I don’t thing we can really be certain therefore drawing the conclusion this performance enhancement was due to the clock and the clock only is ill advised imo.
It would be nice to have more information, find out precisely what brought the improvement into being.
@Thomas savage
I understand your "we don't know anything" attitude when there's absence of solid facts. But in this case we do have facts.
What drew my attention was this quote from member
@Dro :
"According to this, there are no differences between the Pro and Pro FS besides Auto Dark and new clock".
Source:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-pro-comparison-to-adi-2-dac.2682/#post-75929
According to RME: "I am surprised that Thomann treats this as totally new product, when there are only two smaller (minor) changes. For us it is a slightly updated ADI-2 Pro".
Source:
https://www.forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?pid=129982#p129982
So I am not speculating here. I am basing my reasoning on RME's own words.
And because "fs" is featured on the front of the RME box, I think that may be the most important update of the two. A third possible change is the somewhat altered PCB board, but RME doesn't say that this change is material for sound or measurements.
In other words, we have pretty good reason to speculate that the femto clock is the most significant driver behind better measurements.
Interestingly, it seems like lots of "objectivists" are not very interested in clocks. Despite for example Paul Miller documenting a clock's contribution to significantly better performance in this review:
https://mutec-net.com/downloads/manuals/MUTEC_MC-3plusUSB_-_HFN.pdf
See the middle graph on page 2 of that review. It's the Oppo BDP-105D with and without reclocking.
According to Geoff Martin, "[t]hese days the weakest links in a digital audio signal path are typically in the signal processing software or the clocking of the devices in the audio chain". Source:
http://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/2018/03/25/typical-errors-in-digital-audio-wrapping-up/
I think that statement is worth spending some time on.