I have a Vivaldi dac without whole stack, I use Aurender N30SA as a streamer, and Esoteric K-01xd as a CD transport (it also plays SACD). The reason I don’t have a Vivaldi stack is that I had other devices first and Vivaldi last, It’s hard to going back to have the stack. I think I can still have one more Vivaldi device in my system which is the clock. Now Aurender came out a new clock MC20 which not only have 4 OCXO output, but also has a Rubidium module which provides 10M reference signal, I can connect to Aurender streamer and Esoteric CD transport 10M input, on paper Aurender clock is more superior than Vivaldi clock, am I wrong?
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I would add the Vivaldi Upsampler, so you make the most of your Vivaldi Dac.
You rip all your SACD, you add a NAS somewhere in your house, and stream music both on services like Qobuz or Tidal and on your NAS.
You sell some gear, to fund your dCS Upsampler…And one day, may be, you add a dCS clock…but adding the Upsampler to your dCS dac shall improve greatly the sound of your stereo…much more than any clock…That is my personal view, you will see whether or not some other forum members share it or not ?
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Hi Chris, are you suggesting that adding Vivaldi Upsmapler to Vivaldi Dac will sound much better than Aurender streamer to Vivaldi Dac? I didn’t compare both Upsampler and Aurender, do you have any comparison? Thank you!
That is precisely what I suggest.
I did not compared the exact Aurender gear you mention, but older comparisons, when I was in the same situation as you are now, led me to choose the Upsampler…Initialy as I had a Network bridge I thought the Vivaldi clock was the way to go…But eventually, when I heard it, it was obvious that I had to change my strategy and go for the Upsampler.
With the upsampler connected, you always use the DAC at the very maximum of its performances, that won’t be the case with any other gear you connect to the Dac.
That being said, I am quiet sure that with the Aurender it is quite good, as it was with the Network bridge in my case…But the Upsampler it is something else.
It doesn’t cost so much trying it, unless you have to take a plane and cross an ocean to drop in the shop of your dCS dealer 
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Also very interested to hear if anyone has the new Aurender MC20 Master Clock ( https://www.aurenderamerica.com/products/mc20).
I have an Aurender N20 and Bartok DAC. Currently clocking the N20 with the Bartok’s word clock output.
Reading about the MC20, it would seem to be a great option to clock the N20 server and the Bartok. However, at $30k, it’s quite expensive…
Any thoughts on this?
Why not opt for the Rossini Clock instead and save $20K over the price of the MC20?
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+1, Rossini clock is great
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I spent a good 6 hours going back and forth between Vivaldi clock and MC 20 while auditioning speakers. No contest the MC 20 is better. The store owner who sells both bought the MC 20 the first day he heard it. The question is whether the money could be better spent elsewhere as clicks make relatively small differences. I bought the MC 20 but you would have to decide for yourself after listening
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just checked…Aurender has a smaller clock as well MC10 - does this work as well? Price roughly 17k…
ok, give myself an answer—found that on their web:
Elevate your digital audio experience to the pinnacle of performance by simultaneously connecting one of MC10’s outputs to a compatible DAC (Esoteric, CH Precision), or word clock (dCS Vivaldi) that accepts 10MHz master clock input.
IT all depends why you want a clock. MC20 has pairs of output s at 44.1 and 48kHz derived from its 10MHz source. So it can be used as a wordclock. MC10 has no wordclock outputs AFAIK from their web page. It appears to be a master clock with only 10MHz outputs ( 4 of them). Your profile says that you have Rossini which does not have a master clock input. It is therefore incompatible.You can see from the photos that the MC20 has frequency selection ( front panel) whereas the MC10 does not.
You may want to check this out but if you do want to look around the interweb be careful as I have found at least one dealer who seems to have copied and pasted the same description to both clocks on his website.
Pete I have a Rossini Apex + Rossini Masterclock- a happy dCS camper 
!
I was just thinking if a MC10 would do the Vivaldi duties as well (regarding the topic Aurender vs Vivaldi clock).
not exactly. You need to differentiate between a wordclock and a master clock. They are not the same things. So as master clocks you cannot compare Aurender MC10 and Vivaldi system clock as Vivaldi clock is not a master clock. MC20 can be used as a wordclock and a comparison is feasible.
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I hinted at this issue a few months ago and am glad that @newlove and others are engaging on it…
Namely, the fact that several on this forum, after having purchased the Vivaldi clock, go a step further and purchase a third-party 10MHz master clock in addition (frequently Rubidium based, and frequently the SRS Perf10)
Why not simply make the Vivaldi clock better, and avoid this additional, out-of-brand experience? More dollars for dCS, better SQ for users, lower box count, less cabling, etc.
It seems that Aurender is trying to fill this gap with the MC20, which it positions as “both a Master Clock and a Word Clock generator…” It has a Rubidium master clock module, inserted into the back:
I think we’ve been down this path many many many times 
In any case, in my personal view, a rock-solid dedicated 10M Reference Clock coupled with the Vivaldi Clock will handily beat a multi-purpose Clock like the M20 for two simple reason;
(1) a company like SRS who are exclusively focused on building Stratum 0/1 Clock systems run circles round audio companies like Aurender (who probably source components from folks like SRS).
And more importantly;
(2) the M20 doesn’t have the dithering capability that enables a Vivaldi Clock to be perfectly matched with dCS systems, it’s designed specifically to get the best out of dCS components. Not something that Aurender can do.
No doubt, some folks may subjectively prefer Aurender Clocks, but not because they objectively make dCS systems better.
I agree with most your post Anupc, but it still, IMHO, doesn’t answer this option:
Why not tweak the Vivaldi clock so it has its native dithering and jitter capabilities, And Also has a Rubidium master clock module, thereby obviating the need for an additional, separate, Master clock…
In other words, why not build a new and different clock?
I can’t see this occurring with a 13 year old product. That refers to the whole multi-box Vivaldi system. It will be replaced sooner or later. Moreover dCS have moved on with their thinking about clocks and timing distribution and have no doubt spent a considerable amount of money in developing a new way with the patented Tomix protocol. This is now just coming into production for Varese and will surely be a feature of other new products to come.Scroll through the link.
Hi RG,
Couple of quick comments having discussed this at some length with the team.
Our position is that there is no “need” for an external 10MHz reference, if there were we would have put one there. The 10MHz input is needed for calibration but not for normal use.
10MHz is not related to any audio frequency and has been established as a standard completely outside the audio field. As such 10MHz crystals are widely available, even quite cheap ones, and it is possible to make relatively cheap consumer products out of them. Our position is that it is neither necessary nor likely to improve the SQ in all but a very small minority of cases where the quality of the entire product genuinely exceeds that of the circuitry in the Vivaldi Master Clock which has been executed in the best way we could devise anno 2012 without any particular cost constraints. Forum members have reported finding such examples here and that is great.
However, connecting an arbitrary 10MHz reference will not make an “automatic” improvement and incorporating one in the Vivaldi clock chassis could easily have made things worse rather than better. Jitter figures paint very far from the full picture. Clocking more than most areas of digital circuitry is really one where everything matters and things like temperature instability, vibration, power supply fluctuations etc. can have a negative influence far greater than any positive influence from a 10MHz reference. So although we are never going to publish a list of “good ones” and “bad ones” I would strongly advise potential purchasers to bear the above factors in mind when considering possible reference clock purchases. If it clearly isn’t engineered with the degree of obsessiveness as a Vivaldi clock is it really likely to improve on it?
I am sure it hasn’t escaped your attention that no dCS master clock released since Vivaldi (LINA, Rossini, Varèse) exposes a 10MHz input.
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In addition to Andrew’s excellent post, the system design requirements for a 10MHz Reference Clock is quite different from that of a Word Clock. Especially important in the case of the dCS where the Clock platforms run on FPGA-controlled VCXOs, rather than OCXOs as is common with virtually all other systems (Aurender for example).
IMHO, trying to combine them into a single unit would be the antithesis of the Vivaldi system philosophy where every function is disaggregated and isolated.
Not to mention any such combined unit would come with a commensurate price jump that would put most people off (just look at the MC20’s price 
)
I disagree that this could be a reason, as the price differential with Vivaldi clock is only ~$7k and the SRS Perf10 can be bought new, including the cost of the chassis and power supply (which would not be needed for only the Rubidium module) for less than $5k. Not chump change, but not a factor at this level, and meaningfully less than the cabling alone for Vivaldi.
Hi Andrew,
Thank you for the thorough reply. I don’t claim or consider myself to be this forum’s expert in clocking, but I have read all (or nearly all) of the threads and am very interested in the topic.
A few responses/comments/thoughts below:
Yes. This is what I am interested in, these small number of cases. The three most frequent candidates referenced on this forum are the SRS Perf10, Cybershaft, and the Novus.
Yes, understood of course.
I don’t really view this as that pertinent here, because it would make no sense to optimize a LINA or Rossini system in this way, without having already added the Vivaldi clock, and Varese seems to have been designed from the ground up as a closed system.
I guess the heart of what I am asking is: What is dCS’s position on adding an an atomic model to the clock, the way Esoteric appears to have done (via license from SRS)?
I think what you are saying is, in a very few number of cases, the clock (Vivaldi, or otherwise) can be improved with an external reference, but dCS is drawing the line where it has, and further tweaks at that level will simply need to come at the user’s discretion…
As always, I welcome your thoughts.