Nuclear-Powered Preamp Promises Excessive Accuracy With Built-in Atomic Clock

Nuclear-Powered Preamp Promises Excessive Accuracy With Built-in Atomic Clock


Audiophiles are always on the hunt for the most over-the-top setup to impress and make other audiophiles jealous. There’s now a nuclear option in the audiophile arms race with this DAC featuring a built-in rubidium-powered atomic clock promising incredibly accurate and stable digital to analogue conversions, and vice versa.

Antelope Audio’s upcoming Rubicon Atomic Preamp includes a nuclear clock that’s claimed to be “100,000 times more stable than a traditional crystal oscillator”, which promises to improve sound quality when the amp is performing digital to analogue and analogue to digital conversions by reining in jitter. To be honest, like a lot of audiophile-grade gear it sounds a little gimmicky, but apparently similar atomic master clocks are used in professional mastering studios, so there’s presumably some validity to the company’s claims.

As for pricing, that’s still to be revealed as the Rubicon isn’t officially being introduced until a high-end audio tradeshow in Munich next month. But since it’s being targeted at audiophiles with their seemingly unlimited budgets, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars is probably a safe guestimate.


[Antelope Audio via Home theatre Review via Dvice]


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