Esoteric K-01XS and Mutec MC-3+ USB, did anyone try that ?

[wklie]

My experience with my setup , with MUtec MC-3+ USB is also not obvious. MC-3+ USB could not produce 10Mhz, despite it said on the manual it could

If I'm not mistaken, the MC-3+USB is not meant to generate (output) 10MHz on its own. It "locks to" 10MHz input only with an external 10MHz clock (e.g. in conjunction with Mutec REF10). Therefore in your setup you do not have 10MHz clock to feed the Esoteric.

If your objective is to provide a 10MHz clock for the Esoteric, you need the REF10 (or other clocks such as Esoteric or Cybershaft), not the MC-3+USB. This has actually been stated in post #2 already.

I believe post #18 is right in that you bought a wrong model of Mutec. If you still want to ask someone official to confirm this, you should be asking Mutec about 10MHz generation (not locking), not Esoteric.

 

[wklie]

I have an Esoteric N-01XD streaming DAC. It's the most recent model Esoteric DAC. I tried the Mutec Ref10 SE 120 with it, and even upgraded the clock cable to some very nice aftermarket clock cable. I tried it for about three weeks, everyday, many hours on weekends too. It did absolutely nothing to my music. OK... if I tried very hard, perhaps able to hear some very subtle differences, but I was not sure for good or worse. So I returned the Mutec. My experience with external clocking was not successful. YMMV

That's very interesting. This implies the internal clock N-01XD is good enough such that it is not necessarily bettered by an external clock or you are approaching diminishing returns.

I recall that in another forum someone found that the same clock made a greater difference to old DAC models than newer DAC models of the same brand, so I suppose your finding is in line with that.