Quote:
Originally Posted by cremationritual
Hey guys, Question. I have a MOTU 828es. I love it. Never have issues with it really. Im also using a Ferrofish pulse 16 for my analog hardware I/O conversion. Im using the Ferrofish as my main clock (slaving the motu off that).
Of course Im always looking into stuff to make my rig sound better and there are a TON of Apogee big bens going for $400-500 used online. I know they are a good clock because I see them in a lot of commercial studios. My question is, with the gear I have do you guys think it would be worth it to clock off the Apogee?
I hear they make your converters run more efficiently thus making your rig sound better (more headroom, better highs and lows etc etc)
wudda you guys think?
|
The introduction of that at the time newer clock technology was a big deal back then. "Stock" clocks in some digital devices could be jittery enough to degrade fidelity. This was noticeable.
I have the generation of Apogee interfaces that immediately followed and used the same clock circuits. (AD-16 and a Special Edition version of the PSX-100)
I also have a couple MOTU 828mk3 interfaces.
I remember a MOTU MIDI Timepiece clock being an upgrade to the internal ADAT clocks. Clearly noticeable. Then I upgraded to an Aardvark clock. Noticeable again. Then the Apogee Big Ben came along (included in their interfaces as well). The Apogee overall was an upgrade of course! Not sure how much changed between the Aardvark and the Big Ben clocks though. I tried A/B'ing with the Apogee internal vs Aardvark and I couldn't hear anything telling. After this point, clocks were in the pocket and no longer devices for concern.
The analog stages in your AD and DA converters are the bigger player. The Apogees don't sound better than the MOTUs because of the clock. It's because of the analog circuits in the front end of the AD stages and the back end of the DA stages.
Note that some of the concern with clocks is the added ability to stay in sync with noisy or jittery incoming word clock and perform under pressure in broadcast situations.