Hard drive GREATLY altering audio quality

[Ribozyme]

My music library is over taking the hard drive space on my mac mini. I thought I could solve this by simply moving some of my audio files to an external hard drive. I decided that itunes library would be the best option because it was the lowest quality format. I got a WD external attached by a USB cable to my mini and changed the file location in itunes. The audio played from the hard drive sounded terrible; dynamic range sounds greatly compressed. This difference is huge! Like moving from a stereo to a boom box.

I haven’t tried changing to high-end audio cable yet but that is on the list. But I am not sure this will help. I did try this on my macbook pro as well and from two different dacs. Both the musical fidelity in my stereo and the Marantz sr7005 attached to the tv sound terrible.

Is it the hard drive? Or the cable? Can music sound the same from an external drive?? What should I do about my growing library?

[wgscott]

The differences, if any, should be so subtle that people will argue about whether they even exist. But those who claim a difference almost always say it is an improvement. Something must be defective, either the drive itself, the drive's power supply (assuming it isn't bus-powered), or the cable used. Some suggest the USB cable should not be on the same bus at that connecting to the DAC. How do you connect it?

 

If you have the external drive plugged in, but play music from your main drive, do you still encounter the problem (i.e., is it specific to having the music file residing on the external drive)?

 

Nice username, btw.

[Ribozyme]

The music sounds different by a very large margin. Even people that say high end audio is crazy (my gf) can hear it.

 

I can't figure out why the same file sounds different on the internal hard drive versus the external hard drive.

[bluesman]

There really shouldn't be any difference at all. I have about 8,000 FLACs and a few hundred MP3s on an external drive (D-Link DNS320 NAS) and a local backup on a USB Seagate HD connected directly to the PC I use as a front end in my main audio system (running Foobar). The 2 sources sound identical to me.

 

There can be trouble when you're running both your input and your output over the same USB bus. If you drive a USB DAC input from the same port or card through which the audio files are coming into the computer, it probably explains the problem. This is especially obvious when a multi-outlet USB hub is used to connect input and output to the same USB port. If this is what you're doing, you'll have to go digital, optical or ethernet for one or the other.

[4est]

I have a hard time imagining that it is anything but the drive or the USB buss in general that is faulty. There can definitely be differences, but not as great as you are describing. I'd try another drive, or at least a USB stick.

[sarcese52]

Get a firewire hard drive. I have one on my iMac & it sounds great. It's an iomega

[Old Listener]

The audio played from the hard drive sounded terrible; dynamic range sounds greatly compressed. This difference is huge! Like moving from a stereo to a boom box.

 

This doesn't sound like a problem with your hard drive or your cable.

 

How did you move your files from the Mac Mini's internal drive to the external drive? If you used iTunes to move the files, it might have changed the file format from a high quality one like WAV, AIFF or ALAC to a low bit rate AAC format.

 

Check your settings in iTunes and the Mac audio settings. Perhaps some setting affecting audio output has been changed.

 

You should try to understand the cause of the problem before spending any money on something that might or might not fix the problem.

 

Bill

[elcorso]

My music library is over taking the hard drive space on my mac mini. I thought I could solve this by simply moving some of my audio files to an external hard drive. I decided that itunes library would be the best option because it was the lowest quality format. I got a WD external attached by a USB cable to my mini and changed the file location in itunes. The audio played from the hard drive sounded terrible; dynamic range sounds greatly compressed. This difference is huge! Like moving from a stereo to a boom box.

I haven’t tried changing to high-end audio cable yet but that is on the list. But I am not sure this will help. I did try this on my macbook pro as well and from two different dacs. Both the musical fidelity in my stereo and the Marantz sr7005 attached to the tv sound terrible.

Is it the hard drive? Or the cable? Can music sound the same from an external drive?? What should I do about my growing library?

 

Nobody could help you if you don't list your computer music playback system, and how is interconnected.

 

As a ruler of thumb if you feed your DAC from the computer by USB (the most common), your external hard drive must be connected to the computer by firewire. And vice versa.

 

Roch

[sandyk]

The music sounds different by a very large margin. Even people that say high end audio is crazy (my gf) can hear it.

 

I can't figure out why the same file sounds different on the internal hard drive versus the external hard drive.

As others have said, the differences should only be relatively subtle.

I would check the file sizes of the same material at both locations.

[bluesman]

If this is what you're doing, you'll have to go digital, optical or ethernet for one or the other.

 

Get a firewire hard drive. I have one on my iMac & it sounds great. It's an iomega

 

Sorry, I forgot about Firewire because I went to PC before it was invented. That's a great way to go - it's fast and it leaves USB as a one-way street.

[Supreme Dalek]

The other option is to use an esata connection between the hard drive and computer and then USB to the DAC. This is assuming that you have A an esata on your computer/laptop and B an external HD with one. Esata is faster than USBb2 and firewire.

 

I have had some playback issues myself with one of my computers using one usb as an in and one as an out.

[Fireblade]

Ribozyme,

 

In addition to most of the correct replies you've got so far, I would like to propose my solution to your same issue:

 

Like you, I use a WD 1.5 Tb external drive fed through a USB cable to my laptop. I also use a USB/DAC from my laptop through a USB cable. It is well known that you cannot use both USB ports concomitantly, as this would over-burden your USB bay (translation protocols, energy, etc.).

 

My solution is to select the files I'm interested in listening in a given session, and have them copied in WAV format from the external HD (all FLAC) into my internal HD. From here my Foobar2000 picks the selections and play them from RAM (allocated exclusive use of a huge amount of RAM to Foobar2000), and streams it through my USB/DAC. I also use Fidelizer to further avoid possible latency issues.

 

I've used this method for almost a year now, without any problems. Right now, I keep a very large collection of WAVs in my internal HD as these selections get to be played more, so many times I don't even have to transfer the FLACS from my external HD to have several listening sessions directly from the internal HD.

 

Give it a try, it doesn't get in your way. Good luck!