tube clock

[jitter]

Today I went to my favourite high end store to listen to a few DACs tot get my Shigaclone project started. As I was waiting for the invoice to be made up I noticed a "AH! Njoe Tjoeb 4000" (google it). This basically is a modified Marantz 4000 (although they call it an OEM 4000).

I knew these guys were into modifying output stages (tubes) but my eye fell on two very strange boards that looked to be clocks...but they use a miniature tube in it...

I asked them, and yes, they were clocks (AH! Super Tjoeb Clock). They claim to be the first to use a tube in a clock board. Their own site doesn't show pictures of the clock (yet?) but I found these on a Japanese site :

http://www.audiolab.co.jp/A-lb/img/stc/top_l/top_l1.gif
http://www.audiolab.co.jp/A-lb/img/stc/top_l/top_l4.gif

Have a look...

 

[Cauhtemoc]

Here you go:

http://www.diyhifi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1284

 

[jitter]

Here you go:

http://www.diyhifi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1284

Hmmm, I stopped reading on the second page. Seemed like a bunch of guys fighting over the validity of the tube clock without any first hand experience with the thing. I guess that's a typical human reaction to a radically different approach (I wonder if 47Labs' nonOS, unfiltered DAC caused a similar stir).

I may read the remaining eight pages sometime later later to see if there actually is someone in there who has listened/measured the modded 4000. Thanx for the link anyway.

 

[tritosine]

47 labs nonos you mean?

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

 

[jitter]

Looks...awful, but how does it sound?

 

[Cauhtemoc]

Hmmm, I stopped reading on the second page. Seemed like a bunch of guys fighting over the validity of the tube clock without any first hand experience with the thing. I guess that's a typical human reaction to a radically different approach (I wonder if 47Labs' nonOS, unfiltered DAC caused a similar stir).

I may read the remaining eight pages sometime later later to see if there actually is someone in there who has listened/measured the modded 4000. Thanx for the link anyway.

Think of it what you want, but people like Jocko and Guido Tent are as much of experts as it gets on this matter.

The idea to use a tube for a low jitter oscillator is ridiculous. Put simply, to get low jitter you need low noise, and a tube is a hundred times noisier than a good transistor. Add to this a poor unregulated power supply and the fact that tubes are microphonic. The designer also makes ridiculous claims about the clock, such as the comparator used is so fast that jitter does not occur.

 

[bequerel]

Prima Luna PL8 from the Netherlands/China uses a "tube clock" as well.

 

[jitter]

I took the time to read the whole thread. Luckily the discussion became a little more constructive just after the point where I had stopped reading this morning.

The idea to use a tube for a low jitter oscillator is ridiculous

There were some (IMO) valid reasons given why this I would agee with this statement. Yet there were also some reasons given why a tube could work.

I'm actually not really much wiser as the measurements that were quoted in the thread were either not comparable or highish because of power supply related noise. The tube clock was never measured as a separate entity.