Sunday, December 19th 2021
An "Audiophile Grade" SSD—Yes, You Heard That Right
A company dealing with niche audiophile-grade electronics on Audiophile Style, a popular site and marketplace for the community, conjured up an SSD that it feels offers the best possible audio. Put simply, this is an M.2-2280 NVMe SSD with a fully-independent power delivery mechanism (one that's isolated from the motherboard's power delivery), and an over-the-top discrete clock-source for its controller. The drive has its own 5 V 2-pin DC input and switching hardware onboard, including [get this] a pair of Audionote Kaisei audio-grade electrolytic capacitors in place of what should have been simple solid-state SMD capacitors that are hard to even notice on any other drive. It doesn't end there.
Most NVMe SSDs have a tiny 2 mm x 2 mm SMD oscillator that's used by the controller for clock-generation. This drive features a Crystek CCHD-957 high-grade Femto oscillator. These oscillators are found in some very high-grade production or scientific equipment, such as data-loggers. For the drive itself, you get a Realtek DRAM-less controller, and a single 1 TB TLC NAND flash chip that's forced to operate in SLC mode (333 GB). On a scale of absurdity, this drive is right up there with $10,000 HDMI cables. Digital audio is stored in ones and zeroes, and nothing is accomplished through an isolated power delivery or clock generation on the storage media. It's nice of the designers to include jumpers that let you switch between the discrete power source and motherboard power; so listeners can see the snake-oil for themselves.
Sources:
Audiophile Style, HotHardware
Most NVMe SSDs have a tiny 2 mm x 2 mm SMD oscillator that's used by the controller for clock-generation. This drive features a Crystek CCHD-957 high-grade Femto oscillator. These oscillators are found in some very high-grade production or scientific equipment, such as data-loggers. For the drive itself, you get a Realtek DRAM-less controller, and a single 1 TB TLC NAND flash chip that's forced to operate in SLC mode (333 GB). On a scale of absurdity, this drive is right up there with $10,000 HDMI cables. Digital audio is stored in ones and zeroes, and nothing is accomplished through an isolated power delivery or clock generation on the storage media. It's nice of the designers to include jumpers that let you switch between the discrete power source and motherboard power; so listeners can see the snake-oil for themselves.
160 Comments on An "Audiophile Grade" SSD—Yes, You Heard That Right
Isn't the external supply dependant on the quality of it though? one from a pound shop aint gonna be better than using the MB supplied 5v is it.
Single-ended Triode or GTFO.
Anyone remember audiophile rocks? Or them crystals? :roll:
www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/26/01/2018/audiophile-rocks-down-the-rabbit-hole-once-again/
Even using tantalum capacitors on motherboards improves the onboard audio sound quality. Too bad companies ignore stuff like this and try to charge an arm and an leg for USB type-C ESS Sabre DAC add-on in high-end motherboards.
What's the difference in getting a cheap motherboard that has USB typ-C and buying your own separate add-on DAC. Might as well, incorporate USB isolators or better quality capacitors into the board without huge markups.
I am guessing that they (the motherboard) takes 5V from the power supply ad pass it through additional filtering circuits before outputting to that one USB port.
Other than that, if you are using your own USB DAC/Amp, there is no gains to be had because a motherboard can only offer so much for audio, there are only two changes(compare to any other mobo) on the Amp-up, the additional 5V filtering for that one specific USB port, and possibly more filtering for the onboard DAC/Amp. If you want this ""isolated USB"" just buy a USB power/data splitter cable and use any good usb power adapter like a apple 5w that almost everyone have, or even an analog supply, or batteries...
Buying a ""audiophile"" motherboard has always been misleading, since any self-respecting audiophile will have their own DAC/Amp, the products are more just for people who wants to/thinks they are buy a board knowing it will not have problem with their basic music needs. The newest sabre/USB realtek boards from a bunch of flagship motherboards have audio problems with implementation anyways, so buying separate good DACAMP that will last you lifespan of multiple PC upgrades is a much better idea.
Nowadays all but the cheapest most cut-down boards have decent, functional audio section, and if anything the high ends have problem with messing up the implementation.
First thing I read after waking up is this, and I'm like hello, what dimension is this?