Print

Print


Henry:

While we use external house clock for all of our A/D convertors (as we 
do a lot of synchronous work), the internal clock on some devices may be 
acceptable (although I doubt that Behringer is one of them).

The only way to tell for sure would be to measure it with an Audio 
Precision analyzer. There is a good article on the RME website in this 
regard. See: 
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_support_techinfo.php?page=content/support/en_support_techinfo_steadyclock

Regards,

Scott D. Smith CAS
Chicago Audio Works, Inc.


On 9/4/2012 9:00 AM, Henry Borchers wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> Thank you for the help with understanding the benefits of higher bitrate audio sampling. I do have another question for you.
>
> I've been given the task and privilege to design a set of audio digitization/digital audio transfer workstations for the University of Maryland as one of my tasks. We will be moving towards the digitization of our analog recordings and the transfer of our less stable digital formats to digital files with the help of a lot of equipment that has been simply floating around the campus. However, we will also be acquiring a few modern pieces of technology that are necessary for the digitization process, namely a digital interface that is up to the task to archival quality analog-to-digital conversion. Unfortunately this interface was budgeted before I was hired and it looks as if they are going to be purchasing a Behringer converter. I personally have had many problems with everything with the Behringer name (with the exception of their cable tester and their ground loop hum destroyer) so I will be pushing for a more reliable interface. My question is not about selecting an audio interface however it is related.
>
> My question lays with external word clock generators. In the last half decade, I had the pleasure of working with various film and audio professionals in Europe and in the USA, and I saw a variety of different transfer setups from low end to the high end. One consistency among the high end was the use of an external word clock over BNC cables that would control all ADC and DACs. However, I have heard conflicting arguments from the benefits of using an external master word clock generator.  I understand the need for syncing digital devices to avoid jitter but is there a real benefit to running an external word clock instead of using the interfaces internal clock? I have read conflicting reports that state that the internal clock for modern devices is better than syncing up via an external master clock. If this is so, why are there so many facilities out there using a master word clock?
>
> Thanks,
> Henry Borchers
>
> --
> Broadcast Media Digitization and Curation Librarian
> University of Maryland
> B0221D McKeldin Library
> College Park, MD 20742
> (301) 405-0725
>