Why would I need a timing cable?

I don't have this on my source because it is of a different brand, but my Arcam DAC has an optical input for a a timing cable. What is this and how will this be audible (what should I listen for)?

not entirely familiar with your cdp, but my guess this is for a seperate master clock connection, and unless you have a master word clock then the input is not used.

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Originally Posted by nightflier

I don't have this on my source because it is of a different brand, but my Arcam DAC has an optical input for a a timing cable. What is this and how will this be audible (what should I listen for)?

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...it's the latest bit of trickle-down from some pro-gear that, like many other things in this hobby, will become a future bone of contention in these and other forums a la wire is wire/oh no it's not, zeros and ones and all that happy cr@p...

jimHJJ(...give it time...no pun intended...)

It seems like only some Arcam players have a timing connector. Are you saying that this is found on higher end transports and DACs? Maybe I just haven't been around really super-expensive equipment enough, but I have never seen this elsewhere.

Is this something that is an A/V timing sync? Optical audio is a much faster transfer than video(this why on junky players you can notice a very slight audio before video) . Is this something that is supposed to be an improvement on the sync circuit?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nightflier

I don't have this on my source because it is of a different brand, but my Arcam DAC has an optical input for a a timing cable. What is this and how will this be audible (what should I listen for)?

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High quality outboard master clocks can be used with your DAC.