Something about " reclock " & "dejitter ", which I couldn't comprehend...

[Preston8452]

Hi y'all,

Firstly, sorry to bring out this old question again, but recently I just received this inquiry from my friend who is also on his way to digital streaming though, as we were discuss whether a network switch would help or not like everyone else, he sorta struck me with this, " Based on some researches, I found that most hi-end or high quality digital audio devices would reclock and dejitter signals on the arrival anyway, so what's the possible benefit of doing that in a network switch prior to arrival? "

I was speechless lol, because I didn't know about this, and I bough a network switch myself actually, so I seriously would like to prove my point to him!

If you guys have some insightful opinions regarding this question, please do share, I'm dying to learn...

Best,

 

[E-Stat]

Contrary to the “bits is bits” concept, the timing of the digital stream is essential for the most accurate performance. Since that relates to the intimate conversation between a transport or endpoint and DAC, I’ve not heard of trying to achieve that via the network path. It’s too far upstream. Limiting noise, however, is desirable. I use a couple of approaches for that.

The ultraRendu endpoint in the main system reclocks the USB output to DAC to minimize timing errors.

 

[Yamaki]

There are components that have a re-clocking feature and some that don't.

I agree with @E-Stat regarding the importance of re-clocking a digital stream to remove "jitter", a term used to describe a deviation in a periodic signal, which can affect sound quality and you can definitely hear it when it happens.

Having experienced jitter in my system I added a re-clocker module to the digital stream between my NAS & DAC. Problem solved.

 

[cpt_paranoia]

For Ethernet interfaces used to carry audio, there are six causal barriers between the Ethernet data stream and the DAC. Jitter on the Ethernet traffic has absolutely no impact on sample jitter at the DAC.

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...io-grade-network-switch.984832/#post-15346741

That assumes the network can deliver packets to the DAC in a timely manner so as to prevent FIFO underflow in the audio stream processing. But that is not a jitter problem.

[edit: I see the link I posted was to a thread you started, pretty much on the same subject]

 

[cpt_paranoia]

If your friend is asking about SPDIF, rather than Ethernet, then that's a much simpler protocol, sending raw PCM over an interface with embedded (biphase encoded) clock. This interface must recover the clock, and modern SPDIF receivers do this so well that jitter on the interface is largely eliminated. The causal barriers present in the more complex Ethernet interface are not there; there's probably just one, in the data and clock recovery process required on the SPDIF signal.