sample-clock

Sample-clock is a timing reference built for the sake of audio engineering: it synchronizes A/D and D/A conversion and digital devices to a common sampling rate, enabling coherent recording and playback. Servant points at master per Law 8d.

A sample clock generates a periodic pulse train that timestamps each audio sample. This pulse train requires an oscillator (or equivalent timing circuit) as its signal source. Remove the oscillator and there is no periodic signal to serve as the clock grid. The removal test passes: no oscillator = no clock.

Remove-Y test: jitter is defined as measurable variation of sample/frame timing relative to their EXPECTED positions. Those expected positions (n·1/fs, the ideal grid) exist only because the sample clock stamps each sample position with a defined interval. Remove the sample clock — no periodic timing reference — and there is no sample position, no ideal grid, hence no expected position to deviate from: the construct loses its measuring reference and stops operating. The reverse does not hold: the clock needs no jitter; jitter is a property measured against the clock, not the clock against jitter. (The cluster's earlier target 'clock' carved a PUBLIC timekeeping device; this is the machine-internal grid the definition actually measures against.)

Audio-clock-drift measures the deviation of the sample-clock from its nominal rate. The drift concept operates against the sample-clock's timing reference: without the periodic grid that marks every sample position, there is no expected timing to deviate from. Remove the sample-clock and the concept of clock drift loses its measuring reference entirely — the removal test passes per Law 8b.