Let’s make it simple – totaldac’s new live clocking option offers a subtle but significant improvement.
I feel like I know the sound of TotalDACs, having lived with 5 different models for about 10 years in total – d1-dual, d1-six, d1-seven, d1-tube DAC/Streamer (review) and the d1-unity (review) that I currently own. I tested my first TotalDAC, the d1-dual DAC, as an editor of AudioStream in September 2013. I mention these facts because when it comes to experience, there is nothing better than experience.
This is how the new “toatldac Live Clocking Option” is described on the Totaldac website:
Live clocking is an option for the current Totaldac DACs, reclockers and streamers that improves jitter suppression and makes the sound even more lively and real.
It optimizes the clock and digital signal distribution to make the timing of each audio sample more precise. This is a crucial point in digital audio.
Above all, the highs become purer and you get the feeling that singers and instruments have more body and are getting closer to an unamplified concert.
This option is recommended for all streamers, reclockers and DACs in your system. Each upgraded box will increase the sound realism by a step.
For further clarification, this is an internal change being implemented by totaldac at its headquarters near Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France.
Describing subtle differences can be difficult. Difficult because one tries to exaggerate the changes as a side effect of the detailed explanation. So I will be especially careful here when describing the subtle but noticeable changes that totaldac’s live clocking option brings to the listener.
First, my methodology: I had both d1-unitys powered up and ready, so the A/B process took less than a minute. I spent the better part of several days listening to the new d1-unity with the Live Clocking option before really getting into the A/B testing, and ended the short testing period by listening to the new d1-unity with the Live Clocking option.
The system used for this comparison included the reviewed Vinnie Rossi Brama integrated amplifier (more info) powering the reviewed Qln Reference 9s (more info), with the barn-based Grimm MU1 (review) powering both TotalDACs using a length of AudioQuest Diamond AES cable, while a pair of AQ Thunderbird interconnect cables carried the analog output from the TotalDACs to the Brama (full system and barn details). A damn good sounding system.
For the intensive A/B testing, I relied on a set of “test tracks,” music that I love no matter how often I listen to it, and that also includes sounds that help me focus on a DAC’s performance. These tracks included:
“I’m still here” by Alice by Tom Waits
“A Dove” from The weeping light by ANOHNI and the Johnsons
“Party” by party by Aldous Harding
“God Creator of All Things” by Romeria by The Dowland Project
“Ring My Bell” by Clean slate by Einstürzende Neubauten
“Warm Canto” from The search by Mal Waldron
“Mixteca Song” by Paris, Texas (Original Film Soundtrack) by Ry Cooder with Harry Dean Stanton
“Three Latin Prayers for Solo Voice” from Scelsi: Natura renovatur by Frances-Marie Uitti (violoncello), Munich Chamber Orchestra, Christoph Poppen
“Spit” out Corpus I by Show Me The Body featuring Princess Nokia
Listening to these tracks on both DACs, I learned a lot about the live clocking option in the totaldac d1-unity, especially how it made the music sound more natural, albeit subtly. What on earth more natural mean? (You may be wondering). More natural means that music sounds more like the things that make it sound in real life. And by subtle, I mean more than a Skosh, but less than a Totaldac, which is different from the other on a pure Sound of sounds basis, as opposed to how music moves us when we simply listen to it.
This distinction between sounds and music and between comparing and listening is, in my opinion, very important when it comes to evaluating differences, especially subtle differences on a Sound of sounds Basis. After all, sounds are one thing, music is another, and when we do A/B comparisons, especially quick A/B comparisons, our focus shifts from the music to the sounds. A state I avoid like the plague whenever possible.
I’ll delve into one track to explain. On “I’m Still Here,” there are a few other instruments – violin, cello, and clarinet – that join Waits on piano and gravel (vocals), but in a very subtle way. So subtle that I’ve heard some DACs decide that Dawn Harms’ violin isn’t really worth reproducing, or in some cases turn that violin into an annoying, subtle buzzing insect. With the d1-unity, Harms’ violin is clearly a violin behind Waits, in the distance (left). With the d1-unity equipped with the Live Clocking option, the physical distance between Waits and Harms was more evident, while the voices of Waits, piano and violin sounded clearer, making the violin more recognizable as the voice of a longed-for past relationship and reinforcing the meaning of the lyrics, which are some of the saddest I know because they speak of an inevitability if we are not careful…
You haven’t looked at me like that in years
You dreamed me and left me here
How long have I dreamed
What did you want me for?You haven’t looked at me like that in years
Your watch has stopped and the pond is clear
Someone turns the light back on
I will love you until all time is overYou didn’t look at me
In this way in years
But I’m still here.
Colin Stetson on clarinet and Matt Brubeck on cello resonate towards the end, giving the closing lines a kind of swell (of emotion). When playback gets out of the way, and this is perhaps the real value of the live clocking option, as it allows the d1 unit to dissolve more fully into the sounds of the music, we can better experience what the music is saying. Here, even subtle differences in sound can bring with it a stronger emotional connection, and I don’t know about you, but quantifying a stronger emotional connection seems to me a pointless endeavor to anyone but the listener, whereas a difference in the sound of a note can be represented by pretty much anything – a number, a percentage, a star, a graph, a shrug.
I admit that I only stayed in “serious A/B” mode for a few tracks, as the differences between d1-unity and the d1-unity with Live Clocking Option remained more or less clear and consistent regardless of the music being played. And I say more or less because with some tracks, these differences were more noticeable, namely a clearer, more natural sound, sometimes more and sometimes less so. Acoustic instruments and human voices, for example, emphasized the Live Clocking Option’s improvements more than bass-heavy electronic dub.
Once I got out of A/B mode, I was happy and more satisfied to just sit back and let the music flow. Every Totaldac I’ve tested and owned is a master of that trick so difficult for digital devices, at least in my experience, where we get the best (tone, texture) and eat it too (resolution). In this context, the Live Clocking option offers more distinct flavors.
totaldac’s live clocking option brought me closer to the artists, in closer contact with the things responsible for the music I love, by offering me clearer and more accurate playback in Barn, which in turn meant an easier and deeper connection to that music. And an easier and deeper connection to the music is a difference I call a clear improvement, worth the price of admission. I’m convinced.
The cost of the Live Clocking option for existing TotalDAC DACs, reclockers and streamers, which requires a return to TotalDAC, is 800 Euro incl. VAT in Europe, 730 Euro excl. VAT outside Europe, or approximately 800 USD (+ shipping).
About the company: totaldac
