word clock problems - please help?

[soul-synthesis]

Hi all,

I'm having problems hooking things up via wordclock. Looks like the noah box prevents the swissonic to lock on WC.

i've got a pulsar2+sync plate, swissonic converter, ada8000 converter and a noah ex box.

sync plate (master) -> swissonic -> ada8000 -> noah. [swissonic wont lock on wc, everything else locks]
sync plate (master) -> noah -> ada8000 -> swissonic. [swissonic wont lock on wc, everything else locks]
sync plate (master) -> noah -> swissonic -> ada8000. [swissonic wont lock on wc, everything else locks]
sync plate (master) -> swissonic -> ada8000. [WC is locked on all]
sync plate (master) -> swissonic -> noah. [swissonic wont lock on wc, everything else locks]
sync plate (master) -> swissonic -> ada8000 -> cable with a terminator. [swissonic wont lock on wc, everything else locks]

swissonic (master) -> noah -> ada8000 -> sync plate [everything locks to WC but i get clicks, crackles, pops, bangs]

Ideally i would like the sync plate to be the master, cause it's more convenient instead of always powering on the gear and cause i dont always use the external gear.

Any solutions or tips?

Would a seperate wordclock generator fix everything? I was thinking of something fairly cheap and dirty (i cant afford stuff like apogee, lucid etc).

How about this http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SyncGen/ ????

thanks in advance.

[garyb]

wordclock MUST be wired in parallel, it can NOT be wired serially. if you wish to use wordclock, it's best to have an external master clock/distributor. at least, you will need a w/c distributor.

the clock you mentioned will help if you only need to clock 4 devices...

[soul-synthesis]

I thought you can wire things serially, each device hooks on to a T connector?

Looks like might have to get a seperate wc unit.

[garyb]

it's a bad idea. timings are crucial and serial connection makes trouble.

[kylie]

the clock you mentioned will help if you only need to clock 4 devices...

...but would you say it might be worth a try? it's damn cheap compared to anything else, so I would be interested, too...

[garyb]

i'm sure that it works, although i've never tried the product. yes, it's stupidly cheap, so i dunno....

it's likely no better than the stock clock, and probably not quite as good as the swissonic's clock, but most people wouldn't ever notice the difference.

[Fluxpod]

Do you use propper termination? Maybe a device is intern terminated?You can chain a few devices like that with T-conectors.I would stay far away from external wordclock generators in that price category.External clocking in any form will lead to more jitter,that some people like and some dont.So a propper working chain is way better than a star sync from a mediocre wc generator....imo.

[soul-synthesis]

i'm going to give the box a try, i'm picking it up tomorrow.

Are there any objective tests i can do to test jitter or to see if the sound quality is better/worse?

[garyb]

if you can't hear it, there's no problem.

[Fluxpod]

I agree with gary.If it sounds good it is good.Maybe get a mate to do a little blind a/b test for fun.I would like to hear how that works out.

[soul-synthesis]

Tested the art syncgen box out last night, appears to solve the problems with glitches, crackles and devices not locking to wc. Quality wise i personally cant hear any differences in sound quality compared to the swissonic a/d as master or the sync plate as master. But then again i'm no audio engineer or someone with golden ears. After 4hours of use it's fairly rock stable, no pops or random glitches like last time when i had the swissonic as the master.

Some things I noticed was that the noah and sync plate are internally terminated. I think this would cause problems when hooking things in serial (garyB looks like you are right once again). That's why the swissonic was dropping the wc lock when the noah was hooked up in the middle of the chain. Now the WC is running in parallel with each device terminated at the end. Looks pretty good so far so problem solved

[Fluxpod]

Glad its working.What you mentioned about noah and sync plate beeing internally terminated,that i bet was the problem in the chain.

[garyb]