And The Winner Is.............................

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Ladies and gentlemen,

Many of you know me by the nickname of Audiofanatic ;) a few of you guys, call me by my name, José
My nickname says a lot about me, for instance, Audio is my passion, I don't want to live without music, I rather go blind than to loose my sensible ears. I had for what I can remember more than 12 audio magazine subscription and so on, and so on. To cut it short, I know what I'm talking about.

This is the last time I'll write about Master Clock's!
After testing these clock's for weeks, I must say, there is no winner or looser!
I want to thank you both, Elso and Guido, for everything you've done to help me/us, and want to say that you both did a great job, each one with different topology and both working fine.
One makes me happy the other one makes me cry of joy.

I had the chance to test both on two players, both player where TEAC VRDS 25X with huge modifications. To name a few: New PSU, almost all the caps are BG's and OsCon's and both players are identical in all parts except the master clock's.

One had the Tent XO2 an the other one the Kwak Clock (KC-7).

We (a few audiophile friends) had a long listening test for a few days and we all came to the same conclusion the more analogue sounding, more relax sounding and less fatiguing sounding clock was and still is the KC-7.
That does not mean that the Tent XO2 sounds bad, NOT AT ALL! The Tent XO2 sounds good, but it is (to our ears) fatiguing in the long term.

I must say, that the Tent X-O is not expensive for the DIYer, but you have to make your own PSU. The XO2 is good for the money but if you can make a low noise PSU like the Wenzel PSU than you can safe some $$ but you still will not reach the top with this clock. The Tent X-O with a Wenzel PSU sounds, to my ears and those of my friends, as good as the XO2.

So to be honest I needed the time to find out what was bothering me about the sound of the XO2 clock but eventually I've reach that light bulb moment, and that is that I am and always will be an ANALOGUE guy and that's why I fell in love with the KC-7.

Guido, you make a great product and I'm not saying that you XO2 is bad, but for the money, the KC-7 is the winner! And for the moment it will stay on the top till someone makes a better one.
I thank you both for your support, and will finish this post by saying this.

It's like comparing cars, the one loves TOYOTA the other will always drive a NISSAN.
You can look at it on this way; Tent XO2 is a NISSAN and the KC-7 is a TOYOTA!
I've work for a long time for both companies and liked NISSAN very much, but TOYOTA is and will always be my brand! That does not mean that NISSAN is not good, on the contrary, but TOYOTA …………………………………………………………………………..
I love TOYOTA own a TOYOTA and if I need to buy an other car, it'll be again, a TOYOTA.

Best regards, Audiofanatic;)
 
Well, your assesment after all be right on the mark. I started with KC7 and later switched to Tent clock. Initially, it felt like an improvement: sharper, more detailed imaging comparing to more relaxed and seemingly veiled KC. I still have the Tent clock installed in my player, but for some reson it always bothers me that the sound is a tiny bit abrassive and not completely analog.

Maybe it's time to try Kwack clock agan?;)
 
Peter is the Expert on this!

Peter Daniel said:
Well, your assesment after all be right on the mark. I started with KC7 and later switched to Tent clock. Initially, it felt like an improvement: sharper, more detailed imaging comparing to more relaxed and seemingly veiled KC. I still have the Tent clock installed in my player, but for some reson it always bothers me that the sound is a tiny bit abrassive and not completely analog.

Maybe it's time to try Kwack clock agan?;)


Thank God, I'm not the onlyone that has sensible ears.
I had a tough time with the (real) blind test for weeks, but eventualy the relaxed and analogue sound of the KC-7 was the one I/we fell in love with!

For me, the analogue sound of the KC-7 is so important that regardless of the Mechanism (I also have a Marantz CD-80 and a CD753) it always make me :) smile!

Elso, for me and my 6 other (audio) friends who helped me with the test, You are the WINNER!
The KC-7 gets a 9.0 and the Tent XO2 gets a 7.5

Best regards,


Audiofanatic ;)
 
CD-Player?

Peter Daniel said:
Well, your assesment after all be right on the mark. I started with KC7 and later switched to Tent clock. Initially, it felt like an improvement: sharper, more detailed imaging comparing to more relaxed and seemingly veiled KC. I still have the Tent clock installed in my player, but for some reson it always bothers me that the sound is a tiny bit abrassive and not completely analog.

Maybe it's time to try Kwack clock agan?;)


Hi Peter,

Can you tell me in which CDP you have instal the Tent Clock?
The Pro TDA1543 combination or the Marantz CD94?

Thanks,


Audiofanatic ;)
 
Re: Peter is the Expert on this!

Audiofanatic said:



Thank God, I'm not the onlyone that has sensible ears.
I had a tough time with the (real) blind test for weeks, but eventualy the relaxed and analogue sound of the KC-7 was the one I/we fell in love with!

For me, the analogue sound of the KC-7 is so important that regardless of the Mechanism (I also have a Marantz CD-80 and a CD753) it always make me :) smile!

Elso, for me and my 6 other (audio) friends who helped me with the test, You are the WINNER!
The KC-7 gets a 9.0 and the Tent XO2 gets a 7.5

Best regards,

Audiofanatic ;)

Big conclusions and judgements on a very well engineered and
researched product made by a very experienced person.

I'd like to know more details about your transport and DAC
topology, mods etc.

Our experience with clocks/reclocking is that often better
clocks have better resolution and expose other problems
in a system or DAC, resulting in less musical presentation.

Cheers,

Terry
 
Re: Re: Peter is the Expert on this!

Terry Demol said:

Our experience with clocks/reclocking is that often better
clocks have better resolution and expose other problems
in a system or DAC, resulting in less musical presentation.
Terry

You beat me again :bawling:

IME and my implementation of KC7 (modded version) sounds warmer, but veiled and less at ease compared to Tent XO and Tent XO2.
The Tent XO sounds more transparant, but also exposes other problems more ruthless. The extremes become more apparent, also for recordings. I do understand the preference for the Kwak-Clock though, it's less ruthless :cool:

I have the same experiences with BG-N/50V 4.7u used as coupling caps (super E (anti-parallel) or whatever they call it)
Bit veiled (400+ hours btw) but very nice, hifi-ish sounding.

On an absolute scale, both clocks are great improvements most of the time with good price/preformance ratio.
 
Transport + DAC

Hi Terry,

Big conclusions and judgements on a very well engineered and researched product made by a very experienced person.

Terry, my ears don't lie, and I think that Peter has the same thing!
Just read between the lines, Guido knows about this ;)I'm not going to tell you or anybody anything Guido and I talked about. That's between us! He's a great guy! I just trust my ears.

'd like to know more details about your transport and DAC
I'm sorry, but I wasn't the one who designed the digital servo, a friend of mine did and he don't want to talk about it.
Guido has a modification for the servo of the VRDS transport, maybe he is willing to shear this with you.

Our experience with clocks/reclocking is that often better clocks have better resolution and expose other problems in a system or DAC, resulting in less musical presentation.

That may be the case, but my ears don't lie to me.

All the best,


Audiofanatic ;)
 
Re: Review

Elso Kwak said:
Hi José,
Can't wait to see your review of the KWAK-CLOCK-8.:D
Sorry guys no schematic available.
BTW did you use the clock for the sample rate converter or for the masterclock in the Teac?. Can't find the schematic right now.:confused:


Hi Elso,

Long time no e-mail from you!
Finaly you react on my post! What took you so long?

I can't wait to test the KC-8 in my TEAC and Marantz!
I used the 18.4322 X-tal I don't know if that is the sample rate or the masterclock.

Send me the KC-8 when you'r ready!

I'll be glad to listen to it! I hope it's better than the KC-7 ;)


Best regards,



Audiofanatic ;)
 
Re: Re: Review

Audiofanatic said:



Hi Elso,
Finaly you react on my post! What took you so long?
II'll be glad to listen to it! I hope it's better than the KC-7 ;)
Best regards,
Audiofanatic ;)

Hi José,
The current quarreling and extreme low level of discussions prevented me from posting on this forum.:bawling:
The KWAK-CLOCK-8 is an order of magnitude better than version 7.
:)
 
Jitter

Hi Guido,

My qwestion may be stupid, so don't please don't hold it against me.
If the Jitter number is so important as you say, why didn't I/we hear a difference between your XO2 board and the PSU made by Wenzel with a 317 regulator?
The wenzel PSU was made with DALE resistors and original transistor!

I hope you don't hate me :angel:


All the best to you and thanks for your help.



Audiofanatic ;)
 

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Re: Jitter

Audiofanatic said:
Hi Guido,

My qwestion may be stupid, so don't please don't hold it against me.
If the Jitter number is so important as you say, why didn't I/we hear a difference between your XO2 board and the PSU made by Wenzel with a 317 regulator?
The wenzel PSU was made with DALE resistors and original transistor!

I hope you don't hate me :angel:


All the best to you and thanks for your help.



Audiofanatic ;)

Hi Audiofanatic,

What you hear, or potentially can hear, depends on transparancy of the total system.

I am not implying your system is bad, but given our personal preferences, ones' system may not be able to reproduce properties of the front end in an equal way.

Personally I have been (HAVE been) fond of romantic sounding amplifiers for a long time but these kind of amps do not reveal detail for example, hence do not reveal resolution of the source.

Such a system is a personal choice, not a matter of better or worse, but it has its implications.

With clocks, the same mechanism holds. I can make one which sounds very pleaseant, but which has lousy resolution - whatever one prefers, but not my cup of tea.

why would I hate you ? Because my clock is not your prefered choice ?

as long as we learn from each other I am OK

all the best
 
Re: Re: Jitter

Guido Tent said:


Hi Audiofanatic,

What you hear, or potentially can hear, depends on transparancy of the total system.

I am not implying your system is bad, but given our personal preferences, ones' system may not be able to reproduce properties of the front end in an equal way.

Personally I have been (HAVE been) fond of romantic sounding amplifiers for a long time but these kind of amps do not reveal detail for example, hence do not reveal resolution of the source.

Such a system is a personal choice, not a matter of better or worse, but it has its implications.

With clocks, the same mechanism holds. I can make one which sounds very pleaseant, but which has lousy resolution - whatever one prefers, but not my cup of tea.

why would I hate you ? Because my clock is not your prefered choice ?

as long as we learn from each other I am OK

all the best


Guido,

You hit it in a nutshell and said it better than I ever could.

I think "horses for courses" is more the order here as
opposed to "open and shut case".

For instance a rich 300BSET driven by a tube based 0 x OS DAC
would probably benefit from and match the Tent clock's resolution.
However, something like a fully SS system with opamp based DAC
might benefit from the Kwak clocks musicality.

Cheers,

Terry
 
Thanks Guido

why would I hate you ? Because my clock is not your prefered choice ?

I'm So glad you understand that it's the way I/We listened and the (High-End) equipment we use that made me/us go for the KC-7.

For the reccord we had only a few brands to test the Clocks on.

PLINIUS SA-102 & SA-50 Main amp
MARK LEVINSON 331 AMP (Not my cup of tee)
KORA Main amp (tube)
Bryston Amps
Spectral DMC-12 pre amp
PLINIUS M16 Preamp
KRELL Preamp

MARTIN LOGAN Seqwel II And CLS I & CLS II.
Jean M. Reynaut 3 types
From pure silver cables to pure copper cables and every thing in between.

All gear tested on polarity. two days playing with burn in CD and Music CD.

Separate left right 220V for L&R chanel amp and separate 220V for Digital.

TEAC VRDS 25X with KC-7 and an other one with Tent XO2.
Both with the same modifications.

Maybe you are right about the equipment, maybe not.
But I was straight and genuine.

Thanks again and all the best to you too.

You got my respect Guido and I mean it !


Best regards,


Audiofanatic ;)
 
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