Just done a stupid thing

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ellisdj

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I dont know about Linux but windows extreme example setup a computer for audio on windows 8 and setup one on Windows Server in core mode and there will be a difference
 

Leif

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nopiano said:
steve_1979 said:
nopiano said:
I was reading exactly this the other day, but cannot recall where. Also that solid state drives are not robust enough for music replay, supposedly due to the way data is extracted or stored. Suggested everything is rewritten or something. Descended into tech stuff and I nodded off.

I have read similar things myself but it's referring to the different reliability issues of SDD vs HDD over time. It has nothing to do with the sound quality of music playback.

Think about it. Both HDD and SDD are capible of 100% perfect data retreval - they have to be or computer software would never be able to function.
I appreciate that Steve, but look at the link above that I posted. #69. They report different sound quality.

Though in some ways it makes no sense, neither does different CD players sounding different to those outside the audiophile community!

Unless the tests were blind - which they weren't - they are worthless. I've come across more than a few cases where someone was sure two systems sounded quite different, but they changed their minds when they did blind tests.
 

steve_1979

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Many audiophiles technical knowledge on the subjects of computer science and electronic engineering is very low but their obsession levels are very high.

This is a perfect combination of traits in a customer for con men to be able to strive.
 

steve_1979

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nopiano said:
steve_1979 said:
nopiano said:
I was reading exactly this the other day, but cannot recall where. Also that solid state drives are not robust enough for music replay, supposedly due to the way data is extracted or stored. Suggested everything is rewritten or something. Descended into tech stuff and I nodded off.

I have read similar things myself but it's referring to the different reliability issues of SDD vs HDD over time. It has nothing to do with the sound quality of music playback.

Think about it. Both HDD and SDD are capible of 100% perfect data retreval - they have to be or computer software would never be able to function.
I appreciate that Steve, but look at the link above that I posted. #69. They report different sound quality.

Though in some ways it makes no sense, neither does different CD players sounding different to those outside the audiophile community!

It is pure subjective hifi foo. The very first line tells you all you need to know. "As an exception to my normal policy, in this article I will be publishing impressions from readers..."

Unless they have any sort or technical data to back back up their extraordinary claim it is safe to assume they're talking bollox. As we know, if any hard drive cannot save and recall data 100% perfectly your computer would not be able to function at all.

If the data from the HDD was any different to the data from the SSD it would be very easy to prove. You could compare the file from the SSD to the file from the HDD and if even one byte of data was different if could easily be found and proven. In fact computers always perform a checksum when reading or writing to a hard drive, so if ever there is any variation you'll get an error message pop up telling you about it.
 

Leif

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There seems to be an echo here ...

Clever marketing types use Fear Uncertainty and Doubt to convince the ill-informed that they need mains cables costing £500, speaker cables costing £2,000, and so on. If they really did work, they'd publish their own blind tests. But they don't. I wonder if they make a lot of profit given that the cables are probably quite cheap to make, but advertising costs must be quite high.
 
Leif said:
There seems to be an echo here ...

Clever marketing types use Fear Uncertainty and Doubt to convince the ill-informed that they need mains cables costing £500, speaker cables costing £2,000, and so on. If they really did work, they'd publish their own blind tests. But they don't. I wonder if they make a lot of profit given that the cables are probably quite cheap to make, but advertising costs must be quite high.
I get your point, but I don't think anyone is trying to convert WAV users to FLAC, or vice versa, nor to make HDD users switch to SSD, or vice versa. To me, it simply seems that experienced listeners update their systems in some fashion - changing hard discs, for example - and report unexpected sound changes. (Maybe someone sells a snake oil inspired hard disc?)

I know there are many alternative explanations, most obviously volume changes, but I can believe others factors may be at work. For example, different disc drives may present different audio quality. No matter how many people say my Word documents look the same, I currently accept that audio might change!
 

cheeseboy

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nopiano said:
For example, different disc drives may present different audio quality.

not possible. It's just not how computers work. Most if not all audio players will buffer in to ram anyways, even if it's not the full track, they will still buffer some of it.
 

Leif

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nopiano said:
Leif said:
There seems to be an echo here ...

Clever marketing types use Fear Uncertainty and Doubt to convince the ill-informed that they need mains cables costing £500, speaker cables costing £2,000, and so on. If they really did work, they'd publish their own blind tests. But they don't. I wonder if they make a lot of profit given that the cables are probably quite cheap to make, but advertising costs must be quite high.
I get your point, but I don't think anyone is trying to convert WAV users to FLAC, or vice versa, nor to make HDD users switch to SSD, or vice versa. To me, it simply seems that experienced listeners update their systems in some fashion - changing hard discs, for example - and report unexpected sound changes. (Maybe someone sells a snake oil inspired hard disc?)

I know there are many alternative explanations, most obviously volume changes, but I can believe others factors may be at work. For example, different disc drives may present different audio quality. No matter how many people say my Word documents look the same, I currently accept that audio might change!

It is odd how perception can so markedly diverge from reality. As an example, the depth of field for an 8x42 binocular is the same irrespective of the binocular (ignoring the softness towards the field edges). And yet people report large differences, mostly it would seem due to the coarseness of the focus knob. A rapid focus seems to convince people that depth of field is reduced. I'm sure we see exactly the same sort of thing with audio equipment. My own unit is dog ugly, and I cannot get over that fact even though it sounds good.

For my own part I am astonished at how people confidently assert that equipment A is more 'musical' than equipment B (not that I know what they mean). They even say that when they swapped over an item the sound was more dynamic, or that the new version of a product is 'richer' compared to their memory of the old one they tried a year or two ago. How on earth can they say that? I find comparing sounds incredibly hard, and to do these tests you need some way to instantly switch between products using the same music. I admit that speakers DO sound very different, but otherwise, nah.

You say you accept that audio might change, but did you do blind tests? That is the only way to know.
 

davedotco

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Leif said:
nopiano said:
Leif said:
There seems to be an echo here ...

Clever marketing types use Fear Uncertainty and Doubt to convince the ill-informed that they need mains cables costing £500, speaker cables costing £2,000, and so on. If they really did work, they'd publish their own blind tests. But they don't. I wonder if they make a lot of profit given that the cables are probably quite cheap to make, but advertising costs must be quite high.
I get your point, but I don't think anyone is trying to convert WAV users to FLAC, or vice versa, nor to make HDD users switch to SSD, or vice versa. To me, it simply seems that experienced listeners update their systems in some fashion - changing hard discs, for example - and report unexpected sound changes. (Maybe someone sells a snake oil inspired hard disc?)

I know there are many alternative explanations, most obviously volume changes, but I can believe others factors may be at work. For example, different disc drives may present different audio quality. No matter how many people say my Word documents look the same, I currently accept that audio might change!

It is odd how perception can so markedly diverge from reality. As an example, the depth of field for an 8x42 binocular is the same irrespective of the binocular (ignoring the softness towards the field edges). And yet people report large differences, mostly it would seem due to the coarseness of the focus knob. A rapid focus seems to convince people that depth of field is reduced. I'm sure we see exactly the same sort of thing with audio equipment. My own unit is dog ugly, and I cannot get over that fact even though it sounds good.

For my own part I am astonished at how people confidently assert that equipment A is more 'musical' than equipment B (not that I know what they mean). They even say that when they swapped over an item the sound was more dynamic, or that the new version of a product is 'richer' compared to their memory of the old one they tried a year or two ago. How on earth can they say that? I find comparing sounds incredibly hard, and to do these tests you need some way to instantly switch between products using the same music. I admit that speakers DO sound very different, but otherwise, nah.

You say you accept that audio might change, but did you do blind tests? That is the only way to know.

There is more to how a listener perceives the quality of his hi-fi than straightforward objective reality. Sure, to make listening tests valid for other people, they need to be done in a controlled manner, but for an individual?

I'm not at all sure about this, people react to their system in different ways and this can often often change perception. In the end it is their perception that matter, afterall, music is just data until it is processed by the brain and if that brain believes cables or hard discs make a difference, that matters.

Although I consider myself quite 'science savvy', I still find myself getting caught by psyco-acoustic phenomena that are not real in any objective sense, so much so that I am much more relaxed about the sound of my setup when they are taken care of.
 
Leif said:
nopiano said:
Leif said:
There seems to be an echo here ...

Clever marketing types use Fear Uncertainty and Doubt to convince the ill-informed that they need mains cables costing £500, speaker cables costing £2,000, and so on. If they really did work, they'd publish their own blind tests. But they don't. I wonder if they make a lot of profit given that the cables are probably quite cheap to make, but advertising costs must be quite high.
I get your point, but I don't think anyone is trying to convert WAV users to FLAC, or vice versa, nor to make HDD users switch to SSD, or vice versa. To me, it simply seems that experienced listeners update their systems in some fashion - changing hard discs, for example - and report unexpected sound changes. (Maybe someone sells a snake oil inspired hard disc?)

I know there are many alternative explanations, most obviously volume changes, but I can believe others factors may be at work. For example, different disc drives may present different audio quality. No matter how many people say my Word documents look the same, I currently accept that audio might change!

It is odd how perception can so markedly diverge from reality. As an example, the depth of field for an 8x42 binocular is the same irrespective of the binocular (ignoring the softness towards the field edges). And yet people report large differences, mostly it would seem due to the coarseness of the focus knob. A rapid focus seems to convince people that depth of field is reduced. I'm sure we see exactly the same sort of thing with audio equipment. My own unit is dog ugly, and I cannot get over that fact even though it sounds good.

For my own part I am astonished at how people confidently assert that equipment A is more 'musical' than equipment B (not that I know what they mean). They even say that when they swapped over an item the sound was more dynamic, or that the new version of a product is 'richer' compared to their memory of the old one they tried a year or two ago. How on earth can they say that? I find comparing sounds incredibly hard, and to do these tests you need some way to instantly switch between products using the same music. I admit that speakers DO sound very different, but otherwise, nah.

You say you accept that audio might change, but did you do blind tests? That is the only way to know.
I've never done a truly blind test, Leif. Years ago, we used to know in the shop whether the setup had changed, even from outside the demo room, but that's another story really. And we used to instantly switch speakers via a box that no dealer would dream of using today!

Since then, I have always listened and bought with my eyes open, mostly. It's not just transducers like speakers that differ, product to product. Though as always, they're the most obvious changes. What you get with extended listening at home, and with practice and experience, I believe, is the ability to discern smaller changes. These might end up being quite important to an individual listener.

It can then rather fail to be conveyed to others when modest difference become 'night and day' or some other extreme description. Then the arguments begin!
 

Andrewjvt

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The spirit of this thread has been lost
It was a tongue in check light-hearted thread
I hate bragging about work etc but I'm a qualified micro soft systems engineer from years ago now and definitely understand wave and flac files.

So to spite you all I'm ordering isolation feet for my dac and a power conditioner to improve the sound stage playback
 

Pedro

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Expectation bias plays a major role in perceiving alleged changes in sound. Plus, our hearing depends on several physical factors like blood pressure, a congested respiratory tract and so on. So, our hearing is not the same at all times, and that's why people in forums come up with stupid threads like their CD players are playing exceptionally well in a given day and it must be due to the new hifi rack or some other BS.

Moreover, people can argue all they want but it's a well established fact that echoic memory is ultra-short memory, it lasts from 2 to 4 seconds. This is proven by brain scans. Now think about all the "tests" that some people do and take as universal truths.

Regarding sound quality differences between HDDs and SDDs, It would be interesting to understand the scientific reasons of such claims. And some evidence.
 

cheeseboy

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Pedro said:
Regarding sound quality differences between HDDs and SDDs, It would be interesting to understand the scientific reasons of such claims. And some evidence.

there isn;t any. It's just audiophiles changing things (everything makes a difference etc) and trying to apply age old analogue "rules" to the digital domain. If it really were the case there was a difference in all of these things (some) audiophiles like to imagine, producing an album in a modern studio would be absolutely impossible.
 
Andrewjvt said:
The spirit of this thread has been lost It was a tongue in check light-hearted thread I hate bragging about work etc but I'm a qualified micro soft systems engineer from years ago now and definitely understand wave and flac files.

So to spite you all I'm ordering isolation feet for my dac and a power conditioner to improve the sound stage playback
I hope I haven't contributed too much to that, but in the spirit of the above, I look forward to hearing about your blacker blacks, and lowered noise floor!!
 

Andrewjvt

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nopiano said:
Andrewjvt said:
The spirit of this thread has been lost It was a tongue in check light-hearted thread I hate bragging about work etc but I'm a qualified micro soft systems engineer from years ago now and definitely understand wave and flac files.

So to spite you all I'm ordering isolation feet for my dac and a power conditioner to improve the sound stage playback
I hope I haven't contributed too much to that, but in the spirit of the above, I look forward to hearing about your blacker blacks, and lowered noise floor!!

Hahaha
 

Leif

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cheeseboy said:
Pedro said:
Regarding sound quality differences between HDDs and SDDs, It would be interesting to understand the scientific reasons of such claims. And some evidence.

there isn;t any. It's just audiophiles changing things (everything makes a difference etc) and trying to apply age old analogue "rules" to the digital domain. If it really were the case there was a difference in all of these things (some) audiophiles like to imagine, producing an album in a modern studio would be absolutely impossible.

I think what Pedro meant - and he can clarify if he wishes - is the scientific reasons behind why people perceive differences, and not the scientific reasons behind changes in the sound, cos there ain't any! I must admit I would like to know why and which visual cues cause these effects. Some people say that brand x produces a bass heavy sound and yet the manufacturers specifications give a frequency response of 20-20K Hz +/- 0.1 dB. Eh?
 

cheeseboy

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Leif said:
I think what Pedro meant - and he can clarify if he wishes - is the scientific reasons behind why people perceive differences, and not the scientific reasons behind changes in the sound, cos there ain't any! I must admit I would like to know why and which visual cues cause these effects. Some people say that brand x produces a bass heavy sound and yet the manufacturers specifications give a frequency response of 20-20K Hz +/- 0.1 dB. Eh?

ahh fair enough. I think there's mountains of research and papers on why people would percieve a difference, plus internet forums where people whip each other up in to a frenzy and say things like "oh a green wall gives a more vibrant sound", then somebody else does it and before you know it it's become an unoffical rule based on nothing other than because x,y and z said so.
 

ellisdj

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Andrewjvt said:
The spirit of this thread has been lost It was a tongue in check light-hearted thread I hate bragging about work etc but I'm a qualified micro soft systems engineer from years ago now and definitely understand wave and flac files.

So to spite you all I'm ordering isolation feet for my dac and a power conditioner to improve the sound stage playback

Its about time, you should order an ssd as well
 

Pedro

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cheeseboy said:
Leif said:
I think what Pedro meant - and he can clarify if he wishes - is the scientific reasons behind why people perceive differences, and not the scientific reasons behind changes in the sound, cos there ain't any! I must admit I would like to know why and which visual cues cause these effects. Some people say that brand x produces a bass heavy sound and yet the manufacturers specifications give a frequency response of 20-20K Hz +/- 0.1 dB. Eh?

ahh fair enough. I think there's mountains of research and papers on why people would percieve a difference, plus internet forums where people whip each other up in to a frenzy and say things like "oh a green wall gives a more vibrant sound", then somebody else does it and before you know it it's become an unoffical rule based on nothing other than because x,y and z said so.

I don't believe for a minute (or a second) that those differences exist, of course! I meant people that believe SDDs or HDDs have sonic differences and are serious about it should back their claims with evidence. We'll be waiting forever obviously. Maybe I was too cynical. That and my English has seen better days.

Studying the psychological effects of the perceived difference is much more interesting than debating FLAC, WAV or storage.
 

ellisdj

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Its the not the fact the bits are coming off the different storage methods that makes a trumpet sound like a drum beat on a HD compared to an SSD - its the overall noise level of the source that is affected differently by these methods, to get better sound from the computer source you need to get the noise down as low as possible.

This improves clarity and improves soundstaging, timing and realism and helps reduce the nasty digital sound that we all despise.

Spend some time with a PS Audio DirectStream Dac and hear how a system sounds on the end of a very low noise dac like this - how much clarity is really there on digital files.

Then listen to what the designer says about noise and its effects on sound and it will make more sense to you in practical terms
 

cheeseboy

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ellisdj said:
Its the not the fact the bits are coming off the different storage methods that makes a trumpet sound like a drum beat on a HD compared to an SSD - its the overall noise level of the source that is affected differently by these methods, to get better sound from the computer source you need to get the noise down as low as possible.

This improves clarity and improves soundstaging, timing and realism and helps reduce the nasty digital sound that we all despise.

Spend some time with a PS Audio DirectStream Dac and hear how a system sounds on the end of a very low noise dac like this - how much clarity is really there on digital files.

Then listen to what the designer says about noise and its effects on sound and it will make more sense to you in practical terms

rubbish. Most of it plays from ram which means the HDD/SDD is irrelivent in this context. Plus, as I've already said, if what you say is true, digital recording would be impossible, which we know it's not.
 

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