Why does my hard drive sound better..?

Native_bon

Well-known member
Nov 26, 2008
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I got the biggest shock today.. Pluged my hard drive into my Oppo BDP- 105EU blueray player. Then hit play, the sound quality was just rich warm & Expressive it was ulmost unbelievable. Am i gettin coloured sound.. Even am a music producer but it just sounds so good.. Still surpirse why this would be the case. Even i tried playing the same disc though the player its self, but was not gettin the same results or as good results when play the same tracks from a hard drive plugged into the oppo usb input.

I know someone would come up with a reason why this is the case.. or just may be going mad.. :rofl:
 
All I can think is that you have dirty discs or bad lens alignment or a vivid imagination.

Isn't a difference only going to arise if the stream sent to your Rega DAC is different? Assuming lossless files on the hard drive and error checking means the hard drive output is bitperfect the difference would be if your Oppo was failing to deliver a bit perfect signal, hence my dirty disks or bad laser alignment suggestions.

Beyond that I've no idea but I'm not the sharpest tool in the box.

Another idea, does the Oppo have any upsampling or other porocessing options engaged for disk replay?
 
Well the oppo player is new so it cnt be the lens.. even right now am not using the rega dac.. Letting the oppo dac do all the work.... I mean the music just got much more expressive!!
 
It doesn't suprise me in the least.....provided I've picked you up right.

I have found that perfect rips, sent to a competent streamer, can easily outperform a CDP at similar money.
 
Burn some of your Hard Disc files to CD and then see if the CD sounds the same as the Hard Disk.

If they sound the same, then whatever program you used to rip them to the HDD must have been set to modify them in some way. (Assuming the Hard Disk files are definitely of the lossless variety)

If they don’t sound the same, then there is some sort of processing going on in the OPPO that is set different for CD & HDD.

Hope this helps

Bill
 
Used cubase software to ripp most tracks direct frm cd rom to harddrive.That may be the case. But really it does not matter how... but just know my source now gives so much more emotion and detail.
 
The Oppo is not a dedicated CD player, so the laser is not that good. A dedicated CD player will sound a lot better due to less jitter. If you want even better sound upgrade your external hard drive to a SSD and hook it up with a premium USB cable.
 
csq2 said:
The Oppo is not a dedicated CD player, so the laser is not that good. A dedicated CD player will sound a lot better due to less jitter. If you want even better sound upgrade your external hard drive to a SSD and hook it up with a premium USB cable.

What difference is an SSD drive going to make?
 
csq2 said:
The Oppo is not a dedicated CD player, so the laser is not that good. A dedicated CD player will sound a lot better due to less jitter. If you want even better sound upgrade your external hard drive to a SSD and hook it up with a premium USB cable.

So the laser in blu-ray dvd players is worse than a cd player?
 
Well, as far as my understanding is, a HDD should send out more "correct" information than a CD laser.. CD lasers are analogue, and therefore prone to interference etc, which is why you have error correction in CD players. Error correction doesn't always produce corrected results. It's a very rudimentary understanding, so maybe someone with more knowledge can flesh it out?
 
BigH said:
csq2 said:
The Oppo is not a dedicated CD player, so the laser is not that good. A dedicated CD player will sound a lot better due to less jitter. If you want even better sound upgrade your external hard drive to a SSD and hook it up with a premium USB cable.

So the laser in blu-ray dvd players is worse than a cd player?

We prefer "Differently enabled"... *pious face*
 
csq2 said:
The Oppo is not a dedicated CD player, so the laser is not that good. A dedicated CD player will sound a lot better due to less jitter. If you want even better sound upgrade your external hard drive to a SSD and hook it up with a premium USB cable.

:rofl: :wall: :help:
 
I am definitely convinced my hard drive sounds better. So is there a way to set up a home network with my blueray player with out using it as the main display for titles of Albums & artist & album covers. Cause i can only do this right now through my main tele through the Oppo blueray palyer.

Would the all mighty Squeezebox play the part or may i need something else.. Or is there any harddrive network streamers with displays..? Any help welcome.

Thanx
 
csq2 said:
The Oppo is not a dedicated CD player, so the laser is not that good. A dedicated CD player will sound a lot better due to less jitter.

That must be wrong, sorry. Aside from being by general consesnsus one of the best bits of kit currently made, HiFi News reported on the Oppo 105 in January 2013 and said: "Jitter remains vanishingly low via disc-based media at <120psec...".

Your assertion doesn't really stack up against that, does it?
 
nopiano said:
csq2 said:
The Oppo is not a dedicated CD player, so the laser is not that good. A dedicated CD player will sound a lot better due to less jitter.

That must be wrong, sorry. Aside from being by general consesnsus one of the best bits of kit currently made, HiFi News reported on the Oppo 105 in January 2013 and said: "Jitter remains vanishingly low via disc-based media at <120psec...".

Your assertion doesn't really stack up against that, does it?

Am sorry but i can only go by ears.. May be the sound from my hard drive is coloured, & I may like it better.. It may be the case.... Also looking to get my music all in one place. but right now i need someone to help with display setup.

Thanx
 
Hard drives do sound better and this is one the key factors of why people are moving from CDs to computer based playback. CD transports are rotating mechanisms that create vibrations which negatively impact sound quality. Also when laser reads a CD it may create errors. Very expensive CD transports/players try to eliminate these challenges thru various approaches, but even with lots of money put into engineering this doesn't solve the problem 100%. On the other hand, reading data from HDD is error free and there are no moving parts and much less vibration, so a HDD does the same job at much lower cost. Obviously not every computer audio setup is the same and the results may be different, but in general HDDs are better.
 
dragon76 said:
Hard drives do sound better and this is one the key factors of why people are moving from CDs to computer based playback. CD transports are rotating mechanisms that create vibrations which negatively impact sound quality. Also when laser reads a CD it may create errors. Very expensive CD transports/players try to eliminate these challenges thru various approaches, but even with lots of money put into engineering this doesn't solve the problem 100%. On the other hand, reading data from HDD is error free and there are no moving parts and much less vibration, so a HDD does the same job at much lower cost. Obviously not every computer audio setup is the same and the results may be different, but in general HDDs are better.

Totally agree.......This is fleshing out what I was hinting at earlier.
 
dragon76 said:
Hard drives do sound better and this is one the key factors of why people are moving from CDs to computer based playback. CD transports are rotating mechanisms that create vibrations which negatively impact sound quality. Also when laser reads a CD it may create errors. Very expensive CD transports/players try to eliminate these challenges thru various approaches, but even with lots of money put into engineering this doesn't solve the problem 100%. On the other hand, reading data from HDD is error free and there are no moving parts and much less vibration, so a HDD does the same job at much lower cost. Obviously not every computer audio setup is the same and the results may be different, but in general HDDs are better.
No moving parts in a hard disk? You are sadly misinformed.
 
Even a cheap cdp is capable of a bit perfect output. This has been proven. Same with dvd and blu ray players, as long as they don't resample the output to 48khz. Don't let silly little things like facts get in the way though! The only time a hdd has an advantage is with scratched discs, where the ripping software can make multiple attempts at getting a bit perfect rip.
 

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