Esoteric G-ORb Master Clocks in general

The Antelope "Isochrone 10M" Rb clock outputs at 10MHz and is NOT a standalone external clock. One must synchronize/slave an external clock to it. The dCS Scarlatti and Antelope temperature controlled crystal oscillator external clocks can accept "Isochrone 10M" input. Perhaps the dCS Verona and the Esoteric "crystal" (don't know the model #)clocks can, but I don't know for certain. Obviously, Esoteric's top end Rb oscillator clock need not apply...

The best way to synchronize clocks is with the outboard master clock. Every recording studio on earth has one and every CD or SACD is recorded with the master clock synchronizing A/D and D/A. The Esoteric G-0rb is superior to every other clock by definition. I have compared it to DCS VErona and it clearly outclasses it. Antelope also makes rubidium clock and it costs $6000, much more then their cheaper offering mentioned above.

It just seems that having the transport clock to the DAC would be the perfect thing since the idea of jitter is to have both units working together. But like everything else we must use our ears and let them decide.

dCS contends that their external clock is superior to slaving the transport to the DAC clock as master for lowering jitter.

While one would expect a company which has a $10k external clock to contend such, others have told me the improvement (with dCS gear at least) is quite audible.

Antelope Audio has a temperature controlled crystal oscillator external clock for about $1400 which is much cheaper than Esoteric's or dCS' offerings. I've not read of anyone using it outside of studios, though.

I've read that clock stability and jitter reduction "processing" are more important than clock accuracy. The Rb oscillators, at least by literature, are both very stable and accurate. The jitter reduction schemes seem to be proprietary DSP-based animals and surely impossible to directly compare as entities separate from the rest of the unit (oscillator, etc).

Seems, like many other things audio, you pays yer money and let your ears judge.

The P5/D5 combo does offer you the option of using the DAC's clock, but as Tboooe correctly pointed out, their master clocks have much lower jitter which according to one user, was clearly audible.

The external clocks offer much higher precision than the clock found in the DAC (at least for Estoeric units).