Jacquire King and Dave Pensado must have super sensitive ears! Enough to hear a converter?

Recording, Mixing and Producing
#1

Some blind tests concluded various A-list engineers have no ability whatsoever to consistently pick out a better clock. Others insist they hear a difference. Some math suggests an external word clock can’t improve anything, it can only minimize the collective amount of degradation in the conversion process.

39:30 Pensado:
"…I have a buddy who just violently can’t hear any difference when he uses a clock. He and I argue constantly."

“…It’s night and day what you can hear with a good clock! A good clock will salvage a less than perfect converter. Can you describe to my friend what you’re hearing when you used a clock…?”

With my console fixed and working, I’m at the point where I really really need a master clock. I’ve taken Dave Hill’s advice pretty seriously as he strongly advised me to stay away from anything made by Apogee due to compatibility issues with the CraneSong Avocet. He harps on Antelope quite a bit. His only recommendation was the Grimm CC1. I tossed the question to some friends at several major film studios. They’re using Antelope and Rosendahl but I’m guessing the Rosendahl is the primary and the Antelope just for distribution.

Interesting.

#2

Eric Johnson claims he can tell the difference between an ever-ready and a duracell battery in a fuzzface lol

#3

I fully believe Dave Hill when he says he can hear the difference between an Antelope and an Avocet 2. But I think the reason is that he has spent his entire life studying jitter. And if any of us had poured years and years of our lives into specifically hearing jitter and were one of the worlds foremost geniuses in electronics and had invented new clock technology ourselves, we’d probably be hearing it too.

As for us more normal people, some of us seem to be able to hear it and others can’t. That goes for some pretty accomplished engineers. I do not know if its room and signal chain dependent, physiology dependent, or just having a ton of experience with different clocks. I’m not going to buy 6 high end clocks and find out. I just went for the best converter I could possibly buy and decided to be done with it.

I’ve been trying to find a Grimm CC1, but I’m not going to pay $2K for it. If I can’t get a hold of one soon, I think I’ll just get that Rosendahl. I can always sell it off if I change my mind.

#4

I never trust anyone saying they can or can’t hear something unless they are doing an A/B test. People of all ability levels have the things they like and the things they don’t care about, but I refuse to let somebody else’s issues become my own.

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#5

Here’s an interesting white paper titled: Detection threshold for distortions due to jitter on digital audio

The first experiment used listeners who had no experience in the audio field and listeners in the second experiment were all professionals, audio engineers, musicians, recording/mixing engineers.

Both experiments yielded about the same results:

The first column is the size of random jitter.
The second column is the number of listeners who discriminated sounds
2 ms 23
1 ms 11
500 ns 6
250 ns none

#7

And what year the cable was made connecting the guitar to the fuzz face

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#8

“I always try to buy marshalls with the transformer wound by Barbara, she always wound them a few turns hotter”

#9

I have this on my to-do list to read…this looks like a really interesting study…can’t tonight, but I’ll try and sit down with this tomorrow. I don’t even know why I’m interested in this stuff, but my curiosity is getting the better of me. It seems like a lot of work to educate yourself on :frowning:

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