Time lord. Longer swaps short, slaving the Singxer clock to iFi's had my vote. This effect wasn't specific to or more audible with certain musical elements than others. This was a more wholesale gestalt changer. The affected quality or feel was inherent stillness. To some it'll be pure floobie dust so utterly imaginary hence purple prose. To others with a sensitivity to it, it'll be apparent as greater calm. It's not so much heard in anything in particular than it is felt as that which sits behind the constant motion of sounds. It's not the oft-invoked blackness which attempts to describe an absence of noise.
It's more like a very early morning's calm before day-time stirrings intrude. The first bird chirp and then the next float tangibly across a pervasive stillness. It lingers on from a dark night that's just about to break into morning's busy-ness. If the primary USB bridge effect already described was a good cut with a sharp dirk to draw blood, this secondary exploit as clock distributor wasn't even a mosquito bite. When that swells, it's obvious even to onlookers. To stick to today's subtext, this clock-slaving effect was the pixie dust. It registered as a hidden presence not specific thing one points at like, "did you hear that? No? Then rewind to 2'13" and pay attention to what happens around the cymbal trills." Not. Again, this wasn't heard as much as it was felt or intuited. Deep subjectivity.
The difference in clock distribution's direction was that iFi as time lord sounded strangely fuller. I don't understand why. Since I heard it and had to pick a direction, I made the SU-2 slave with its 5th switch set 'on' for external clock. I had one more item on my desktop's to-do list. iFi's Mercuy3.0 cable terminates in that format's bigger B plug. That doesn't fit into the SU-2's port. Given how audibly that cable had trounced the Vermöuth before the Singxer arrived, I was keen on using it again. I just needed an iFi iPurifier 3 to turn a USB 2 B socket into a USB 3 equivalent. So I bought one from Audiophonics. That finally earns me full membership in the USB Tweaker's Club. Midlife crisis? At least I didn't buy a Corvette. Before you claim that Ethernet is where it's at, its users deal with multiple series-connected 'audiophile' switches, outboard linear power supplies for those plus an external master clock then special cables and inline Ethernet filters. Just because USB is on the descendant doesn't mean its RJ45 replacement renders tweak needs obsolete. To my eye those in fact look rather more involved. For now I'll happily keep my well-worn seat on the aging universal serial bus.
Today's quick report was about whether to bridge or not. Having crossed it, time to exit. For me the Singxer SU-2 didn't just act like a passive power bar, i.e. turned one outlet into many so my PC's USB into coax, BNC, AES/EBU and I²S over HDMI. It acted like an active power conditioner. That multiples outlets and improves the signal. In the digital signal realm, the SU-2 seemed to lower noise and jitter then remove fine time smear. It possibly even lightened the DAC's work load. Engineers tell us how that too improves performance. Truth told, I'm far less concerned about any 'how/why'. I'm all about whether it's beyond split hairs so solidly worthwhile. On my current desktop, the addition of the bridge as extra isolator between PC and DAC was readily audible and purely beneficial. Rather more subtle was slaving it to the DAC's clock but even that tracked if just on a soft feeling level. Would the SU-6 have done even more? That was rhetorical. I'm not even curious. Satisfaction self authenticates. It needs no other assurances.
Fairies are real; and a lot bigger than I thought. Josemi Carmona has the battle axe to prove it!
