker for your help. Very cool and informative. You guys didn't even tell me that I'm a dumb-ass for not already knowing all of this!

[lvktv]

buy a good AD converter, that gonna change the sound quality.
like Apogee Mini-me , RME , ... it like night and day when compair with the stock converter


the my .002 cent