Hopefully I'll have a chance to test SFS of 4 this weekend. One thing though I've thought about posting for a while is this: over the last 3 or 4 months, or maybe since I switched to W8, I usually have to fiddle a bit with settings to get to the sound I like best. In other words,as others have reported, the sound since W8 isn't always consistent, but, unlike others, I'm always able to get to my preferred sound within 30 minutes to an hour of listening and fiddling. Maybe I'll adjust the SFS or Q5 or clock res a bit and, viola, I arrive at the "good sound." Perhaps it's washing machine related but I don't think so. There are times I'm home alone and all is "off" and I still have to fiddle a bit with the settings.

Right now I have family here from Alaska, I used to teach school in an Eskimo village up there, and my listening room is serving as a bed room, but Saturday or Sunday I'll get back to it.

It vanished earlier for unknown reasons. It was a quick short buzz just before music began to play.

Thanks Coen, but I'm a little confused. Does the lack of a 5 volt wire pose any kind of risk?

Well after leaving the PC on with the XX Driver control panel streaming for four days I had another good listen last night. Doesn't seem that the sound has changed much, if at all, since the initial 10 to 15 hours of break in. What is clear though is that this cable has finally eliminated a certain HF hash that has been part of my XX experience since 2009. The hash, or as I like to characterize it, clangyness, usually manifests with female voices that suddenly go from 0 to 100 mph in a split second, or with solo violins its heard as the absence of the mid range which is so opposite from hearing them in a live setting. Since I joined the XX community, it seems that every version of XXHighend, as well as every PC iteration and tweak I stole from ya'll has, to some degree impacted this HF hash. Usually, when a change was made its benefits would be apparent and, for a while, that's all I'd hear. Then as time passed, the bad would again re-emerge so that one could hear how the sound was bettered by the change but it was still not quite "right." Well, here in my modest system, that hash has disappeared and, in its absence, music now emerges like never before: woody, natural, live performances with everything I play. Is it perfect? Logically I know it just cannot be and perhaps I'm still only hearing the good and cannot yet hear the bad. But this is among the very most significant changes that I've experienced since 2009. It's like when I switched from my old DAC to the NOS1. It certainly feels like the disappearance of that HF hash is the result of the removal of the PC power leg of the cable.

Of course it is concerning that this cable eliminates the ESD protection. Perhaps, if the merits of this cable design are accepted by he whose mind is unchained from such trifles as "knowledge,"(Move over Buddha, here comes St. Peter!)  a new means of protection will be developed. 

Sorry about that bad info. A little knowledge can be worse than none at all!

Pedal, I think the cpu mostly used by XX'ers is the 3930,3.2 Ghz, as in my signature. However, I believe Mani uses the 3960 and Anthony-"acg"- the Xeon 8-core 70w 1.8Ghz which is a lot cheaper. So there doesn't seem to be one "recommended" cpu. I think the same may be true of HD's. I use a 3tb Seagate barricuda where I have both XX and music files, but that's a bit out of the norm I think.

Good luck with your upgrade, I believe you will have good results!

Thanks Peter, won't put more wear on my tubes!

Thanks Peter. I failed to mention that the cable is, in fact, connected to a MB USB3 port. Kevin O'Brien, the seller, says that the cable needs a hundred hours to burn in. Though initially the sound was a bit congested, after several hours it really opened up. I cannot imagine it getting much better, but the system will be left on 24/7 for the next four days!

Woke up this morning a very happy camper: yesterday I received my Data-Only V4, one step down from the reference cable Joachim posted about ($265 for a 2m cable), and, after 5 hours of listening yesterday, I couldn't wait to post about it this morning. Was very surprised to see Joachim beat me to it!

Anyway, after reading Mani's initial post I had to give a data-only cable a try. Not really knowing up from down with electronics I couldn't go the Cohen route so, given the 30 day in home trial I figured it was worth a try with the "Your Final System Cable." I didn't order the reference cable cause I just wanted to hear a cable without a power leg and both the reference and the one I purchased appear to be very similar: both use silver plated copper.

Anyway, the change in sound is very substantial. Though I agree with most of what Mani and Joachim have said about a data only cable, one thing Mani said I didn't experience: here, with the data-only cable, the bass is now less deep but far more natural. I used Eva Cassidy's version of Fever whose intro is bass heavy. A/B-ing with the new cable was a revelation regarding a natural sounding bass. Moreover, for the first time, I was able to play the entire song at ear splitting levels. In the past, once Eva started singing this song I generally switched to a different track or turned down the volume to an unsatisfying level because of the "clangyness" (harshness) of the upper mids. Suddenly that "clangyness" was completely gone. Everything I played last night was a new revelation of natural sounding music. The change this cable has made here is another step in the direction that began with disconnecting the optical drive and was followed by removing the front panel and all associated wiring from the PC, swapping the Corsair PS for the Seasonic, and changing from the ASUS to the ASrock MB. The change is equal to what I experienced with swapping mb's.

Glad to hear it's worked out for you too, Mani. The only Bios tweaks I've done, to good effect, was reducing the CPU ratio and memory frequency by half.

[Edit] I have from the beginning had all usb2 and 3 options disabled, but just today I enabled one usb3 MB connection and plugged my generic usb 3 cable into that mb connection. I also  switched the HD/OS/Music connection from SATA III to SATA II. Both tweaks seemed to improve SQ. I tried taking the Startech Renesis pcie card out but, when I did,  s's became terribly sharp. I put the card back in and that problem went away, though nothing is connected to either Startech usb connection. Don't know if the card causes more or less noise. For me, eliminating all noise generally means turning the amp off and reading a book.   

Yes, that's what I initially did, just plugged the ASUS HD with OS into the ASROCK and everything worked fine. Because I needed a backup drive, I subsequently reinstalled the OS to a new drive and copied all music to it as well. It works cause the chipsets are identical.

Juan, I'm waiting for their reply regarding the length. Will let you know.

Hey Juan, I don't know anyone who's used this cable, but they do have a 30 day return policy. If for a decent price they make them in a 6 to 7 foot length, I'm going to order one and will post here about it.

Here's a cable thats a lot cheaper than the Enopias:

http://www.yourfinalsystem.com/component/virtuemart/v4-audiophile-usb-cables/highend-audiophile-usb-v4-cable-1-0m-dataonly-17-21-25-detail?Itemid=0

And a short article on the subject:

http://yourfinalsystem.com/cable-design-f-a-q/147-how-do-data-only-usb-cables-work

For a more "analogue" sound, I ve been listening with the following settings: Q1@30, Q1factor@10, Q5@5, Q2-4@0,SFS@60, clock res @1.25. Looks like these settings are very similar to those that Alain has in his signature.