Shootout: Black Lion Audio Micro Clock Mk3

Shootout: Black Lion Audio Micro Clock mk3 word clock

What difference does a word clock make? Read on to find out. For this shootout, we recorded acoustic guitar with the Black Lion Audio Micro Clock Mk3 vs. no word clock, and piano/vocal comparing the BLA Micro Clock Mk3 with its predecessor, the BLA Micro Clock Mk2.

What Does a Word Clock Do, Anyway?

Digital recording depends on the ability to slice up time accurately and consistently. When analog signals are converted to digital data, the analog signals are sampled several thousand times per second. For example, if you’re recording at a sample rate of 48 kHz, that means you’re dividing each second into 48,000 tiny slices. And if any of the “slices” are slightly off, you get jitter — timing irregularities — which can result in less natural-sounding audio.

An external word clock serves to synchronize the digital audio gear in your studio, and send an accurate, consistent clock signal to your system. If your digital audio interface or digital mixer has a Word Clock input, then it can be re-clocked using an external word clock.

Recording Acoustic Guitar:
BLA Micro Clock Mk3 vs. No External Word Clock

For our first test, we used a setup that might be found in a low-to-mid-priced home studio: we miked up a Fender Sonoran SCE acoustic guitar with two inexpensive condenser microphones from Shure’s PG Alta series: the Shure PGA27 large-diaphragm condenser on the body of the guitar, and the Shure PGA181 condenser on the 12th fret.

Shure PGA27 and PGA181 on acoustic guitar

zZounds Operations Manager Jay busted out his strumming skills for this shootout.

The mics ran into two preamp channels on our RME Fireface 800 FireWire interface, feeding Pro Tools on my old FireWire-equipped MacBook Pro at 48 kHz/24-bit resolution.

To mix these tracks, we panned the PGA27 hard left and panned the PGA181 hard right, and used an IK Multimedia T-RackS limiter plug-in to add a bit of compression.

RME Fireface 800 audio interface and Black Lion Audio Micro Clock Mk3 word clock
The first take was recorded using the RME with no external clock:

The second take was recorded while we re-clocked the RME to the Black Lion Audio Micro Clock mkIII:

Our verdict: The take recorded with the Black Lion Micro Clock Mk3 sounded more three-dimensional, clearer, and less muddy than the take recorded with no external word clock.

Recording Joshua Staar on Piano/Vocal:
BLA Micro Clock Mk3 vs. BLA Micro Clock Mk2

Singer-songwriter Joshua Staar

Singer-songwriter Joshua Staar

For our next test, we visited a professional recording studio, Solid Sound Recording in Hoffman Estates, IL, to record piano and vocal with singer-songwriter Joshua Staar, who also engineered the session. We recorded an excerpt from Josh’s song “Never Too Late.”

The vocal mic was a Wunder CM7 — a very faithful recreation of a Neumann U47 — and the piano mics were a pair of AKG C 414 B ULS. Josh used an API 512 preamp for each microphone. The API preamp fed a Universal Audio Apollo 16 audio interface, feeding Pro Tools at 48 kHz/24-bit.

The first recording uses the BLA Micro Clock Mk2:

This second recording uses the BLA Micro Clock Mk3:

The verdict: “I actually think the MK2 has a sweet sound,” says Joshua, “but the MK3 has a wider sound.”

The difference between the MK2 and MK3 is, of course, less dramatic than the difference going from NO external word clock to the MK3. However, we think the MK3 sounds more “produced,” and we definitely hear a wider stereo image with the MK3.

Download the shootout files

Download each shootout file by clicking the download arrow on a track on our Soundcloud playlists.

Acoustic guitar shootout on Soundcloud

Piano/vocal shootout on Soundcloud

What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

Maya
9 years ago 13 Comments Features

As Content Manager, Maya writes about gear for zZounds -- especially recording and live sound gear. She started plunking on a piano in 1992, and began audio engineering work in 2000. Over the years, she's fronted bands, trained commercial voiceover actors, assisted on hundreds of recording sessions, and once co-wrote an alt-rock musical. Currently, Maya's music gig is singing lullabies to her two young children.

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Comments: 13
  1. Ears4Analog
    9 years ago

    I am using a demo of the MK III for 30 days from Vintage King. If I like it I will keep it, if I dont hear a 1000 difference its going back. Ill do my own test and then grab a transient off the street and offer him dinner to tell me if he hears a difference. Thats a real a/b test.

    A/B testing should only be done in a true listening environment. I listen to music more in my car and in my studio than any other place. It really cracks me up when I read that people a/b through equipment they normally would not be listen music with. If you can only hear a difference through expensive converters then its not worth purchasing. Maybe engineers need to learn better EQ techniques. If you cant hear a difference on a iPhone, Android, Tablet or Car … it doesn’t matter how great it sounds in your studio because people wont be listening to it in your studio.

    I can’t wait to get this so I can hear it for myself. I hope its not all fluff and hype.

    ReplyCancel
  2. Maya
    9 years ago

    Hey, critical listeners!
    Want to hear some more scientific tests of the Black Lion Micro Clock mk3 vs. other word clocks?

    Dale @ Bernie Becker Mastering has posted two tests. ONE of the two tests is a placebo — all four files in it are identical. The other test is a blind test of 4 different word clocks, including the BLA Micro Clock mk3.

    You can download the files at the links below, listen in your DAW, and vote. Let’s find out if word clocks really make a difference.

    Test A:
    https://www.gearslutz.com/board/gear-shoot-outs-sound-file-comparisons-audio-tests/1033159-antelope-10m-bla-micro-clock-mk3-blind-test-analog-d-d-loop-test.html

    Test B:
    https://www.gearslutz.com/board/gear-shoot-outs-sound-file-comparisons-audio-tests/1033160-antelope-10m-bla-micro-clock-mk3-blind-test-analog-d-d-loop-test-b.html

    ReplyCancel
  3. Jacob
    9 years ago

    This is a fantastic article. I really appreciated hearing both clocks. Joshua Staar’s performance and demo of the two helped me with my decision. === both mk2 and mk3. Lol. Thanks maya!

    ReplyCancel
  4. marc rubin
    9 years ago

    I am listening through an orion to spdif out to a benchmark dac to HD650 headphones. I am using the stock oven clock in the orion. That’s my signal chain:results
    I can hear better definition for sure with the your clock. I also did a low pass filter and level balance to keep my self from being affected by the slight boost on the clock demo. I was looking for definition in the bass end rather than the highs as it is pretty easy to be fooled.
    Bass is certainly tighter. I say the clock makes a pretty suble difference side by side. In a mix not sure I could have told the difference. Either file is pretty nice without the other.
    Soundstage was opened a bit with the clock.
    Wanted to state also I went clock nutz when I got he orion with the rubidium clock 10mhz input. That isn’t the whole story. Plain jane rubidium clock is actual worse tha nthe oven controlled clock because….long term stability makes no difference. Its the phase differences between 0.1Hz and 10Hz that make the difference in jitter which is what we are after. I have also found some jitter can sound good if the jitter if tuned for what you want. I think the orion clock sounds good because of this. It certainly does not measure as wonderful on a scope. I can’t however afford the M10 to try it. Between a focusrite 18i20 and the orion32 well yea I hear that difference. Just saying a clock wont cure your world. Buy better convertors first then when ou have all the parts in place play away if you have the bucks.
    Final word. You have a nice clock. Good going.

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  5. Nick
    9 years ago

    These are two separate takes, and looking at the files in my DAW, the micro clock file was a larger wav in most spots than the non micro clock. That is going to account for way more difference in sound than the clock. The signal should have been split. This test is pretty useless.

    ReplyCancel
  6. guy rheaume
    9 years ago

    hello…do you offer a trade in…….I have a mk 2…..for a mk3….GUY

    ReplyCancel
  7. Bill
    9 years ago

    Great shootout. If this test was at 96k, my bet is that the differences wouldn’t be quite as dramatic but still enough for most home studio owners to seriously consider purchasing the MKIII as an early upgrade to their sound. BLA rocks. Those guys even make Apogees sound better.

    ReplyCancel
  8. Matt
    9 years ago

    Hey, it’s almost May… maybe there’ll be another month :-). Others may of course chime in. My input is based on both technical measurements, theory, and listening. First of all, your statement above was a bit confusing. When you said “one should clock externally only when recording through external converters”, it gets confusing. Let’s rephrase that to, “an A/D converter PROBABLY will perform best when running on internal (crystal) clock” as opposed to being clocked externally.” So, yes, PROBABLY, your A/D should be the master clock and your DAW should be clocked to the A/D. Notice how I avoided the term “externally” in that last sentence to avoid the confusion that you may have caused by referring to your DAW as “externally clocked” when I’m talking about the A/D as being internally clocked—which mean the same thing, of course.

    OK, only measurements and very careful listening tests will confirm if your A/D performs better on internal or external sync. But I can say “PROBABLY” AND highly likely it will be better clocked interally. Apogee makes opposite claims about the Big Ben, and I have not seen a shred of objective measurement or evidence that would show it to be so. This is not voodoo, by the way, it is science. The ONLY WAY that an external clock can outperform an internal clock is:

    —if the internal clock is inferior and poorly designed (which means the converter designer did a bad job). Because the clock signal goes through far more potentially degrading circuitry when it is generated external to the converter

    Another good question is when you MUST clock externally, if an external clock can ever IMPROVE performance instead of degrading it. In my book I claimed that an external clock would always degrade performance compared to the intrinsic jitter of the PLL, and that is the common wisdom. However, another authority (in my mind), Eelco Grimm, recently pointed out to me that an external low-jitter clock with a very low jitter BELOW the corner frequency of the PLL can improve the low frequency jitter. BELOW the corner frequency, the external jitter dominates, above the corner frequency, the PLL’s jitter dominates.

    So, with an EXTREMELY low jitter external clock, and if the converter’s PLL has a relatively high corner frequency, the low frequency jitter of the converter can be improved compared to other external clocks. A good converter, therefore, should have a PLL with a very low corner frequency. And the lower the corner frequency, the less likely that an external clock will improve and the more likely it will degrade the converter’s performance. For example, Prism converter’s have a corner frequency below 200 Hz while typical converters’ PLLs are above 2 kHz! So it is highly likely that a very good converter like a Prism will not be affected at all, or possibly degrade no matter what external clock you feed it.

    I’ll be sure to include this addendum in my second edition.

    —–

    Now, what can you do if you do NOT have measurement equipment? This whole jitter thing is so subjective, isn’t it? Well, you can be as objective as possible. Take a high quality source of stereo music (such as a 30 IPS analog tape, or an SACD). Feed it into your A/D and record that into your DAW. Transfer it twice, once on internal, once on external clock, and if you have several models of external clock, transfer it several times.

    Now, line up all of the transfers on different tracks in your DAW, as closely as possible.

    Then, with your DAW’s DACs set to internal clock (which is likely to be most stable, and at least it will be consistent), solo back and forth between any pair of tracks. The track which has the widest image, most stable, with the most solid bass, purest, and warmest, is the one which represents the transfer with the least jitter. Make the comparisons blind if you can.

    That’s the best test you can do minus using measurement equipment, and if you perform that test with your DAW that carefully, and tell us about the results, then I’ll believe you! And if you cite this testing method, then we will all benefit from some carefully-performed tests instead of the usual half-baked claims.

    An excerpt from From Mr. Katz….

    People want you to buy their stuff, no matter what, they will convince you to buy their gear…. I am a fan of BLA, but I cannot fully trust this test and therefore must go with my gut…. I had a unit modded (for several hundred dollars) and after a double blind test, I could not discerne the old unit form the new modded unit. There’s a lot of marketing hype out there, don’t buy it all, because you buying this stuff keeps them selling.

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  9. jim
    9 years ago

    haven’t heard the tracks yet, looking forward to it… but these are (2) separate takes? wouldn’t it make more sense to split the mic lines to separate recording setups for a more objective test? (same take, same dynamics, same orientation)

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    • Maya
      9 years ago

      Hi, Jim — they are indeed two separate takes. I absolutely would have recorded one take and split the mic signals, IF I had two of the same recording setups to capture it that way. I’m afraid my setup here is pretty bare-bones: I’ve just got one reclockable audio interface and my laptop running Pro Tools. So the guitarist and I did what we could with the setup we had available.

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    • Maya
      9 years ago

      And, by the way — hello from your fellow Sound Advice alum. 🙂 Good to hear from you!

      ReplyCancel
  10. Jesse
    9 years ago

    Thanks, very striking difference on the acoustic guitar (Mk III was much more detailed and wider.) Would love to hear a similar comparison (internal clock, Mk II, Mk III) on a few full mixes.

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    • Robert Snyder
      9 years ago

      I have the Mk-2 stand alone and the white face Sparrow. The improvement in sound from various gear’s internal clocks can be startling. Very interested in hearing what the Mk-3 will do.

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