Pachanko SATA Cable

[wushuliu]

Hm, got two of the Pachanko cable, ones for each drive. Drives are powered by linear bench supply. Dac is a cheap but modded Signstek with iSilencer. PC is on 24/7 so technically at 100 hr mark. Not sure I can really hear a big improvement (or at least $270 worth) through main system. However, there is a more natural presentation and flow through headphones. I'll give them some time but may not hold on to these for long.

[wushuliu]

Unfortunately that almost guarantees missing the return window of 14 days.

[wushuliu]

Selling both my MK2s if anyone's interested (need to fund possible RPi build).

[wushuliu]

Just a reminder: before spending $$$ on usb and/or sata cables, etc. make sure you've spent time optimizing your PC. Go through your bios, check your control panel/Power options, format your drives properly (FAT sounds best), etc. If you have ASIO or similar drivers like XMOS etc., play with all the settings, doublecheck your Audio adapter settings (sometimes your PC will reset sample rates, you never know). Test different USB outputs. All of this is free.

 

I myself forgot to turn off C-States in Bios and some other settings and now I get another bump in sound quality. Cost me nothing.

[wushuliu]

I have no idea about SSD. Opinions vary. Some say get older SLC drives. Right now I'm looking into using optane memory with my SSD.

[wushuliu]

Forgot to mention make sure to use Deoxit to clean sata contacts before using. All contacts actually in your chain. Another little bump in sq for very little money. Tested last night with SATA and it definitely helped. Easy to forget little things like that.

[wushuliu]

I use exFAT to format the music drive, not my OS drive. I select the largest cluster size.