Only managed to install the clock for the transport. SPDIF reclock was not possible as the circuit that does the digital out conversion on my cd pro2 kit is somehow defective. I recalled that it does not work even prior to me doing the reclock as then, I tried to route the EBU signal from my transport to the pcb, but there is just no signal at the digital output.

So, only the transport is using the new 1PPM TCXO clock. Nick Tan helped me during the troubleshooting. Some tips to determine if the new clock works is when the TOC on the cd is read and playback is possible by the transport. This is exactly what I experienced, but the DAC does not seem to latch onto the digital signal. I had to tap the signal from the EBU right to the BNC connector for my DAC.

While I was searching the web for more articles on reclocking, it seems that the majority of the solutions out there reclock the DAC portion while totally ignoring the transport. There is also another school of thought that sticks with the DAC as non-oversampled and without reclocking. Well, this is audio. Lots of debate, sometimes heated, but still, the ear is the final arbitrator.

The comments I heard so far is that SPDIF reclocking sounds "hard and stiff". I'm not able to do an A/B for the 1PPM clock. There's just no easy way to do this. But I can be contented with the knowledge that even the best out there reclocks the transport. ;)

More pics here.

Edit: I suspect I know why the digital output section seems defective. It's a fundamental wiring error. Will confirm this tomorrow or so.

Further edit: My suspicions were confirmed. Last night, I looked at the circuit diagrams of the digital out section on the cd pro kit, trying to figure out where could have gone wrong. At the input connector, I noticed pin 1 is grounded, which corresponds to pin 1 of the EBU out on the cd pro transport. The only thing wrong was the wiring... I wired it with the connectors facing the same side up and pin to pin with a coaxial wire as in a mirror reflection. This resulted in pins being swapped. Signal from EBU would be effectively grounded upon input at the digital section on the pcb, thus resulting in no signal output. I overlooked this minor detail which proved to be the major screw up. I'm not listening to the cd pro2 clocked at the transport and also has the SPDIF reclocked. Can't really tell if it is better with or without the SPDIF reclock. My DAC should be slaved to the timing of the digital signal since it does not have an onboard crystal. That means it is using the new clock signals.

Even when audio reviewers A/B changes that are hair splitting, they would do extended listening before making a switch. That way, it may be easier to pick up slight changes. I'm not an audio critic, but would live with a reclocked SPDIF for now, before I do more comparisons... Or I can leave it as it is, and if I do have a DAC that has it's own master clock signal, it would still be compatible.

PS. It's difficult to A/B especially since I am using tubes. Need at least 30mins to warm up the gear. And my RCA 83 mercury rectifiers on my pre and power would need around 3 mins to be preheated.

A long overdued post. You might have already seen the pics at my picassa albums. This project actually started out in June/July 2004, and was my first attempt to build a tube based amplifier. On hind sight, it was a little ambitious to build a 300B mono block as a first tube project. Nonetheless, there are people who did it. Me, I only got it right on the second attempt. Inspired by Sakuma san and Josh Stippich, I wanted to make use of those nice mercury rectifiers in my circuit. The RCA83 was bought locally at a rather high price. Netting these tubes on ebay would cost a fraction of what I paid. I did lots of reading about tubes, and also got some online education of such stuff at DIY Audio. The Net is such a wonderful tool... I even attempted to create a DRD calculator in excel that helps calculate the resistor values and B+ required when certain inputs such as driver and power tube operating points are furnished. I was suggested to use the Siemens c3g as a driver for the 300B tube. Suffice to say this this first pass project did not pass with flying colours. With a pair of inefficient (87db/m?) Totem 1 bookshelves, hum was evident even at 1.5m away. I rebuilt this amplifier around Oct/Nov 2006. This was also partly due to reading the success of Luis Gascón with his DRD using d3A/300B on diyaudio.com. I built my version with d3A as the driver, but using LED biasing. Testing this on my Mitsubishi Diatone PM610MB speakers (around 93 to 94 db efficiency), hum was only evident when my ears are around a feet away from the driver. All heaters are using AC for this build. Needless to say, I am very happy with my DRD amplifiers. ;) More pics here.

and it's about time... since the holidays are well over and work has taken on the 4th gear. :P an idea for a preamp that started off as a transformer volume controller, to a dht preamp, and finally to a noval indirectly heated preamp with output transformer. and it turned out that i built the 5687 preamp with LED biasing and tamura A4714 output transformer. all these is with parts that are on hand... mostly... even the chassis is made from aluminium that are lying around for some forgotten project... just so happens that the width of the aluminum plates are 10mm longer than the width of the A4714, making it a suitable candidate for a tower chassis... and so it is. for an easy chassis build, i got 2 MDF to be the front and back of the preamp. the pesky thing about 3/4" thick MDF is that it is a hassle to make a hole for any connector thru it... the 5687 was wired as double sections to lower the plate impedance so that it will better leverage the 5k output transformer. heaters are in series, fed by 50000uF of elna capacitors and 2 paralleled LM317 set up for 830mA current regulation each. this gave around 11vdc. a little low as i used a common 1R5 coffin resistor for the LM317. maybe i should series a 1R and a R47 to achieve higher output current... but well... i have not known anyone who used tubes till they die of cathode poisoning... plus i used raytheon 5687wb and not the super expensive bendix 6900... so what the heck... rca plugs for the input selectors are actually stripped from my neutrik rca from the m10 project. the output plugs were from canera rcas. volume pot is a 100k blue alps. signal wires are silver upocc wires, copper hook up are upocc copper wires, umbilical are multistrand 14ga upocc copper. all wires from ahfartaudio. in fact, my drd used all upocc wires internally. silver was used for signal path. power supply portion was built on a hammond chassis meant for another forgotten project, using some handsome irons from nick chua. it is rectified by the rca 83 mercury vapor full wave rectifier, two 50H chokes and many 220uF philips capacitors. future mods would be to add the constant current source that i implemently wrongly... which led to a loud bang upon power up, with bits of the transistor flying out. hahaha... ;) here's a flickr set of the preamp.