CDs ripped by different drives sound different...nearly fell for it.

[The_Lhc]

Although I don't think a hard disk can improve sound quality, wouldn't a poorly designed hard disk reduce sound quality from excessive vibration or electronic interference?

Only if you could actually hear it in the same room (I'm thinking from a NAS POV), if you were getting electronic interference running down an ethernet cable I think you'd have bigger issues than sound quality, if you meant an internal HDD in something like a Uniti then I don't know, I guess it depends on whether you think amps etc are affected by vibration, which is a completely different argument that I can't be bothered with (you guys feel free though...).

 

[Overdose]

Although I don't think a hard disk can improve sound quality, wouldn't a poorly designed hard disk reduce sound quality from excessive vibration or electronic interference? (Assuming an all in one device like the Naim mentioned)

What's an example of a poorly designed HDD?

If any exist, then I'm sure manufacturers would avoid their use. Can't say that I've ever found a HDD to vibrate much and whatever vibration is evident does not affect operation or there would be all sorts of errors.

 

[SteveR750]

But, Major, isn't it the case that different hard drives sound different?

Funny you should say that...some of the HiFi audio players like Pure Music can be be set-up to load tracks or even whole albums into RAM* before playing them, as opposed to streaming them from the HDD, which apparently improves sound-quality... :? Some people also say computers with solid-state drives sound better than those with conventional HDDs... :? :? *kind of relies of you having enough spare RAM of course...

Great thread Fubar, this psychoacoustic thing is expensive.

I stream my files from RAM, simply because the hard drive isn't then whirring away, creating electrical interference that isn't grounded fully via the DAC. I doubt it has any direct effect on the digital data, but the ground hum can ****** up quiet passges. Thankfully there is a ground lift on the DACmagic, but its not perfect, and nowehere hear as silent as say the NAD C390 I tried, or even the Chord Qute (both using USB, optical is of course an entirely different proposition)

 

[Overdose]

But, Major, isn't it the case that different hard drives sound different?

Funny you should say that...some of the HiFi audio players like Pure Music can be be set-up to load tracks or even whole albums into RAM* before playing them, as opposed to streaming them from the HDD, which apparently improves sound-quality... :? Some people also say computers with solid-state drives sound better than those with conventional HDDs... :? :? *kind of relies of you having enough spare RAM of course...

Great thread Fubar, this psychoacoustic thing is expensive.

I stream my files from RAM, simply because the hard drive isn't then whirring away, creating electrical interference that isn't grounded fully via the DAC. I doubt it has any direct effect on the digital data, but the ground hum can ****** up quiet passges. Thankfully there is a ground lift on the DACmagic, but its not perfect, and nowehere hear as silent as say the NAD C390 I tried, or even the Chord Qute (both using USB, optical is of course an entirely different proposition)

That's why I use optical, complete electrical isolation.

 

[abacus]

But, Major, isn't it the case that different hard drives sound different?

NO

Its only the equipment that does the conversion to analogue that makes the difference.

Bill

Bill, I would agree that DACs and their analogue outputs have the most influence, but I had understood the drives themselves and indeed the ripping software can have discernible sound characteristics too. There's an interesting article here:

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/hificritic/vol5_no3/listening_to_storage.htm

I go back far enough to remember when many people thought all that mattered was how many watts an amplifier produced or whether tapes had Dolby noise reduction. No-one thinks that way now (or if they do then they are soon told otherwise!). I'm far from persuaded that we understand enough about digital storage of music yet.

However, I see this topic has been done to death here already so I had better shut up.

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/about-the-mag/can-the-hard-drive-on-which-you-store-files-affect-your-sound

Digital music production and recording has been around since the 70s, with virtually all films and music production being digital for at least 25 years, thus it is fully understood by professional production engineers and producers.

The only problems that occur are with Hi Fi enthusiasts who try and apply analogue characteristics to digital, when in actual fact there is absolutely NO similarity at all.

Bill

 

[cheeseboy]

I stream my files from RAM, simply because the hard drive isn't then whirring away, creating electrical interference that isn't grounded fully via the DAC. I doubt it has any direct effect on the digital data, but the ground hum can ****** up quiet passges. Thankfully there is a ground lift on the DACmagic, but its not perfect, and nowehere hear as silent as say the NAD C390 I tried, or even the Chord Qute (both using USB, optical is of course an entirely different proposition)

if you are getting electrical ground hum from your hard drive then you've got more serious problems I would say.

 

[ellisdj]

>I don't know why nobody has developed a CD player that rips the music to internal stored files and then plays them<

The Memory Player 64

http://www.meridian-audio.com/en/collections/products/808v5-signature-reference-cd-player/5/

 

[amcluesent]

I had a horrendous experience using a RAID1 setup. One hard disk was 'audiophile' and the other just wasn't. Depending on the most efficient head positioning I'd get a read of 24/192 FLAC data from the "good" drive then some from the "bad" drive. I swapped the "bad" drive and right away the wife came in from the kitchen to ask what had happened to the hi-fi.

 

[SteveR750]

I stream my files from RAM, simply because the hard drive isn't then whirring away, creating electrical interference that isn't grounded fully via the DAC. I doubt it has any direct effect on the digital data, but the ground hum can ****** up quiet passges. Thankfully there is a ground lift on the DACmagic, but its not perfect, and nowehere hear as silent as say the NAD C390 I tried, or even the Chord Qute (both using USB, optical is of course an entirely different proposition)

if you are getting electrical ground hum from your hard drive then you've got more serious problems I would say.

It's not from the hard drive. There is a ground loop via any USB connection, some PCs are worse than others my old Viao was terrible, the Asus is better. Unplugging the PSU completely removes any interference. This is why the Chord Qute has a grounding terminal, so it's not a unique problem that I have.

I would use optical, but USB async sounds better from the Dacmagic.

 

[Overdose]

I stream my files from RAM, simply because the hard drive isn't then whirring away, creating electrical interference that isn't grounded fully via the DAC. I doubt it has any direct effect on the digital data, but the ground hum can ****** up quiet passges. Thankfully there is a ground lift on the DACmagic, but its not perfect, and nowehere hear as silent as say the NAD C390 I tried, or even the Chord Qute (both using USB, optical is of course an entirely different proposition)

if you are getting electrical ground hum from your hard drive then you've got more serious problems I would say.

It's not from the hard drive. There is a ground loop via any USB connection, some PCs are worse than others my old Viao was terrible, the Asus is better. Unplugging the PSU completely removes any interference. This is why the Chord Qute has a grounding terminal, so it's not a unique problem that I have.

I would use optical, but USB async sounds better from the Dacmagic.

I had a similar problem, but didn't find an issues between optical or USB using the DACmagic Plus (a good DAC by the way).

 

[cheeseboy]

I had a horrendous experience using a RAID1 setup. One hard disk was 'audiophile' and the other just wasn't. Depending on the most efficient head positioning I'd get a read of 24/192 FLAC data from the "good" drive then some from the "bad" drive. I swapped the "bad" drive and right away the wife came in from the kitchen to ask what had happened to the hi-fi.

:rofl: awesome. Cheered up my monday morning :rofl:

 

[cheeseboy]

It's not from the hard drive.

eh? you just said "simply because the hard drive isn't then whirring away, creating electrical interference that isn't grounded fully via the DAC"? Confused I is....

There is a ground loop via any USB connection, some PCs are worse than others my old Viao was terrible, the Asus is better. Unplugging the PSU completely removes any interference. This is why the Chord Qute has a grounding terminal, so it's not a unique problem that I have.

I would use optical, but USB async sounds better from the Dacmagic.

Is it a laptop or desktop you are using? If it's a desktop you could try a dedicated usb card that may reduce the ground hum from the motherboard. However, if you are getting a ground hum out of your computer via the usb then something is not grounded right, and that can actually be a manufacturing issue, not just a random issue.

hell, if people have money to burn you can purcahase an "audiophile" usb card for 350 dollars http://shop.smallgreencomputer.com/SOtM-tX-USBexp-Audiophile-PCIe-to-USB-Audio-Card-tX-USBexp.htm

or a sata noise power filter http://shop.smallgreencomputer.com/SOtM-In-Line-SATA-Power-Noise-Filter-SOTMSATA.htm