AK4499EQ - Best DAC ever

[Extreme_Boky]

Originally Posted by chris719

Two VCXO (implying PLL) and two small cheap XO that look to be the same frequency. All surrounding an Altera CPLD. Probably not up to the standards of the Jitterati.

The small ones will have lower phase noise than Crysteks... if NDK's in SDA or better flavour.

[chris719]

Still not good enough, apparently. Did you miss the last few pages of this thread?

[andrea_mori]

Originally Posted by chris719

Still not good enough, apparently. Did you miss the last few pages of this thread?

Again you don't understand, 4 poor oscillators become 2 good.

Just measure them with the FFT analyzer.

[chris719]

Wow, there is a PLL + VCXO and FIFO for SPDIF inputs. Who cares.

I thought you said that we need your clock with SC cut crystal hand-polished by virgins to get close-in phase noise that is acceptable.

[andrea_mori]

Originally Posted by chris719

Wow, there is a PLL + VCXO and FIFO for SPDIF inputs. Who cares.

I thought you said that we need your clock with SC cut crystal hand-polished by virgins to get close-in phase noise that is acceptable.

No, mine are good for satellite, GPS, radar but not for audio.

Indeed I'm selling my Timepod to buy an FFT analyzer.

[Markw4]

Originally Posted by Extreme_Boky

The small ones will have lower phase noise than Crysteks... if NDK's in SDA or better flavour.

I'm not so sure. I have two pairs of 22/24MHz NDK SDA hand picked by Jocko (RIP). I haven't been able get them to sound as good as I can get with very carefully implemented Crysteks (used with AK4499). That was with Jocko's advice on how to use the NDK SDAs too.

Of course, maybe the Crysteks don't measure as well. If so, there must be something that is being missed about how clocks affect sound quality.

[lasercut]

Have measurements of NDKs ever been published? NDK doesnt even include a spec in the datasheet which is an unusual choice if they really are better, aswell as cheaper, than the crysteks.

[Markw4]

NDK has published graphs, but they don't guarantee all clocks meet that performance level. For one example, please see the attached.

There was also a graph that somebody made, not sure who. It showed NDK SDA having lower phase noise than Crystek. Without more information about how the graphs were obtained, I would take it with a grain of salt. I know that Crysteks are very sensitive to power and to buffering. They also take 3-days of power-on time to fully stabilize. It those things were not properly done when measurements were taken, then I personally wouldn't put much credence in it.

[Joseph K]

Uhm.. I am not proud of this measurement, naturally I did try my presently available NDK (supposedly SDA) oscillayor. 'Presently' because I have assembled quite a number of dac's (Mirand) with it, - but did not had the tool to measure, yet.

There is dirt in the middle, I was experimenting with a LMH6702 buffer, plus the setup not optimized.

22,576MHz Fc

It is showing like - 83dBc/1Hz; - 114dBc/10Hz; - 144dBc/100Hz.

That is quite much compatible with either the NDK doc's blue curve, or the tests of Jocko (of selected SD oscillators..)
So for me, at least with this one random example, the quality and originality of the SDA clocks from Lorien, the group buy here in Diya, - is having one positive data point added..