PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Is there a quality difference between z-link and adat?
I am about to purchase a16 ultra and i already have adat ins and outs from my scope cards.
However, if z-link's quality is superior then i would go for it.
Waiting for your help and suggestions.
Thanks in advance.
Panagiotis.

z-link is capable of slightly less jitter, otherwise, pretty much the same....other than, z-link does 96khz, while adat only does 48k, unless used as s-mux which halves the number of channels.

Thanks for the reply.
Can you please tell me whether both protocols affect dynamic range, headroom etc?

afaik, both should be identical. there's no conversion involved that would affect those things. both are purely digital connections and the music is already digitized.

Garyb your posts have been really helpful.
I think i 'm going to try a16 ultra on my adats first, and leave z-link for later in case i 'm not satisfied.
If anyone else has another opinion, i would like to hear it.
Thanks again.

You may need an external clock if you're using ADAT's (or a clock cable from the A16). No clocking needed with the Z-Link. I think it depends on how you have your rig configured. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

wordclock is nice for transmitting clock to multiple devices, but the optical cable will work just fine. no additional hardware required in either case. personally, i would use a clock generator/distributor and the bnc connectors if i had more than two or three devices to clock. otherwise, i'd just sync to adat optical.