In rack Mixer

This is going to be a snobby thing to say... but after you hear the difference you can't not hear it. You also need to have a very high quality PA to hear it. I have not used the TF series desks so I can't really comment there if it has similar sonic issues that the LS9 and M7 had. Hopefully it doesn't. Because it is using their newer stuff I'm sure its good to go. Much of the issue with the LS9 and M7 were clock related... the most of them could be cleared up with an external clock. It at least helped. Still sounded a bit digital, but you could A-B test the desks with a good clock and hear the difference. Some desks needed this more than others.

Kindly explain how a clock can affect audio. I've been down this road before and the answer is that clocking does not affect audio in a way that can be determined, repeatedly, by blind A/B/? listening tests, nor can it be detected by FFT analysis.

The whole external clock thing is a huge exercise in Placebo Effect.

At a gig several years ago a band engineer carried his own Rosendahl clock box.... he connected it to the M7 and played his tuning music while extolling the great and obvious "improvement" to the sound. He didn't bother to change the clock source setting on the console, however, and it was running on the internal clock. The Placebo Effect is very strong indeed.
 
The placebo effect is strong in audio, resulting in myths like applying green sharpy to the edge of a CD and $200, oxygen free copper power cords.

Clock jitter in the A/D conversions is known to modulate and raise the noise floor, but I suspect you'd be hard pressed to hear or measure it, especially with modern equipment in a sound re-enforcement environment. Who's to say an external clock is going to outperform an internal clock enough to hear or measure? More money spent on hardware doesn't mean you can hear it.

That said, some of the early digital equipment had very audible problems. Good, off the shelf parts didn't exist for awhile, which led to compromises.

On such matters, I generally take the opinion of Bob Orban, because he carefully follows the science and has been a broadcast engineering, recording, and mastering voice of reason for 40 years. You can Google his thoughts on the subject.
 
The placebo effect is strong in audio, resulting in myths like applying green sharpy to the edge of a CD and $200, oxygen free copper power cords.

Clock jitter in the A/D conversions is known to modulate and raise the noise floor, but I suspect you'd be hard pressed to hear or measure it, especially with modern equipment in a sound re-enforcement environment. Who's to say an external clock is going to outperform an internal clock enough to hear or measure? More money spent on hardware doesn't mean you can hear it.

That said, some of the early digital equipment had very audible problems. Good, off the shelf parts didn't exist for awhile, which led to compromises.

On such matters, I generally take the opinion of Bob Orban, because he carefully follows the science and has been a broadcast engineering, recording, and mastering voice of reason for 40 years. You can Google his thoughts on the subject.
@FMEng I only own one piece of Mr. Orban's gear, a dual channel, four band, fully parametric EQ gang-able to 8 bands mono. I bought it and added transformers and XLR's while I was head of sound at Stratford, Ontario's Shakespearean Festival. Within a few months of my personal purchase, the Festival bought two of their own, one to live in the Avon proscenium house's booth and one to float between their other theaters as needed. Mine had sat on a basement shelf in my home for a few years but the next time I needed it, it powered up and performed flawlessly. There are certain pieces by DBX, Orban and Rane I've never regretted purchasing, along with AKG C414EB's and Ramko ESP38 phono pre-amps, Panasonic Technics SP15's and SME arms. Definitely all buy once / cry once items.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
@FMEng I only own one piece of Mr. Orban's gear, a dual channel, four band, fully parametric EQ gang-able to 8 bands mono. I bought it and added transformers and XLR's while I was head of sound at Stratford, Ontario's Shakespearean Festival. Within a few months of my personal purchase, the Festival bought two of their own, one to live in the Avon proscenium house's booth and one to float between their other theaters as needed. Mine had sat on a basement shelf in my home for a few years but the next time I needed it, it powered up and performed flawlessly. There are certain pieces by DBX, Orban and Rane I've never regretted purchasing, along with AKG C414EB's and Ramko ESP38 phono pre-amps, Panasonic Technics SP15's and SME arms. Definitely all buy once / cry once items.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

That parametric EQ is a classic piece, probably worth serious money in the vintage studio gear market. At last count, we have 10 Orban processors on our stations and web streams. I think I've had my hands on almost every generation of Orban broadcast product.

At one point in time, Orban sold the company to Harman. During the Harman years, Bob designed the venerable dbx 286 mic processor. It's good sounding and inexpensive. Since then, the company sold a couple more times. It's in healthy ownership again, and Mr. Orban still has his hands in processor design.

He started out by inventing a revolutionary, overshoot free FM processor/limiter/stereo generator (the model 8000) in 1975. It was a major leap forward for the sound of FM stations. After that, he designed countless analog, AM, FM, and TV processors, introduced the first, good DSP broadcast processor in 1991 (the 8200), and continues pushing the state of the art today. I think it's remarkable for a gifted analog designer to shift over to DSP and keep going.
 
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The placebo effect is strong in audio, resulting in myths like applying green sharpy to the edge of a CD and $200, oxygen free copper power cords.

Clock jitter in the A/D conversions is known to modulate and raise the noise floor, but I suspect you'd be hard pressed to hear or measure it, especially with modern equipment in a sound re-enforcement environment. Who's to say an external clock is going to outperform an internal clock enough to hear or measure? More money spent on hardware doesn't mean you can hear it.

That said, some of the early digital equipment had very audible problems. Good, off the shelf parts didn't exist for awhile, which led to compromises.

On such matters, I generally take the opinion of Bob Orban, because he carefully follows the science and has been a broadcast engineering, recording, and mastering voice of reason for 40 years. You can Google his thoughts on the subject.


I'm very familiar with Bob Orban's early work, the EQs, compressors and the OptiMod products for broadcast. It's ironic that 10-12 years ago the legacy products went fairly cheap on eBay, now they're more pricey.

I did a quick search for "bob orban opinions on word clocks" and didn't find much. If you have a link I'd appreciate reading Bob's take on external clocking and it's alleged :improvement: to audio.

FWIW, I've seen external clocks in many touring FOH racks - some are in use, some are not - and frankly don't hear a difference. Since the gold plating on my ears has begun to flake off I don't automatically presume I'm right, but in the entire time external clocks have been pimped as a solution to a perceived problem (that can't be fixed with what used to be called "data strobe"), there has been no credible explanation of *how* this might work and is why I asked footer Kyle for an explanation. I've watched the Dave Rat videos and while I like and have worked with Dave, his o'scope traces of both rounded and squared clock pulses don't explain how/why the audio is perceived as 'improved'.

And I'll see your Bob Orban and raise you a Ken Pohlman... who demonstrates with logic that any properly working clock (it sends out square waves that devices correctly lock to) will not affect audio in the manner suggested by the proponents of such things.
 
Important to note about the rounded trace Dave Rat saw on his M7CL clock test is that the line was not properly terminated. A follow up post a few months later admitted the mistake and acknowledged a properly terminated signal would look much more like expected.
 
Important to note about the rounded trace Dave Rat saw on his M7CL clock test is that the line was not properly terminated. A follow up post a few months later admitted the mistake and acknowledged a properly terminated signal would look much more like expected.

True, but it still didn't answer the primary question: does a different clock signal improve (whatever that might mean to the user) the audio coming out of the mixer? The secondary question is "how does it do that?" I ask the second question first, because I've long ago stopped trying to tell people the Emperor is naked...
 
True, but it still didn't answer the primary question: does a different clock signal improve (whatever that might mean to the user) the audio coming out of the mixer? The secondary question is "how does it do that?" I ask the second question first, because I've long ago stopped trying to tell people the Emperor is naked...
@TimMc But you do know not only that he's naked but his true identity, right? Just don't start trying to tell us you know who "the old sound man" is or that you've personally met the audio goat.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
 
@TimMc But you do know not only that he's naked but his true identity, right? Just don't start trying to tell us you know who "the old sound man" is or that you've personally met the audio goat.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

Well.... uh.... I have a pretty good idea of the real identity of OSM. I don't know who Abdul EQ is, though...

As for Turbo, I never met him but the stories of him sharing adult (and goat) beverages with Fowler were heartwarming to say the least. /nudge, wink

Turbo also wrote an advice column and was a literary presence at Idaho State via his human buddy Prof Martin Hackworth.

Damn, Ron, you made me jog enough memories to burn 100 calories (I hope)!
 
Well.... uh.... I have a pretty good idea of the real identity of OSM. I don't know who Abdul EQ is, though...

As for Turbo, I never met him but the stories of him sharing adult (and goat) beverages with Fowler were heartwarming to say the least. /nudge, wink

Turbo also wrote an advice column and was a literary presence at Idaho State via his human buddy Prof Martin Hackworth.

Damn, Ron, you made me jog enough memories to burn 100 calories (I hope)!
I can't recall why but once upon a time Doug mentioned he was on the scrounge for an EV 664 finished in the basic finish and in good condition. I had two in mint condition, packed one in a box and couriered it to him. He was blown away when he received it and couldn't believe it was in flawless condition. I probably had an Amphenol MC4 to XLR3-Male adapter threaded on to it but aside from that, the mic was mint. I've always wondered what he did with it.
Memories. Know what you mean. Memories are all I've got now.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
 
True, but it still didn't answer the primary question: does a different clock signal improve (whatever that might mean to the user) the audio coming out of the mixer? The secondary question is "how does it do that?" I ask the second question first, because I've long ago stopped trying to tell people the Emperor is naked...

You don't have to convince me. Only reasonable case I believe you'll hear a difference is if the internal clock source is totally trashed by the time you distribute it out to your digital devices, at which point you'll either hear clicks or dropouts, or you'll have entire endpoints falling offline.
 
You don't have to convince me. Only reasonable case I believe you'll hear a difference is if the internal clock source is totally trashed by the time you distribute it out to your digital devices, at which point you'll either hear clicks or dropouts, or you'll have entire endpoints falling offline.

Hi Mike-

And to expand just a bit on your comment - it means using the external clock for its intended purpose: keeping the bits in line across multiple devices, rather than as some form of 'audio enhancement' device.

There was a recent thread over at the ProSoundWeb live sound forums (The Classic LAB forum, if anyone is interested) in which a system provider asked about the necessity/desirability of external clocks. The reality is that some soundmixer persons believe the bullshit of external clocking to "improve" the sound of a digital mixer, particularly the much-maligned Yamahas and the result is that it's a *commercial* decision to put a Black Lion or Big Ben or even a Rosendahl clock in the FOH rack rather than try to explain that they really do nothing for the mixer's perceived audio quality. Don't try to teach a pig to sing; it's a waste of time and really annoys the pig.
 

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