Others with more experience than me have already weighed in, but I will throw in my two cents. My first listen to dCS equipment was early this year, when I decided to audition it for my speaker system, a process I detailed elsewhere. My conclusion was that, as good as Bartok is, it is made audibly better with Rossini Clock, close to but not quite the same as a Rossini DAC. And that Rossini DAC is also made audibly better by the addition of the Clock. For me, it wasn’t anything like the laundry list of audiophile sound improvements that people use to describe equipment. It was a much more organic, “lifelike-ness,” a sense of realism that was made more tangible and apparent with each improvement. Only your ears and wallet can decide if the investment is worth it. And, of course, if headphone listening is a critical role for your Bartok, and you don’t want to swap it for a DAC and separate headphone amp, then the Clock makes a lot of sense. [Good power is very important, and while cables make a difference, I would invest in the best quality components/power first.]
Many thanks. Very helpful thoughts, much appreciated.
Greg,
Thanks for your input. Very sensible and with which I agree totally.
Nothing can replace a live demo at the dealer of the Bartok, with and without the Rossini clock.
Cheers!
Do you have any idea of using Puccini clock together with Bartok? Is it better than using Bartok alone? Thanks
I would expect an improvement, based on 2 sources. There was an article In Audio Beat when the Vivaldi came out, that there was an improvement just adding the Puccini clock to the Vivaldi DAC. Also there was a technical explanation by the dCS team on this forum on why a master clock with its own powered circuit can be an improvement.
The downside with previous generation is that lack of Auto clocking, which means having to select the frequency based on the music source.
Using a Puccini clock with a Bartok is not really a practical proposition IMO.
The second generation of dCS equipment , which includes the Puccini and Paganini, used only a single clock in/out connection for both frequency bases ( 44.1 and 48). The current ( third) generation (which includes Bartok) requires two distinct inputs /outputs , one for each group. The Puccini does not have this output facility and therefore cannot be successfully used with the Bartok unless you are prepared to manually change the clock groups every time that the base frequency of the file changes. Nowadays with streaming sources such as Qobuz where file resolution can change from album to album that seems to me to be too demanding for a relaxed listening session. Of course if you only ever listen to 16/44.1…
The cheapest dCS clock that matches the Bartok’s requirements is the Rossini, but then the viability of the combination becomes questionable due to the cost involved compared to buying a Rossini DAC ( sans clock).
I concur with what Pete said with regards to trying to use a Puccini or Paganini clock with the Bartok. Having only one wordclock frequency at a time does not fully fulfil the functionality which the Rossini clock, with 2 concurrent wordclock frequecies, can provide.
But in actual use on a Bartok, having only one wordclock frequency available is not as inconvenient as it may seem. I have been experimenting with my Bartok, by adding a 44.1kHz wordclock input. The Bartok can be set to this as Wordclock 1. If a track requiring a 48kHz signal is played on the Bartok, the Bartok will automatically default to it own internal clock. Then when the next track requiring 44.1kHz comes on, the Bartok will automatically select Wordclock 1 external signal again. So it just means if fed with only 1 wordclock signal, only that external signal will be utilized. No need to reset or change settings on the Bartok as other files are played.
How was the sound with an external clock? I’m awaiting an in-home demo but interested in your perceptions. Thanks.
You will hear an improvement. However,as I have mentioned elsewhere, the improvement that an external clock brings to any DAC is IMO related more to the music than the sound. So do expect better musical flow, more emotional involvement, perhaps even new musical insights. But if you only listen by ticking off features from the audiophile lexicon e.g. better bass, treble, detail, soundstage etc. you may wonder what the fuss is about.
I had a brief audition at the dealer of the Bartok on its own, and then with the Rossini clock. The difference was easily perceptible. To me, the image became more focused, I could pinpoint the location of voices, and could perceive the location of instruments easier. Once the clock was removed from the Bartok, the soundstage seemed to flatten and became less detailed.
Separately, I have been testing adding an alternate external 44.1kHz wordclock signal to the Bartok (not from a dCS Master clock) to see if an even greater improvement in the sound than with the Rossini clock is possible. Still work in progress as it appears the magnitude of any improvement in the sound quality of the Bartok with external clock is dependent on the quality of the external reference clock (I used Cybershaft masterclock).
The reason I am testing this is through my curiosity after reading from another hi-end audio forum that many Vivaldi stack users are finding that adding a very high quality external 10Mhz reference clock to the Vivaldi Clock (which allows for this input) resulted in a significant perceived improvement in sound quality.
Hi @kentyeh, I’d be very interested in hearing any more details you have on your experiments with third party clocks slaved to Cybershaft. I’ve been considering trying the same thing but have found very little information online on whether it’s an option worth pursuing.
Would you mind sharing what clocks you tried between the Cybershaft and the Bartok?
Jeff, I am only just starting on this path of testing non-dCS clocks for the Bartok. So far, I have tried with what equipment I had on hand, a Mutec MC-3+ USB as master clock tied to a Cybershaft OP12 10Mhz Reference clock. The Mutec wordclock was set to 44.1kHz and connected to the Bartok wordclock input 1.
With this setup, there was an apparent improvement in image focus with the Bartok, maybe a 5-10% improvement. I am thinking that if I used a better (lower phase noise) reference clock, such as the OP17 or higher, perhaps the improvement to the Bartok would be significantly better. Unfortunately I am not able to lay my hands on these better units for further testing at the moment.
I must admit I am totally new to this whole topic of clocking etc. so I am only basing on my own logic and from what I have read in the past 3 days on various audio forums. Perhaps others with more experience can help shed more light on this. My ultimate aim is to figure out whether I would do better sound-wise just to get the Rossini Clock for my Bartok, or to rig up my own dual wordclock master clock.
Yes I have heard the 40,000 gbp Abendtrot 10mHz clock with Vivaldi. Yes, there was a perceived improvement but significant for 40 big ones? One thing we know about this hobby is that marginal differences are touted as jaw drooping, wow moments 
In this case I would place the level of improvement akin to replacing a good interconnect with one slightly better. Well it’s a gain. But would I think of buying a cable costing £40,000 if it offered a similar level of improvement?
Thanks for putting this into a real-life perspective!! 
It’s an interesting question. For the price of a Vivaldi clock one could get a Cybershaft OP21A and two quality word clocks to feed their system. The dCS clocks have some advanced features like dither and the temperature calibration, but the Cybershaft certainly has the advantage in phase noise and accuracy. Hard to say which setup would have the advantage!
This is great! I have a Bartok with HP and love it, I’m so tempted to get the clock just to satisfy my Jones for new gear and better the experience. I’m sure it’s super cool. But I don’t want to fall into trading it towards a new Rossini, which is doubtless the temptation.
Jeff, I think what the Vivaldi stack folks were doing was to feed a Cybershaft OP21 or similar reference 10Mhz clock signal to the Vivaldi clock. They reported significant improvement with that setup. They did not try to replace the Vivaldi clock.
Meanwhile, I was curious if for the Bartok, it would be possible to use two quality word clocks and a Cybershaft 10Mhz reference clock instead of the Rossini clock, and which setup would give better results.
Turns out the Cybershaft OP17 (the OP21 would be too expensive) is out of stock so I did not have a chance to go that route. I have now just added a Rossini clock to my Bartok and burning in. Initial impressions has been promising!
Hi kentyeh, congratulations on the new clock!
I’ve read some of those forum postings where they talk about using different 10MHz reference clocks with the Vivaldi clock. Since I don’t yet have a Vivaldi clock the idea of focussing more funds on the 10MHz reference than the word clock is an interesting one.
I decided to take the other approach and just put an order in for an OP20A and a Japanese word clock that Hasegawa-san recommended has having excellent properties. It will still take some time for them to arrive, but I’ll report back on the results.
A Vivaldi clock may well still be in my future, but until then this setup should provide my Vivaldi with a technically excellent clock signal. Will it sound as good as a Vivaldi clock? Hard to say!
Jeff, I am a bit confused here. If you do not have a Vivaldi ( or other dCS clock) how can you use a 10mHz clock? You cannot use 10mHz directly into a DAC. The DAC requires 44.1 or 48 KHz input. A 10MHz clock does not replace the dCS wordclock. It is a reference source for it.
Perhaps I have misunderstood you?
Hi Jeff, yes, in your case, your plan makes total sense and you have very limited downside financially since the OP20A will definitely be useful even if you add a Vivaldi clock in the future. You can just get one of the word clocks for now for testing purposes since only one frequency is needed at a time.
My wild guess is that this setup may be as good or better than the Vivaldi clock, but the best would be the Vivaldi clock with the OP20A as reference clock.
Look forward to learning about your findings.