NVMe SSD designed for audiophiles

[Dev]

Really cool. Paul Pang offered audiophile grade sata based ssd drives with OCXO (or TCXO) based a while back. I never had a chance to try one but those who did definitely had to say good things about it. In current generation, the M.2 based NVME is a great performer for audio, especially the Optane drives for OS which has extremely low latency. This seems like a great solution. I am assuming both the NAND and OCXO is powered through the external power connector ? How is the latency compared to Optane ? Would love to try one in any case.

[Dev]

Is anyone using this with M.2 to PCIe adapter ? The Z490 motherboards doesn't have a direct to CPU M.2 slot. Hence, currently I use an adapter for my Optane OS drive. I haven't tried different ones and compared to see if there are any SQ differences. Wondering if anyone has experience with a good one and find a difference with this NVME audiophile SSD from @darkforce  ?

[Dev]

7 hours ago, Darryl R said:

 

Looks like @Exocer is 

 

 

Ok, thanks. I have been using an adapter for a while now which looks similar to @Exocerbut I have not compared to anything else. My question was did anyone found SQ differences between different adapters ?

[Dev]

4 hours ago, davide256 said:

You are unlikely to be able to use the FEMTO drive on a PCIE adaptor because there is a pin projecting out the back

from the DC jack, the two adaptors I have did not have adequate clearance to allow torquing the hold screw down.

Haven't measured but it looks the clearance on the cards at the connector end is 1/8" vs 1/4" inch

on a Z390 motherboard.

 

I see but looks like @Exoceris already using one with the FEMTO drive. See the post above yours. It might be worth to see what adapter he is using.

[Dev]

So I received my Femto drive this week from @darkforce It was packaged well and arrived safely.

 

Like many, I have been using a Optane 110Gb for the primary OS drive. The Asus ROG Z490 doesn't have a direct CPU M.2 slot and hence I am forced to use a PCIe to M.2 adapter to go CPU direct. I find it sounds slight better (but not much) and coherent than using the M.2 slots which connects to the Z490 chip (aka PCH). The music are on two 2Tb M.2 drives and they are connected to the onboard M.2 slots and this connects via Z490.

 

 

 

Cloning Windows 10 was a pita and had few quirks with the boot that I was able to quickly resolve. Right now I am burning in and it has about 24hrs. Powering it via motherboard for the time being and then I will get into externally powering it with some LPS that I have in my arsenal.

 

Initial impression is very positive - it seems to take out the digital hash. The problem is you never know it exist until its removed. The same thing happened when I installed the Taiko DC-ATX for the first time.

 

As with everything, especially digital, it take a while for the components to settle down. Will update my findings when I have some running hrs on it...but so far, I am positive!

 

 

[Dev]

@darkforcestop all these non sense allegations. I am a member of this forum a while now and I am not the guy who is going to run away for a little dinky SSD of yours. I have way more investment in expensive audio gear that you can think of. 
 

Didn’t I offer you to pay for the product, not once but twice, to which you refused, before I left out of the country ? Didn’t I clearly indicate and messaged you couple of times end of Oct that I will be out of country for a while. Do you want me to post all the message exchange publicly here ? Anyway, FYI, I am still out of country and will be for sometime now. Being out of country doesn’t mean that I cannot log into the forum time to time. 

 

[Dev]

48 minutes ago, darkforce said:

 

You can post any messages we exchange, my message does not ask you to pay, but asks you to send the item back, you are testing, not buying. The fact is that you are now willing to tweet here, but you don't have time to contact me directly at pm, this is a basic communication requirement, regardless of how expensive your equipment is.

didn’t I tell you that I do not have time to send it back now since I have last minute more important things to do for my travel ? Anyone who has traveled internationally these days knows how messy things are with pandemic requirements. Didn’t I tell you that I will pay it now and we can settle it later when I am back ? When someone is out of country and traveling for medical reasons, you expect them to communicate on time ? You must be out of your mind. Just don’t want to go into endless argument but you can only have it back when I am back - there isn’t any other option at this time, apart from me paying for this product and call it a day.
 

This is my last post on this. If you need further clarification, get in touch through pm.