Black Lion Audio Upgrades MicroClock To MK 2

Matt Newport, the evil genius behind Black Lion Audio has upgraded their excellent MicroClock (See our MicroClock Review —Ed.) to version 2.0.

The Micro Clock MK2 is a radical departure in design from its the first incarnation. It features ultra-low jitter third order crystal oscillators with a revolutionary, patent-pending high current parallel drive circuit designed to increase the amount of desirable harmonics within the clock’s spectral band.

In addition to this, Lion’s proprietary noise reduction circuitry claims to dramatically eliminate the unwanted switching harmonics normally found in digital signals. These are musically unrelated signals that create distortion and phase cancellation within the converted audio signal.

Black Lion asserts that the Micro Clock mk2 contains very little undesirable in-band or out of band content (below 10 picoseconds using a Delta Sigma average). There is, however, an abundance of desirable harmonically related in-band spectral content; more so than the average internal clock. No PLL filter is designed to remove these desirable harmonics; they’re busy trying to remove the unwanted stuff. Simply put, the Micro Clock MK2 will not only provide audible improvement to your conversion process, but it will do it as well as or better than any other external clock on the market today. Considering the players in the Clocking arena, this is quite a bold statement…

SPECIFICATIONS:
» Output: 3 galvanic-isolated BNC with fixed 75 ohm terminations @ 6 volts peak to peak
» Power: 9-12 volts DC
» Sampling rates: six selectable rates, 44.1 kHz-192 kHz
» Jitter: maximum 1 pico second of intrinsic jitter, less than 10 picoseconds of accumulated » jitter measured using a delta sigma averaging method.

The Micro Clock MK2 is simple and probably even boring looking by most standards, if fact there’s no indication that it’s even on! It’s housed in a basic 3 inch by 4 inch chassis that provides optimum RF shielding. It has no lights, no frequency display, and none of the usual visual candy that your friends might envy, but that’s because those items create unwanted noise that affect the signal.

The power supply is 12 volts DC using a wall wart that’s capable of accepting both 120 and 240 volts AC. It features six selectable output frequencies from 44.1 kHz on up to 192 kHz. Output level is approximately 4 volts peak to peak. Jitter at the crystal oscillator is approximately 1 picosecond RMS, and it’s just under 10 picoseconds RMS at the output. Both of these figures are obtained using a Delta Sigma averaging method. The Micro Clock mk2 is compatible with all modern digital devices that have 75 ohm BNC word clock input.

Black Lion Audio’s MicroClock MK2 costs $475 plus shipping. More information on the Black Lion Audio MK2.

Author: FutureMusic

Share This Post On