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I have a few questions related to word clocking using Xite-1 and A16

Does it make a difference which device acts as WC master? Is the clock inside Xite better than the one in the A16 (or vice versa)?

Does an external clock (like a Big Ben or anything for that matter) improve anything?

both clocks are excellent, and both were designed by the same person. if it's an older A16 Ultra, the XITE is probably better.

yes, an external clock is better, but the difference is VERY subtle, probably so samll that your clients would never know the difference. if you have 3 or more digital devices to clock together, an external clock is probably a good move, but if it's just the XITE and the A16, i wouldn't bother unless you just have money to burn.

Cool thanks Gary. I've been using the A16 Ultra (older black-face Sonic Core version) as master but I think I'll experiment with the Xite as master. I have a session tonite I'll see if I can detect a difference. I'm still so impressed with the quality improvement clocking made on my system I've been wondering if an external clock would make it even better lol There seems to be a lot of voodoo out there in reference to clocking. The cost of acquisition for an external clock is rather steep in most cases (unless u buy used). I'll respond back with my findings.

Well, that was fast.

I tried running with Xite as WC master, and A16 Ultra as WC slave, and that random crackling/popping I had reported a month or so ago came back.

With ADAT source modules A & B fully connected to 16 input channels of the STM2448, I am getting consistent crackling on channels 1-8 (source A) and only periodic random crackling on channels 9-16 at 44.1 kHz.

Switching to 48Khz, I only see consistent popping from channels 2-8 and nothing at all on channels 9-16.

So, this setup is not going to work for me. It's back to using A16 as WC master and XITE as slave.

Any thoughts?

whatever way works best is fine imo.

krizrox wrote:Well, that was fast.

I tried running with Xite as WC master, and A16 Ultra as WC slave, and that random crackling/popping I had reported a month or so ago came back.

With ADAT source modules A & B fully connected to 16 input channels of the STM2448, I am getting consistent crackling on channels 1-8 (source A) and only periodic random crackling on channels 9-16 at 44.1 kHz.

Switching to 48Khz, I only see consistent popping from channels 2-8 and nothing at all on channels 9-16.

So, this setup is not going to work for me. It's back to using A16 as WC master and XITE as slave.

Any thoughts?

That sounds familiar: nearly the same behavior with the new A16. Only on the new one, 48KHz has crackles everywhere.

I know, it was disappointing to see that problem rear it's ugly head again. Anyway - it's not worth losing sleep over. The way I had it before works fine. I know now to just leave it alone and get on with life lol

I guess I should be grateful I don't have issues.
I only wish we had more source and destinations and cascadable A16s...

Mutec is the bomb, especially if video and SMPTE are being used.

catscratch wrote:I found a minimal improvement audio quality with external clocking, clients could not hear the difference. It was a necessary complication for one project and then I switched back to internal clocking. I found my system became very unstable due to static shocks that would crash xite and cause cascading protection fault errors on a regular basis. Very annoying. This could be due to my choice of an inexpensive clock (Art gensync) but I can't say for certain. Could also be a grounding problem in my system, but it only happens with external sync.

ART syncgen works here without any probs. Of course, not with A16.