Black Lion Audio Micro Clock MK2

BLACK LION AUDIO MICRO CLOCK MK2

Introducing the Micro Clock mk2, a completely revolutionary design in external clocking from Black Lion Audio. The Micro Clock mk2 is a radical departure in design from its predecessor. 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, our proprietary noise reduction circuitry dramatically eliminates 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. Because of these technological advances, the Micro Clock mk2 is one of the best performing external word clocks within the pro audio market today.

When we introduced the Micro Clock mk2 we didn't anticipate the amount of demand and controversy that managed to accompany it. External clocking is certainly a hot button issue. Some folks maintain that there's no basis for it; that it's a sort of modern "emperor's new clothes." The reasoning behind this is that the device being clocked externally will simply filter the incoming clock signal through its phase lock loop, thereby eliminating any sort of benefit associated with the superior clock. In addition, the simple act of accepting the incoming signal and creating a new signal that's in phase will add some jitter.

The biggest problem with this theory is that we know nothing about the PLL filter in question; it's completely hypothetical. Many PLL's in pro audio are designed to filter out unwanted signals that are outside of the desired bandwidth, although some are configured to filter out unwanted harmonics that lie within the signal's frequency band. It's incredibly rare to find one that does both at the same time. In the case of the Micro Clock mk2, there is 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.