Has anyone used the K50’s clock output for anything ? I am curious on its use case.
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I have no own experience with this. However, as I understand if you own a DAC with compatible clock-in option you can sync the K50 with the DAC. Depending on the DACs quality clock this might very well be a significant improvement.
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Bump… @MarkCole or anyone else thank you in anticipation.
Any answers what this clock output can be used for ?
Set ups and examples.
What is the specification ?
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I have the same question too. Though for the S20 in my case. I had thought/hoped it was an input (ie to take a master clock reference). As an output it’d be great i’m sure but can’t think of any DACs that have a clock input off the top of my head.
The regular TEAC & higher end Esoteric DAC ranges, along with DCS & Antelope audio are some examples that will accept clock inputs. I’m sure there must be others, but I’ve never really looked into it.
The K50’s reclocker features an excellent clock. I’m guessing that it didn’t add much to the cost of the K50 to provide a dedicated output for this signal, so they added it despite there not being many audiophile DACs that would benefit from it.
It’s my understanding that for DACs that do have a word clock input, separating out the master clock this way can bring better sound quality. It makes sense that it would as it’s not optimum to have the clock travel down the same cable as the one carrying the data that represents the music.
@kennyb123 I agree with all you say although I have yet to find any piece of equipment that can accept the Antipodes clock output. Who knows though, maybe Antipodes are developing their own DAC that will accept it?? 
Here’s one with a word clock input: Antelope Zodiac
And another: dCS Bartok
Now whether these can accept the Antipodes clock output, I can’t say.
A quick skirmish into the manuals for both of those seems to indicate that neither can accept the K50 clock signal although I’m happy to be corrected on that. I note that the dCS Rossini Clock that is suggested by dCS as being suitable for the Bartok costs a cool 9k just for the clock so if the K50 had been suitable that could have been quite a coup. @MarkCole is it possible that you have a list of specific devices that will accept the Antipodes clock signal?
I don’t have the inclination to skim the manuals at the moment, but a quick skim of the web page of the Bartok shows the following. The K50 can supply this, can’t it?
I believe the Kinki Studio Vision DAC-1 will:
VISION DAC-1 is a Balanced DAC, equipped with a single AKM high-performance, high sound quality digital audio chip AK4495, with built-in XMOS XU208 USB interface, FEMTO clock, dedicated Word Clock input, supports up to 32/384k, DSD128 via USB, and 24/192k and DoP DSD64 via SPDIF.
The prices of clocks tends to track closely to the phase noise specification. It tends to be pricey to move the needle. So you really need to look at the specs to sort this out. There are other things you pay for as well like the power supply and whether the outputs are galvanically isolated.
I do suspect the K50’s clock will be superior to the internal clocks of many or even most DACs. But I’m not sure I’d put dCS in that category.
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Anyone knows if the clock or outlet is constantly energized on the K50? Any configuration required? I can’t find anything in the manual.
My SOtM switch has a clock in, would definitely like to try it.
It looks like the Denafrips DDCs have word clock inputs. These have really good FETMO clocks though so one would have to compare to see if the K50’s is better. I’m not sure why one would want to add a DDC if they already have a K50 as it essentially has one built in. Just sharing as an FYI.
Gaia’s is oxco with spec of lower jitter. Cheers.
Hey Kenny, Btw, is K50’s i2s native from mobo which I hope so or like having a P1/K1 to run usb into them and reconvert ? Ideally, K50 with clock input to sync with Denafrip ddc or even better to Denafrip Tplus dac’s higher grade oxco clock within cms to conversion. Tks.
Highly unlikely that it’s native from the motherboard.
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I tried to use the K50 Clock output signal on my Gryphon Kalliope DAC which has an I/O Word clock BNC connection. But I had no success because the sound disappeared just from the moment when the K50 signal was used. When I switched back to Kalliopes Clock sound comes back. Does anybody know what is the reason? Or, what spec does the wordclock output have on K50?
The Clock output on all Antipodes devices is a MASTER Clock, therefore any device attached must be run in SLAVE mode.
If your device cannot be configured as SLAVE then move on to enjoying your music.