Computer Audio. Solid state drives sound better? HOW!

[Sastusbulbas]

Computer Audio. How can a Solid state hard drive sound better than a normal hard drive?

Its a drive, it has it's data read, now Blue Ray movies can play back perfectly fine from a WD green or such 1.5tb drive with a 5400rpm spin speed, so how can a solid state drive improve audio?

[goodvibrations]

Hi Sastusbulbas

Sorry if I'm missing something but is this your experience/view or someone else's?

I would say it makes no difference but I have not compared so willing to be proved wrong.

[SergeAuckland]

I don't think it can, data is data, and these days, audio data is of a trivial data rate, so whether the source is a hard-drive, a SS drive, or even carrots ina tub, as long as they're coming out fast enough and are buffered so they come out at the same(ish) time, the results will be the same.

S.

[chrisB]

Sastusbulbas wrote:

Computer Audio. How can a Solid state hard drive sound better than a normal hard drive?

Its a drive, it has it's data read, now Blue Ray movies can play back perfectly fine from a WD green or such 1.5tb drive with a 5400rpm spin speed, so how can a solid state drive improve audio?

The ONLY thing I can think of, is the absence of fans from some pcs (nothing to do with drives though)

[Sastusbulbas]

I have read a thread on aother forum, they are all happy with SSD drives making teh music sound more transparent etc, IE it seems to be improving teh audio playback quality?

I myself cannot see how, after all Blue Ray playback is probably about teh most demanding media to replay, and it can be done from a remote 5200 rpm 1.5tb drive at full capacity?

I understand its a quieter drive than a mechanical, is it another case of foo?

[browellm]

If it's in a system connected directly to the DAC, there is potentially less RFI produced by an SSD. If it's in a streaming system, it's irrelevant. That's all.

[Purite Audio]

Mark Hi, I read that somewhere, Matan Arrazi ,who makes the server magico use, measured some 'noise' in an HD,whether it makes any difference to SQ I can't say , they are quick and quiet though.
Keith.

[opusover21]

I've looked at this many many times...performance...yea great...difference to the Sound? I'm not convinced

[browellm]

Purite Audio wrote:

Mark Hi, I read that somewhere, Matan Arrazi ,who makes the server magico use, measured some 'noise' in an HD,whether it makes any difference to SQ I can't say , they are quick and quiet though.
Keith.

Yeah, isn't that pretty much what I said?

[Sheva]

Is it just something to do with absence of fans, and less background noise???

[Purite Audio]

browellm wrote:

Purite Audio wrote:

Mark Hi, I read that somewhere, Matan Arrazi ,who makes the server magico use, measured some 'noise' in an HD,whether it makes any difference to SQ I can't say , they are quick and quiet though.
Keith.

Yeah, isn't that pretty much what I said?

I was pretty much agreeing with you.

[It Cost How Much!?!]

The data stored will be the same, however solid state drives are much faster to retrieve data and write data, so possibly less jitter, but this is a long shot. Generally, they are used in laptops and they have advantages like reduced power consumption (could bea factor if a laptop is used off battery power) and are much quieter and have less EMF (no magnets and motor like disk drives), which could also be an effect. Disk drivesalso to have different buffering chips too.

I have a solid state drive Dell E4200 laptop and disk based Dell D630 laptop and I can't tell any difference into a USB DAC (Fubar/Supplier) on Windows XP Pro using Anatek A50R/Spica Angelus.

[browellm]

It Cost How Much!?! wrote:

The data stored will be the same, however solid state drives are much faster to retrieve data and write data, so possibly less jitter, but this is a long shot. Generally, they are used in laptops and they have advantages like reduced power consumption (could bea factor if a laptop is used off battery power) and are much quieter and have less EMF (no magnets and motor like disk drives), which could also be an effect. Disk drivesalso to have different buffering chips too.

I have a solid state drive Dell E4200 laptop and disk based Dell D630 laptop and I can't tell any difference into a USB DAC (Fubar/Supplier) on Windows XP Pro using Anatek A50R/Spica Angelus.

No. Absolutely, definitely, conclusively not. Jitter is not introduced into a system by hard drives. That's just not how it works.

The read performance of hard-drives is waaaay higher than any constraints around serving up audio data, including 1.8" laptop drives with spindle speeds of 4200rpm.

[It Cost How Much!?!]

browellm wrote:

It Cost How Much!?! wrote:

The data stored will be the same, however solid state drives are much faster to retrieve data and write data, so possibly less jitter, but this is a long shot. Generally, they are used in laptops and they have advantages like reduced power consumption (could bea factor if a laptop is used off battery power) and are much quieter and have less EMF (no magnets and motor like disk drives), which could also be an effect. Disk drivesalso to have different buffering chips too.

I have a solid state drive Dell E4200 laptop and disk based Dell D630 laptop and I can't tell any difference into a USB DAC (Fubar/Supplier) on Windows XP Pro using Anatek A50R/Spica Angelus.

No. Absolutely, definitely, conclusively not. Jitter is not introduced into a system by hard drives. That's just not how it works.

The read performance of hard-drives is waaaay higher than any constraints around serving up audio data, including 1.8" laptop drives with spindle speeds of 4200rpm.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment of what your saying, you have to remember that there is a fairly large gap between actual performance and spec's in IT equipment, only under optimum conditions (i.e. the makers test labs) are these actually achieved.

You also have a O/S on your PC, mostly Windows I suspect, which, especially if it's Vista Premium, screw up massively PC hardware performance (which is what we are talking about here). XP Pro is generally less screwed up along with MAC O/S. Hardware performance is measured at Bios level and not user interface level.

Now in most conditions, I agree the performance of any hard drive made in the last 4 years should be more than adiquate to stream audio, which in data transfer terms is piddlingly small data traffic. However, what I have put forward are my thoughts as to why there could be differences, I have not measured or lab tested it.

Windows Vista does a lot behind the scenes and this sometimes hits the hard drive fairly hard, so maybe this may be an issue too? I have experienced drop outs on sound and video when using Windows ferkin O/S is farting about doing it's Windows bloatwear stuff.

[browellm]

Bob, it's not sentiment it's fact.

[Tune]

I've been told (by someone who should know) that a chief project designer within a large Japanese Electronics Corporation found that different manufacturers' solid state drives sounded different to each other.

[Sastusbulbas]

As audio data is pre-cached how can there be a difference? Even considering the file size of the largest audio files tranfer rates from even a laptop drive will never be a problem so the speed of the drive in of no real benefit to audio.

I also like the quote of RFI from a HDD, was a few years ago when I was discussing such along with PSU's as possibly detrimental that I was told there is no such problem. And considering the HDD is a sealed metal case within a sealed metal box and can be low power and such I see no evidence to show either HDD or SDD as having an RFI problem which is big enough to cause disruption to digital data tranfer.

I honestly think this is seriously messed up, I mean SOLID state better than HDD when the data is prechached and such?

It's akin to saying an overclocked processor makes it sound better cause its faster.

I guess the best option would be an overclocked Intel 860 i7 Kentfield with a Crucial 128gb SSD for the OS and music software with an OCZ 1TB 3.5 SSD for the Flac files?
Of course you would need silver sata cables and an £800 Lynx soundcard too.

Though maybe a 65w Quad core would be better due to it's energy efficiency? And of course the better Dominator G2 ram will improve transparency and speed up the bass?

[browellm]

Tune wrote:

I've been told (by someone who should know) that a chief project designer within a large Japanese Electronics Corporation found that different manufacturers' solid state drives sounded different to each other.

Which bit of tower bridge did he go on to sell you?

[Arfa]

It Cost How Much!?! wrote:

The data stored will be the same, however solid state drives are much faster to retrieve data and write data, so possibly less jitter, but this is a long shot. Generally, they are used in laptops and they have advantages like reduced power consumption (could bea factor if a laptop is used off battery power) and are much quieter and have less EMF (no magnets and motor like disk drives), which could also be an effect. Disk drivesalso to have different buffering chips too.

A drives performance tends to be measured in two different ways; its seek time, i.e. how fast it can jump to the desired bit of data to start reading; and then how fast it can transfer data, once its found the data required.

SSD drives win on the seek time front, as they have no heads/laser to move around. They can near instantly start reading any chunk of anywhere on them.
Its only recently (last year or so) that SSD drives have caught up on the transfer rate front and are now similar to that of hard drives. Although I'd still be surprised if any SSD drives could match a 15,000rpm hard drive - but then these squeal like mad, so no-one here would ever consider one.

Couple of caveats: if your drive is being filled from empty or well defragmented, the chances are you audio files are laid out sequentially physically on the drive, so seek time will only be relevant when actually first press play and the drive head jumps to the start of the track. Although if your drive is badly fragmented, your audio file could potentially be broken up into loads of chunks littered all over the drive, so seek time maybe an issue.

Most drives these days will achieve at least 30MB/s transfer rate, most getting ontoward 100MB/s. To stream a cd quality wave file you just need 0.176MB/s ... It won't be drive performance causing any difference. It could only be down to cooler running/less fans, less interference or vibration etc.

[Sastusbulbas]

And as it is read from disc to memory buffer?

I have to say, this sort of stuff is what put me off the scene, AVI actives now SSD...