ADAT Clocksource vs Wordclock?

[RonT]

Ok for years I have worked my clocking by ADAT. I am wondering if I get into Wordclock would it make things sound better?

My setup:

Tascam 1884 i/o ADAT Lightpipe to and from Mackie D8B
Rosetta 800 i/o ADAT Lightpipe to and from Mackie D8B
Digi 003 i/o ADAT Lightpipe to and from Mackie D8B

I do this so I can send any of my digital ins and outs to any of the above named peices. "Digital Patchbay"

Mackie D8B has the Apogee Clock in it and all 3 of the above named gear is syncd to the external ADAT Clock which is coming from the Mackie D8B Opt 8 cards.

I know that this limits me to 48khz but I only record at 24bit/48khz.

Would investing in BNC cables and whatever else I needed to sync to word clock benefit me any? I would either use the Rosetta 800 or the Apogee Clock in the Mackie D8B. My audio "IMO" sound great now but I am always up for improvement! I ocassionally get the jitter thing but not very often....

If someone could advise I would really appreciate it! Although I have never really set up wordclock, I understand the concept. But I would need help on buying the correct cables, terminators and correct configuration.

Thank you in advance!

[RonT]

Forgot to ask........Would the currnet gear I have benefit from the Big Ben at all? Is the clocks the same as Rosetta and Apogee Clock in Mackie? I am only asking this becuase its the same company.......I know that answer is going to be that the Big Ben if far superior but I can ack like this is not a bump

[Barish]

Originally Posted by RonT

Ok for years I have worked my clocking by ADAT. I am wondering if I get into Wordclock would it make things sound better?

In a word. Yes.

B.

[RonT]

well thats short and sweet but what about the rest of the info as far who to put in the chain and where?

[Roc Mixwell]

Originally Posted by RonT

Ok for years I have worked my clocking by ADAT. I am wondering if I get into Wordclock would it make things sound better?

My setup:

Tascam 1884 i/o ADAT Lightpipe to and from Mackie D8B
Rosetta 800 i/o ADAT Lightpipe to and from Mackie D8B
Digi 003 i/o ADAT Lightpipe to and from Mackie D8B

I do this so I can send any of my digital ins and outs to any of the above named peices. "Digital Patchbay"

Mackie D8B has the Apogee Clock in it and all 3 of the above named gear is syncd to the external ADAT Clock which is coming from the Mackie D8B Opt 8 cards.

I know that this limits me to 48khz but I only record at 24bit/48khz.

Would investing in BNC cables and whatever else I needed to sync to word clock benefit me any? I would either use the Rosetta 800 or the Apogee Clock in the Mackie D8B. My audio "IMO" sound great now but I am always up for improvement! I ocassionally get the jitter thing but not very often....

If someone could advise I would really appreciate it! Although I have never really set up wordclock, I understand the concept. But I would need help on buying the correct cables, terminators and correct configuration.

Thank you in advance!

I agree with Barish.

This is a fairly inexpensive thing to try. A Master Clock would be a little more expensive to demo, but never the less, worth evaluating in your studio, in my experience.

The Thing about WC, is that there are several technical reasons why its preferred over ADAT, and I would suggest utilizing the most important AD converter's WC BNC output, as the master clock of your devices. You simply daisy chain them from OUT, to IN, IN, IN using BNC "T" Connectors and properly terminated [75 ohm] chain. I can tell you the Rosetta is Unterminated, so I would make it the master, but more importantly its a great clock. Once you do this, all of your converter chassis will now share the same time base, and thus line up. This will free you of any possible errors from running these internal clocks at the same time through the ADAT portal, which is the console, which is running on its on internal clock. Make one of them the WC master and you'll hear an improvement-I'd bet........

EDIT: I see you are syncing these devices from ADAT: so don't pay too much attention to the last bit about the clocks running at other rates,

I would hope you will see an improvement, in running one of the AD's on internal, from here on out.

[Barish]

Originally Posted by RonT

well thats short and sweet but what about the rest of the info as far who to put in the chain and where?

Correct Termination

B.

[RonT]

You guys are AWSOME!!!!! This forum has helped me out soooooooo much it ain't even funny!

Redco seems like an awsome place to get this stuff but a Radio Shack "Radio Trash" is right up the street......does it matter the quality of the cable? or will the BNC connectors and cables be ok from Radio Trash?

[Barish]

As long as it is a broadcast quality 75 ohm video cable, then you should be fine. Don't go for a bog standard aerial cable, though, buy something decent. Lower the internal capacitance value, the better, but don't sweat it too much. You won't be running kilometres of it.

B.

[RonT]

Ok update on this...............Word clock makes a HUGE difference! Especially with the d8b!

I have a Dangerous DBox and I have been flicking between sources Live, Rosetta and d8b and saying WTF? I am just not hearing the huge difference! This prompted me to plug in the old "B"ADA8000 and run some test with it........And I said yep there it is! I hear it now!

But thought wait,........Let me clock this thing to the Word clock chain since I had extra cables and connectors...........

Yep very very little difference in sound.......even with the ADA8000

I then switch the clocks to ADAT and I could then hear the differences in the converters pretty good when clocked to the d8b. But everything clock backed to the Rosetta Word Clock made the biggest difference.

Just thought I would share this.

Ok Back to making music.