Does SSD sound better than Hard Disk?

[mayhem13]

Gordon, i must say with all humility that your response was quite disappointing . Again more myths and magic fueling an industry that for years has been over promising and not delivering. If I felt this was an accepted viewpoint of this collective forum membership, I'd gladly cancel my login. USB cables......really Gordon?

 

[rom661]

If you're going to be humble, set your close mindedness aside for five minutes and listen on any decent system. It's not hard. I've never had anyone not hear the difference between a generic and a $60.00 cable, often not knowing what kind of change I was making. I've done it at least a hundred times.

 

Listen. It's easy. Some listeners are flummoxed by how it can be so, but they are honest enough to acknowledge it.

 

I'm not sure how the industry is not delivering. You can buy a better, more musically enjoyable system today for less inflation adjusted money than at any time in my 30 years in the business.

 

And, you're insulting one of the smarter, least "snake oil" oriented people I know. Just sayin'...

 

[barrows]

Believe me, if anyone "wants" USB cables to not matter it is Gordon Rankin, the virtual inventor of asynchronous USB for audio! The fact is, that he, and most other people who bother to listen, cannot deny the differences, despite the notion that "it should not matter".

The facts are that these are relatively complex systems, with complex interactions that no one fully understands. I would suggest that you might keep your mind a little more open, and be receptive to other's observations.

If you have a decent system, and you use an asynchronous USB interface, I would suggest listening to some different USB cables, with an open mind, you might be surprised what you hear.

Remember, there is no such thing as a digital signal in a cable, cables only carry analog representations of digital signals.

 

[dallasjustice]

I can't tell any difference in my CAPS 2.0. The boot drive is SS of course and I have a second drive that contains my music which is a seagate 2.5'' drive. I have played the same song off of both drives and there's no difference. I have SoTM filters on both drives and LPSUs on each drive. I can't say why others are hearing differences in their systems. Maybe the improvements others are experiencing with SSDs can be attributed to some yet to be considered characteristic of the SSD that may matter more with some computers than other computers.

 

[rom661]

I understand your reaction. At the symposium comparisons were made with the SSD as the boot drive, music drive, and both. I felt that having the music files on the SSD made a negligible difference at best. It was the boot drive that was really noticeable. So, even though I use an SSD, and feel it is worthwhile, your experience with your experiment makes sense to me: My opinion and a couple of bucks will get you a cup of over roasted coffee at Starbucks.

 

Best

 

Rick

 

[mayhem13]

I have done for many years what you're suggesting and A/B'd cables as many times as my brain would allow before confusion set in. It's really hard to plug in that $60 cable and then convince your pocket that it sounds better. The SSD arguement is even sillier. A 1 is and 1 and a 0 is a 0. They're either there or they're not. Someone NEEDS to explain in technical thoroughness otherwise........Any takers?

 

[elcorso]

Hi Dallas, I do agree with Rick, the main difference comes from the OS on the SSD.

 

I also tested music stored on an SSD, and is very hard (at least to me) to get and improvement in the SQ, since I listen with a memory player, Audirvana Plus.

 

Then, it will be too expensive to have the music library on an SSD.

 

BTW, are you happy with your CAPS 2.0?

 

Best,

 

Roch

 

[rom661]

I'm really not sure how to respond. Your experience is vastly different than my own and the people I'm exposed to on a regular basis. Some don't care enough to spend the $60 but that's another story. I care enough to buy the $600 one so obviously you're from Venus and I'm from Mars. If we're ever on Earth at the same time, I'll buy you a cup of coffee.

 

Happy listening.

 

Rick

 

[elcorso]

@mayhem13, this is an eternal debate in this and another forums.

 

I have being evaluated as to have hallucinations, but I don't care since I trust my ears.

 

I do love computers, but my passion goes to music, then I can accept that there are 'non sense' regarding USB cables, PSUs, SSDs, et al.

 

I have a lot of test equipment (never as Gordon R.), but I don't use it for this, but my ears only. What I believe is that your final music gear should be very revealing, and also to have trained ears form live, unamplified music listening, in order to get the differences.

 

Roch

 

[mayhem13]

I can accept just about any tweak or upgrade in the analog side being an improvement, that's a given. And all the praise in the world to Gordon who if was involved with asynchronious audio bitsteaming...BRAVO. It's probobly the single most important development in PC audio. SSD over HDD for SQ i can't now and never will swallow. As to speed boots from an SSD running the OS, well i'll never go back to HDDs for that.....and that i'll give you.

 

[dallasjustice]

I love the CAPS 2.0. Sounds better than my MBP and is more reliable with Jrvier.

 

Btw, I am building an addition onto my house right now for listening. It will be 14'4''x23'7''x9'3''. Should be done in a couple of weeks.

 

[rom661]

Actually you don't have to take me up on coming to Earth for the coffee. You can just come to Kansas City instead...

 

And at least we can agree on the quick boot issue. Seriously, it was very interesting at the Symposium in Berkely. Chris had things set up so that it was very controlled, quick change, same material, DAC, etc. Not easy to do on a casual basis. I was skeptical as well. But I'm sorry, man, it was absolutely there.

 

Best

 

Rick

 

Perhaps my lack of depth of knowledge of digital goings on was beneficial. I can't explain it, don't particularly care why until someone like you (not an insult) brings it up. But I listen to things for a living and I accepted what I heard.

 

[thotdoc]

mayhem. Apologies this was to go to another and now I can't seem to retract it. Best G

 

You are confusing your personal reality with "the truth". So, if you cannot hear something, it doesn't exist, and if we hear that something we are fools.

 

I hear the difference between most cables and wires. You can't. That's OK. It doesn't make me right and you wrong.

 

As the saying goes, Live and learn.

 

 

 

[barrows]

But I have to ask... Dallas, are the Carmels going to be adequate for your new room, or are you planning on going with a different speaker?

 

[dallasjustice]

I have been wondering the same thing. Dick Diamond thinks they will sing in that room. We will see. I have always wanted the Anats and I will order a pair one day. Until then, I think the Carmels will be great. They can play pretty loud for their size.

 

[barrows]

I'll be interested to hear the results, please fill us in when you are done with the room.

 

[ted_b]

same length, than my music room. I think your Carmel's will be great in there, especially pulled 6 ft or so from the front wall, and using some good room treatments. My guy, Jeff Hedback, is a genius at this (all remotely, too) if you need some extra remote eyes (and ears) on the design. Sorry for the hijack...

 

[youngkoi]

Dear all

 

I would like to say Hello from thailand I've been reading this web site for quite sometime now , I thought I might could share my views.

 

To me ssd are SQ better. No doubt about that .its blackground is quieter the dynamics is a lot better and the soundstage is also wider but you have to let in burn in for a while. What do you want for more with such a little change ?

One more thing is that if you add Ac power core to the mac mini use the one that have dc block. Your whole system will sound a lot better too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mark Powell]

I have tried to resist, but I just can't My view on cables is well known. I agree that they differ.

 

BUT:

The differences between the many varieties of low cost generic cables is large.

 

The differences between the many varieties of high cost specialist cables is also large.

 

If I came to your house with a lot of varied price cables you would be completely unable to tell which were the low cost and which were the high cost because the overlap is not only great, it could well be total.

 

Both cheap and expensive cables must obey the laws of physics. We don't know them all yet, there must be more to come. But I don't think any of them will have 'price' in the equations.

 

Listen first, then ask the price. The result may well demonstrate that I am correct. I am not merely speculating, I have done this. As a result I have one fairly expensive cable. Only one.

 

 

 

[Philip Hill]

Does anyone have any experience with this new 500- 2000 SSD:

 

KingSpec PCI Express MultiCore Series Solid State Disks

 

Any news on V3 of the CAPs?

 

regards

 

Philip

[ericgriffin]

In the case of playing an audio file, the digital data (audio or not - it's all the same) moves (losslessly!) from the hard drive (or nas/f.c. san/whatever - it doesn't matter) over the pci bus, through cpu registers and into ram. Then from ram (it will probably have some other things done to it like decoding or processing by software at this point in which case it'll pass through cpu registers many times again) through the cpu registers again and back onto the pci bus, where it will land on either the usb/firewire/whatever controller or your pci audio card's memory/buffer. The time domain is not a factor all the way up through this point.

 

If you think particular storage is giving you "better highs" or whatever then I'd return it immediately. That storage must be magically mangling bits and you definitely wouldn't be able to boot an operating system from it.

 

 

Thinking the storage type makes a difference in sound is like me saying saying that my car drives better because the gas pump I use pumps gas faster...

[Yuri]

ericgriffin, almost everything is correct except that modern drives usually use DMA (e.g. data is not going through CPU registers).

 

Everyone saying that SSD sounds better than traditional HDD is either liar, or have high imagination, or suffers from hearing hallucinations. I am a firmware engineer developing SSDs and can assure there is no difference in bits and bytes transferred from either medium. Yes SSD is faster to read but this only matters in high load server applications (are you building Google cloud?). And of course it is good for fast boot for the same reason.

[sandyk]

I am a firmware engineer developing SSDs and can assure there is no difference in bits and bytes transferred from either medium.

Nobody has ever claimed that there is, however many people have reported audible differences between both types, not always in favour of SSD, that are almost certainly down to PSU interaction.Earlier SSDs used Supercaps that were shown to cause increased electrical noise due to their charging requirements. Some SSDs even had internal chokes that "chirped" due to load variations, and could be heard in a quiet environment.If you search back in the forum you will find references to a Symposium organised by Chris, the owner of this forum, where virtually everybody present preferred the sound of an SSD at a demonstration.Supply either type via a low noise and low impedance PSU and it seems highly unlikely that anybody would hear differences between both types.

Alex

[Yuri]

sandyk, People are reporting audible difference because they spent money on new SSD and expect to get a gain of it.

 

We're talking about digital domain here, right? Yes, 16 years ago when I got my first cheap China made SoundBlaster, I have heard distortions in speakers when HDD's head moved. Also I heard noise even moving the mouse.

 

But in this forum everyone's talking about audiophile-grade equipment, which at least includes external DAC connected through USB or optical or other digital interface. No one in this forum is connecting amp to the headphone out on Mac.

 

So if we're about digital output from Mac to the external DAC, the bit stream will be bit exact between SSD and HDD sources. No electrical noise (within allowed range) or presence/absence of capacitors will affect digital stream.

 

Many "audiophiles" think the sound is something like black magic. But everything made for sound reproduction, starting from Edison's phonograph, is based on science and engineering. No miracles.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Many "audiophiles" think the sound is something like black magic. But everything made for sound reproduction, starting from Edison's phonograph, is based on science and engineering. No miracles.

 

Hi Yuri - You may want to lighten up your tone a bit. There are many audiophiles on CA who will read your comment as an insult and discount anything you say.