Synchro-Mesh

About the Synchro-Mesh

The Empirical Audio Synchro-Mesh is an outboard two-channel S/PDIF/Toslink asynchronous sample-rate converter (ASRC) and reclocker. It is installed between a digital source—such as a CD transport, Sonos, Apple TV, or other S/PDIF-equipped device—and a DAC, surround-sound processor, or receiver. Rather than passing the incoming stream unchanged, it resamples all accepted PCM inputs to one fixed output sample rate specified when ordered, then outputs the newly clocked signal to reduce interface jitter. Empirical Audio specifies approximately 7 ps jitter at the end of a 4-foot coaxial cable for the later design. It does not require drivers and includes a DC power adapter. The original/current documentation describes selectable optical versus coaxial input and selectable 16- versus 24-bit output word length; the word-length setting is read at power-up. Input and output connector arrangements vary by revision: earlier units offered Toslink, RCA coaxial, and BNC coaxial connections, while a later revised version reportedly retained BNC as the coaxial output and supplied a 75-ohm BNC-to-RCA adapter for RCA use. Because it uses ASRC, output is not bit-perfect, including when the input nominally matches the configured output rate.