Mutec MC-3+

[kaka]

Not a mention of the ref clock at RMAF - did anyone hear it in action?

[julian.david]

Not a mention of the ref clock at RMAF - did anyone hear it in action?

 

Well, the editors of German Fidelity Magazin came by and had this to say: "Wonderfully light and open it sounded in the space of emmLabs, MUTEC and YFS (Your Final System). Whether that was because of the well-reputed clock regenerators of MUTEC, is hard to say. One thing was clear: Here everything is just right."

 

Google translate link: https://www.fidelity-magazin.de/2016/10/23/rocky-mountain-audio-fest-rmaf-2016/

 

This was an exquisite listening setup and we're proud that we had the chance to contribute to the system. Obviously, the sound quality is the sum of all the components, but we know that the REF 10 played an important role in that system.

[justubes]

There has been much discussion and users of 2 mutecs stacked.

 

Not only out of interest bt due to he fact that every clock crystal used will be of varying phase noise and accuracy, a fact of manufacturing tolerances which goes untested.

 

Has or will any of the stacked mutech uses compare:

 

A) Using 1x mc3 in line and swapping out with another to observe the differences in oscillator variances.

 

B)After A, try cascading with unit no.1 in front and later with unit no.2 in front and observe for differences.

 

I would highligh that i use a tested/ selected 10m OCXO by cybershaft which is of normal production but selected from a batch of 1000 used and new ocxo to purchase the the top few with exceptional low phase noise equaling the very specialised products clocks cost many times more sue to select manafucturing and technology.

 

Could every same model product of cdps, dac, clock, reclockers all suffer from this issue and some sounding better than another?

[iefbo]

I currently have a Mcintosh MCD500. I connect a good old Squeezbox3 Classic to it using the SPDIF Coax in.

The SQ comes nowhere near the SQ of a CD loaded in the MCD500.

 

Besides that the SB offers the functionality I'm looking for.

 

Do I keep the SB and add the Mutec?

-or-

Do I invest in a new streamer (Aurender, TotalDav, etc, etc)

 

Thanks

[One and a half]

There has been much discussion and users of 2 mutecs stacked.

 

Not only out of interest bt due to he fact that every clock crystal used will be of varying phase noise and accuracy, a fact of manufacturing tolerances which goes untested.

 

Has or will any of the stacked mutech uses compare:

 

A) Using 1x mc3 in line and swapping out with another to observe the differences in oscillator variances.

 

B)After A, try cascading with unit no.1 in front and later with unit no.2 in front and observe for differences.

 

I would highligh that i use a tested/ selected 10m OCXO by cybershaft which is of normal production but selected from a batch of 1000 used and new ocxo to purchase the the top few with exceptional low phase noise equaling the very specialised products clocks cost many times more sue to select manafucturing and technology.

 

Could every same model product of cdps, dac, clock, reclockers all suffer from this issue and some sounding better than another?

 

? Just use ears and music to test

[One and a half]

I currently have a Mcintosh MCD500. I connect a good old Squeezbox3 Classic to it using the SPDIF Coax in.

The SQ comes nowhere near the SQ of a CD loaded in the MCD500.

 

Besides that the SB offers the functionality I'm looking for.

 

Do I keep the SB and add the Mutec?

-or-

Do I invest in a new streamer (Aurender, TotalDav, etc, etc)

 

Thanks

 

For file based playback, try SB -> Mutec -> MCD500 S/PDIF input. Keep in mind RCA S/PDIF is not *that* great as an input to begin with compared with AES3, just based on noise transmission artifacts. I find file based playback very frustrating to even approach a spinning disc's playback ease of sound. Something about spreading out the whole chain to different PSU, cables and interfaces must take its toll on SQ.

[julian.david]

Hi all,

 

I'm happy to announce that MUTEC MC-3+USB customers using Apple Macs can now download our brand new app to update their units to the latest V1.10 firmware. Sorry it's been taking a while, but we wanted to get Apple Developer approved to avoid any hiccups during the installation process and we had to jump through a few hoops to do so.

 

Direct Download of the installation package

More info on the new firmware

 

Enjoy!

Julian

[mourip]

Hi all,

 

I'm happy to announce that MUTEC MC-3+USB customers using Apple Macs can now download our brand new app to update their units to the latest V1.10 firmware. Sorry it's been taking a while, but we wanted to get Apple Developer approved to avoid any hiccups during the installation process and we had to jump through a few hoops to do so.

 

Direct Download of the installation package

More info on the new firmware

 

Hi Julian,

 

I have an unrelated question. I am using my Mutec MC3+ USB to re-clock after my Rednet D16. AES in and AES out. Initially I had the D16 set to run everything at 192K. Eventually there was a firmware update to allow sample rate following so that I could play each file at it's intended rate. This worked fine.

 

Being a restless audiophile I eventually bought an Antelope LiveClock to use as an external clock for both the D16 and the MC3+ USB. The LiveClock must be manually changed for a different rate so I set it to 192K. Evidently the D16 will automatically switch to it's internal clock if it finds that the external clock is not at the appropriate rate for the incoming stream so that part works in a somewhat limited way.

 

My question is what is the Mutec doing in this scenario if it is externally clocked for 192K but is passed a stream that it 44.1?

 

Thanks,

 

Paul

[julian.david]

My question is what is the Mutec doing in this scenario if it is externally clocked for 192K but is passed a stream that it 44.1?

Thanks,

 

Paul

 

Without changing your setup and mode of operation the MC-3+USB will re-clock at whatever sample rate it's seeing at the input selected in the reference menu. So if your going to the MC-3+USB via AES from the D16, it will adjust to whatever sample rate the D16 is sending. This is assuming that the MC-3+USB is set to "Internal + Re-Clock". In this case, the external clock from the LiveClock is not relevant to what the MC-3+USB is doing.

 

You could also apply the Word Clock from the LiveClock as an external reference to the re-clocking process of the MC-3+USB. In this case you would have to switch the mode of operation to "External + Re-Clock". I honestly doubt that you'll get better results going that route, but it's worth a try. The MC-3+USB will still automatically adjust it's sample rate to the incoming AES signal, but the re-clocking will be based on the 192k Word Clock from the LiveClock.

 

In both cases, there won't be any sample rate conversion taking place inside the MC-3+USB.

Hope this helps and let me know what you'll find.

 

Julian

[mourip]

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

I did change the MC3+ USB set to use External + Re-Clock when I added the LiveClock. However since I did not know for sure how the equipment would handle having the LiveClock set at a constant 192K I decided to forego sample rate following and currently just have everything set to 192K from JRMC all of the way through. Luckily this sounds excellent.

 

Also when you say "...but the re-clocking will be based on the 192k Word Clock from the LiveClock" does this mean that if I send it 44.1 from the D16 it will be putting out 192K or just performing a less than ideal re-clocking to 44.1 based upon the 192K external WC?

 

If I understand you correctly you are suggesting that if I want to use SRF and have the Mutec re-sample then I should probably just go back to using the internal clock on the Mutec and disconnect the external clock input from it?

 

Thanks!

[julian.david]

Also when you say "...but the re-clocking will be based on the 192k Word Clock from the LiveClock" does this mean that if I send it 44.1 from the D16 it will be putting out 192K or just performing a less than ideal re-clocking to 44.1 based upon the 192K external WC?

If I understand you correctly you are suggesting that if I want to use SRF and have the Mutec re-sample then I should probably just go back to using the internal clock on the Mutec and disconnect the external clock input from it?

Thanks!

 

Hi again,

 

There are two different concepts here that you need to try to keep separated: 1) The sample rate of the audio and 2) the clock rate for the re-clocking process. The way the MC-3+USB works, these two things are independent. The MC-3+USB under no circumstances performs any kind of sample rate conversion except for when doing DSD/DoP-to-PCM. What goes in, must come out with respect to the sample rate. When re-clocking the incoming audio is stripped from its clock signal, and recombined with a fresh, near jitter-free clock signal from the MC-3+USB.

In the "Internal + Re-Clock" mode the re-clocking is based on the internal 1 GHz ultra low-noise oscillator. When set to "External + Re-Clock" you can use an external reference like a 10 MHz clock or a Word Clock signal like from your Antelope LiveClock for the re-clocking process. But this does not affect the sample rate of the audio whatsoever.

 

Does that help?

 

Julian

[julian.david]

Hi all,

I'm happy to announce that MUTEC MC-3+USB customers using Apple Macs can now download our brand new app to update their units to the latest V1.10 firmware. Sorry it's been taking a while, but we wanted to get Apple Developer approved to avoid any hiccups during the installation process and we had to jump through a few hoops to do so.

Direct Download of the installation package

More info on the new firmware

Enjoy!

Julian

Just to avoid any kind of confusion: The new Mac update tool is just so that Mac customers can conveniently update the firmware of the MC-3+USB. It is not mandatory to install the new application in order to use an MC-3+USB on a Mac. In fact, the MC-3+USB acts as a class-compliant device on Apple Macs with no need for any driver installs.

[andy nicholson]

Wonderful news!

[mourip]

Hi again,

 

There are two different concepts here that you need to try to keep separated: 1) The sample rate of the audio and 2) the clock rate for the re-clocking process. The way the MC-3+USB works, these two things are independent. The MC-3+USB under no circumstances performs any kind of sample rate conversion except for when doing DSD/DoP-to-PCM. What goes in, must come out with respect to the sample rate. When re-clocking the incoming audio is stripped from its clock signal, and recombined with a fresh, near jitter-free clock signal from the MC-3+USB.

In the "Internal + Re-Clock" mode the re-clocking is based on the internal 1 GHz ultra low-noise oscillator. When set to "External + Re-Clock" you can use an external reference like a 10 MHz clock or a Word Clock signal like from your Antelope LiveClock for the re-clocking process. But this does not affect the sample rate of the audio whatsoever.

 

Does that help?

 

Julian

 

This is helpful but I think that I am still unclear on some concepts.

 

I can understand an external higher quality 1Ghz/10 Ghz oscillator that improves the re-timing for another device but in my case the LiveClock is an external Word Clock and is set at a specific rate. So what is my LiveClock actually doing when set to 192K and with the Mutec receiving and outputting sample rates other than 192K? At best it does not sound too useful except when the Mutec receives a 192K signal?

[julian.david]

This is helpful but I think that I am still unclear on some concepts.

 

I can understand an external higher quality 1Ghz/10 Ghz oscillator that improves the re-timing for another device but in my case the LiveClock is an external Word Clock and is set at a specific rate. So in my case what is my LiveClock actually doing when set to 192K and with the Mutec receiving and outputting sample rates other than 192K. At best it does not sound too useful?

Right, which is why I would recommend leaving the MC-3+USB set to Internal + Re-Clock. The D16 probably benefits from the external clocking via the LiveClock, but for the MC-3+USB it's not really an improvement compared to the internal clock. Ideally, the LiveClock will already give you an improved signal coming out of the D16 so the the MC-3+USB will have to work less hard.

[mourip]

Right, which is why I would recommend leaving the MC-3+USB set to Internal + Re-Clock. The D16 probably benefits from the external clocking via the LiveClock, but for the MC-3+USB it's not really an improvement compared to the internal clock. Ideally, the LiveClock will already give you an improved signal coming out of the D16 so the the MC-3+USB will have to work less hard.

 

Thanks! The schooling is much appreciated.

[Dpetr]

Hi Julian,

 

I'm a Mac user and I was glad to see today's announcement. I did the double update from 1.1 to 1.3, and then to 1.10, and it all worked perfectly.

 

Dave

[Alvantri]

I have recently purchased a MC-3+USB - when using as reclocker spdif in/out with identical high-quality 75 ohmn BNC cables (Naim DC1) am experiencing intermittent clicks and pops, only when playing audio. Can be ok for 1-2 days, then a run of clicks every few minutes. Swapping cables around seems to have no effect. I have a RMA in to the dealer but if any one has any ideas ?

[One and a half]

I have recently purchased a MC-3+USB - when using as reclocker spdif in/out with identical high-quality 75 ohmn BNC cables (Naim DC1) am experiencing intermittent clicks and pops, only when playing audio. Can be ok for 1-2 days, then a run of clicks every few minutes. Swapping cables around seems to have no effect. I have a RMA in to the dealer but if any one has any ideas ?

 

That's usually the delivery of USB to the MC-3+USB falling short. On many audio players, adjust the buffer to maximum, check it, and wind back the buffer until the clicks start again. Increase the buffer value by one notch and it's all good. S/PDIF is really hard to make click, so assume the clicks start from the USB.

 

I see you are using S/PDIF input, where is it coming from?

[julian.david]

Thanks! The schooling is much appreciated.

 

 

My pleasure. I'm here to help!

Julian

[Alvantri]

S/PDIF input is from a Naim NDX streamer, and not getting any clicks with computer USB input. It may be an incompatibility with the NDX so I will try another spdif source if I can borrow one. Thanks.

[One and a half]

S/PDIF input is from a Naim NDX streamer, and not getting any clicks with computer USB input. It may be an incompatibility with the NDX so I will try another spdif source if I can borrow one. Thanks.

 

The Naim NDX spec doesn't say which standard the 75 Ohm BNC output conforms to. Just a few more numbers would suffice....that's slack.

 

It may be that the signal is clipping or too high for the coax input on the MC-3+USB. In this case, use a certified 75 Ohm BNC/BNC cable and use the AES3id input instead. Has a higher input level tolerance.

 

More mystery in that the NDX can accept multiple sampling rates to play, but what sampling rate is on the digital output?

[MrUnderhill]

S/PDIF input is from a Naim NDX streamer, and not getting any clicks with computer USB input. It may be an incompatibility with the NDX so I will try another spdif source if I can borrow one. Thanks.

Hi Alvantri,

 

Have you tried posting on the Naim forum? There is a Mutec thread.

 

I just went and checked Andrew Everard's site, as he was one of the first to highlight the Mutec. Unfortunately he uses it between a MacMini and the nDAC.

 

M

[alexyuman]

Hello, anyone trying to add the Mutec i-clock to mutec mc3+ and then use any 10m clock to the i-clock?

[limniscate]

Anyone using foobar with the microrendu, Mutec, and Schiit Yggdrassil? Do you output to the microrendu from foobar?