[Zeus the thunderer]

Does anyone have better understanding of this than me?I have a number of questions:

 1.Can it be used with this sound card
                 http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta1010LT.html
                This card has a word clock input.Does the card need any kind of adjusting, either by Empirical or Cullen circuits?Or is it just plug and play?

 2.Also, does Lynx AES 16sound card improve the sound in any way when used with Pace Car 2, compared to other cards?Or is it the same?

3. If i am correct, than this is Mode 1.Do the modes 2 or 3 yield any sonic benefits over Mode 1?Or it is all the same, identical result?


4. Cables - From sound card to Pace Car 2 runs a digital cable (with music data), a word sync cable runs from Pace Car 2 to the sound card (with word-clock info), and a decent digital cable runs from digital output of a Pace Car 2 to the DAC.So, DAC does not need a word-clock input?Or does it?

5.If one chooses an Ultraclock upgrade for 96kHz (and upsamples to 96 kHz in PC), is the same upgrade needed for 44.1 kHz? Or one is enough?

Thanks for all the answers.Altough i have checked Empirical website over and over again, i am still not clear about all that

[audioengr]

Does anyone have better understanding of this than me?I have a number of questions:

 1.Can it be used with this sound card
                 http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta1010LT.html
                This card has a word clock input.Does the card need any kind of adjusting, either by Empirical or Cullen circuits?Or is it just plug and play?

Plug and play.

 

2.Also, does Lynx AES 16sound card improve the sound in any way when used with Pace Car 2, compared to other cards?Or is it the same?

Same as Fireface400 or any other USB device with word-clock input.

3. If i am correct, than this is Mode 1.Do the modes 2 or 3 yield any sonic benefits over Mode 1?Or it is all the same, identical result?

Identical result.

4. Cables - From sound card to Pace Car 2 runs a digital cable (with music data), a word sync cable runs from Pace Car 2 to the sound card (with word-clock info), and a decent digital cable runs from digital output of a Pace Car 2 to the DAC.So, DAC does not need a word-clock input?Or does it?

No, the DAC does not need anything other than S/PDIF, AES or I2S interface.  I2S interface is a clocked interface.

5.If one chooses an Ultraclock upgrade for 96kHz (and upsamples to 96 kHz in PC), is the same upgrade needed for 44.1 kHz? Or one is enough?

The 44.1 and 96 clocks are not related in frequency, so it requires 2 clocks to cover both sample-rates.  Only one Ultraclock will physically fit inside the Pace-Car, or two Superclock4's. It is however possible to do a custom version with two chassis with Ultraclock in each that covers both 44.1 and 96.

[Zeus the thunderer]

Hi Steve, thanks for the answers
This has cleared up some things for me.

5.If one chooses an Ultraclock upgrade for 96kHz (and upsamples to 96 kHz in PC), is the same upgrade needed for 44.1 kHz? Or one is enough?

The 44.1 and 96 clocks are not related in frequency, so it requires 2 clocks to cover both sample-rates.  Only one Ultraclock will physically fit inside the Pace-Car, or two Superclock4's. It is however possible to do a custom version with two chassis with Ultraclock in each that covers both 44.1 and 96.

I use Foobar 0.8.3 with SRC upsampler set at 96 kHz (thanks for sending me these, both have improved the sound in my PC system quite a bit).
Output word length is set at 24 bit in Foobar.
Will Pace Car 2 with Ultraclock at 96 kHz accept this signal (24 bit/96 kHz) and reclock it (with Ultraclock)?
Does Pace Car 2 accept 24 bit input signal?

If I change the setting in Foobar output to 44.1 kHz, will the Pace Car 2 still reclock it (but not with Ultraclock improvement, if ultraclock is added only for 96 kHz)?Or it only passes through?

[audioengr]

Hi Steve, thanks for the answers
This has cleared up some things for me.

5.If one chooses an Ultraclock upgrade for 96kHz (and upsamples to 96 kHz in PC), is the same upgrade needed for 44.1 kHz? Or one is enough?

The 44.1 and 96 clocks are not related in frequency, so it requires 2 clocks to cover both sample-rates.  Only one Ultraclock will physically fit inside the Pace-Car, or two Superclock4's. It is however possible to do a custom version with two chassis with Ultraclock in each that covers both 44.1 and 96.

I use Foobar 0.8.3 with SRC upsampler set at 96 kHz (thanks for sending me these, both have improved the sound in my PC system quite a bit).
Output word length is set at 24 bit in Foobar.
Will Pace Car 2 with Ultraclock at 96 kHz accept this signal (24 bit/96 kHz) and reclock it (with Ultraclock)?
Does Pace Car 2 accept 24 bit input signal?

Yes.

If I change the setting in Foobar output to 44.1 kHz, will the Pace Car 2 still reclock it (but not with Ultraclock improvement, if ultraclock is added only for 96 kHz)?Or it only passes through?

It still reclocks it, but with the standard clock.  There is no "pass-through".

Steve N.

[path73]

Steve,

What would be the maximum length for the 2 jitter-irrelevant cables (SPDIF and clock) between Pace-Car 2 and a computer with the PCI-soundcard installed?
I have been looking at such a solution for a while now and I would really like to keep the distance between Pace-Car and DAC short (I2S cable), and push the PC away.
In my present Off-Ramp 2 setup, I am stuck with 5 meters USB cable length.

Thanks, /path

[audioengr]

Steve,

What would be the maximum length for the 2 jitter-irrelevant cables (SPDIF and clock) between Pace-Car 2 and a computer with the PCI-soundcard installed?

You dont want to go more than 3 feet for a Master Clock (11-24MHz).  For Word-Clock you can probably do 10 feet safely.
Steve N.

[Zeus the thunderer]

I think it is best to keep cables as short as possible...
In my current setup digital cable from my PCI soundcard S/P DIF out to my DAC is 10 meters (30 feet) long...Terrible.
This is dictated by my office space,i am thinking about moving the PC soon.But then i have to re-arrange furniture also.
At that point Pace Car 2 could be added, so i would have short wordclock and digital cable to PC...
But the system still sounds pretty good , way better than one would expect