Hand Made SATA Cable for CAT

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I haven't read through this whole thread, only the first page and I strongly believe that cable is snake-oil. I doubt anyone can hear or measure any difference between SATA cables.

You are of course correct; it can't possibly make a difference.
A truly bad cable could cause issues due to poor sheilding, causing EMI/RFI pickup in audio circuits. SATA has data integrity checking so if a cable works, it works, and if it doesn't, it doesn't. There is no in-between.
Of course logic, science, and rational thinking will never prevent certain golden-ear-endowed individuals from hearing a difference (positive of course) resulting from an expensive but technically minor change to the most obscure parts of the system.
 
You are of course correct; it can't possibly make a difference.
A truly bad cable could cause issues due to poor sheilding, causing EMI/RFI pickup in audio circuits. SATA has data integrity checking so if a cable works, it works, and if it doesn't, it doesn't. There is no in-between.
Of course logic, science, and rational thinking will never prevent certain golden-ear-endowed individuals from hearing a difference (positive of course) resulting from an expensive but technically minor change to the most obscure parts of the system.

Yeah, exactly what I thought. I guess the difference TS hears is placebo. Placebo should not be underestimated but it's no evidence for that the mod works either :p
 
But SATA is transferring data from the hard drive to the main system, it is not a DAC so how is the clock going to affect the sound in this application!!! It is not, as one quite a few PC's these days we access data from the hard drive every day without problems, including CAD software Instrumentation, etc etc ALL require data transfer.
And digital data is 1 and 0, look at some data sheets and you will see timing diagrams for data set up etc etc work within these specifications and data will be correct.
We use DDR3 interfaces every day and those work, somehow, with incredible clock speeds and on both edges of the clocks.
 
But SATA is transferring data from the hard drive to the main system.

Depending upon the system and how much isolation the DAC features it is possible that large amounts of SATA activity interacts affects the level of pass-through noise. One would have to measure to be sure but on some USB DACs noise from the PC passes straight through.

I have a laptop PSU here that when plugged in results in HF noise that goes through to my USB DAC and can be heard at the listening position. When the system is under load that HF noise modulates. Whether or not this is significant for anything at the DAC I am not going to speculate.

When it comes to internal cables the only real thing I can see might make a difference in a very noisy system is shielding. Again, one would need to account for where that noise interacts and if it affects any sampling or audio reproduction.
 
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That is noise, there is always a certain level of noise on digital systems. It would be worth finding out more about it, the main noise is self generated by the digital system. Digital noise is of a level way above hearing. Your set up is suffering from noise, check your power supplies are up to the job, cos if noise modulates it due to underspecified or damaged power supply or some other broken piece of the chain.
Nothing to do with SATA cables.
 
That is noise, there is always a certain level of noise on digital systems. It would be worth finding out more about it, the main noise is self generated by the digital system. Digital noise is of a level way above hearing. Your set up is suffering from noise, check your power supplies are up to the job, cos if noise modulates it due to underspecified or damaged power supply or some other broken piece of the chain.
Nothing to do with SATA cables.

My point is that there are untold variables out there in the wild - not all is perfect on every system. And that's what creates a slight possibility that some things work and others don't.

I have already checked my PSUs - I was not asking for debugging advice Marce, just pointing out to you how things are not A=B in every system. User error or whatever. FWIW even the new AX850 I am using results in some noise leakage - its just a lot lower. Does not matter to me to the point I am looking at getting rid of it, but it is there. Such things happen and they are REAL.


And I did point out where the potential for a cable to interact with the system could - however small. One should not focus solely on 1s and 0s in every scenario, just because something is output as bit perfect, does not mean that there are no other potential conflicts downstream.

I have another PC that pics up interference from my USB mouse - the sound comes through my headphones at high pitch. Its not because the system is faulty or "something is broken", its just that the cable is not shielded well enough and there is not enough room to route it any other way.


FWIW there are plenty of noise sources in a PC, some VRMs are noisier than others and some motherboards are worse, too (layout, decoupling and such). Many factors at play, including processor loading and any radiated noise into the USB bus. As I said, the only thing one could attribute down to a cable would be shielding in my view - audible or not? Anyone's guess.
 
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Surely if a sata cable cant pass bit perfect data at relatively slow audio data speeds, your computer will never boot in the first place, or crash if it did manage to do so

@ppastudio

There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding between a clocks function in transferring computer data vs the clock timing issues in D.A conversion, a D.A converter generates frequencies and needs a steady clock, a computer just shovels numbers from here to there in its own good time
 
AGREE totaly on the clock misunderstanding:)


"And I did point out where the potential for a cable to interact with the system could - however small. One should not focus solely on 1s and 0s in every scenario, just because something is output as bit perfect, does not mean that there are no other potential conflicts downstream."

Sorry to shatter your delusions. but the whole point of digital is the 1s and 0s, and getting the signal from the transmitter to the receiver. Everything that you when laying out a digital board is ensuring that the data (1s and 0s) gets there reliably. Digital data transmission is very tolerant of system noise, hence its popularity, because the data is either a logic 1 or a logic 0. It is called Signal Integrity, and most people doing high speed digital design have to employ Signal Integrity Verify software to check their layout, so that we know the 1s and 0s are getting to where we want them to, and in a reasonable state so that the receiving gate will switch accordingly. And this relates to the electromagnetic wave travelling through the transmission system (we are not realy bothered about the electrons that much, they only manage to travel at 84mm an hour).
Cable interaction, signals travel down both traces on a PCB and down cables at not quite the speed of light. The main contributing factor with digital signals is the dielectric constant of the material surrounding the wire or trace (and for all digital frequencies this velocity is the constant regardless of frequency). The signal speed is found by:
V=c/sqrtEr
Where c=speed of sound
Er = dielectric constant
Cable construction can also have an effect. But the most important thing is the velocity of transmission is constant over the frequency range. Losses aren't though, with the higher frequency component of the square wave being attenuated more than the lower frequency content. The frequency content of a square wave is related solely to the signal rise time:

1. "Re: What are the major factors that decide pcb is of high speed?
Rise Time determines the spectral (harmonic) content of the square waves, the faster the rise time the higher frequencys of the harmonics, the rise time also determines the electrical length of a line, which allows us to determine whether it should be atreated as a transmission line or not. Most devices these days seem to have aggressive current drive, and thus high rise times.
A quote from National
For calculation purposes, you should understand the concept of electrical length (l). Electrical length is defined as the distance that a signal can travel in an electrical medium during the time that it takes for one rise or fall time, whichever is longer. Using the concept of electrical length, the general rule of the previous paragraph can be rephrased as follows: If the physical length of a wire or electrical interconnect is greater than 1/6 of the electrical length of a signal propagating on that wire, the system must be analyzed as a transmission line. Velocity is defined as the rate at which an electrical wave propagates in the transmission medium. Using this value you can calculate electrical length in one of the following ways:
Full Notes:
Proper Termination for High-Speed Digital I/O Applications - Developer Zone - National Instruments

My guidlines are to treat EVERY digital signal as critical and always use best practice design, some signals demand extra special TLC, such as DDR memoryiinterface, Ethernet etc
Quote from a PCB related forum.

So all we are bothered about with digital design is getting the bits, the 1s and 0s from A to B at the right time...simple. The screen shots are from the Signal Integrity Verify software I use, just to give an idea of what goes on in digital simulation.

Layout is an important factor in this, and includes the basics such as Power Delivery system integrity, stack up of the PCB (critical), impedance of the signal layers etc, just basic stuff to again make sure the 1s and 0s get there.

Below are some links to some related sites for digital design and EMC.

High speed digital design and SIGNAL INTEGRITY:
Howard Johnson:
Signal Consulting, Inc. - Dr. Howard Johnson
Eric Bogatin:
beTheSignal.com
Ralph Morrison:
Welcome
Lee Ritchey:
Speeding Edge consultants specialize in high-speed PCB and system design disciplines
A Basic guide:
Design for Signal Integrity: Unit 02 Integrity of Digital Signals

EMC and SIGNAL INTEGRITY (because up to 80% of EMC problems are local to the design:
Henry Ott
home page
Keith Armstrong:
EMC Information Centre - The EMC Journal (Free in the UK)

:D
 
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