Uh oh, I beat my SD card trick; Bypass your Ethernet switch, and make your external drives sound close to RAM disk using an Apple Thunderbolt Ethernet Adaptor and a second network connection.

[Jud]

One comparison you may want to try is SSD vs. SD boot. Both are solid state storage, both are on the same bus, but one should be a lot more responsive for computer tasks.

[wgscott]

When I combined this with room correction software memory effects, the music becomes even more realistic than any live performance.

[Superdad]

One comparison you may want to try is SSD vs. SD boot. Both are solid state storage, both are on the same bus, but one should be a lot more responsive for computer tasks.

 

That's not correct Jud. The SATA bus on the Mac minis is controller by either an Nvidia or an Intel chip (depending upon year), while the SDXC card reader for all 2010/11/12 minis is controlled by a Broadcom chip that also handles the Gigbit Ethernet.

 

If I do get an SSD to play with I will certainly try it attached to the internal SATA (since that is one of only a couple of configurations I have not tried), but based on what everyone else (over in the SD card thread) said, even an internal SSD lost out to the SD. And Tranz's shielded extension of the SATA to outside the chassis (along with powering the SSD externally) is too messy for my taste at this point. Maybe if I put the motherboard in a new chassis… But I have other things in mind.

[wisnon]

Can you summarize what you did?

 

Its confusing.

[tranz]

... And Tranz's shielded extension of the SATA to outside the chassis (along with powering the SSD externally) is too messy for my taste at this point. Maybe if I put the motherboard in a new chassis… But I have other things in mind.

 

And depending on the outcome of the SDXD OS test, the whole SATA setup might get removed anyway...

 

One and a half also suggested another case that could be used to beautify and shield things.

 

Cheers

[Jud]

 

That's not correct Jud. The SATA bus on the Mac minis is controller by either an Nvidia or an Intel chip (depending upon year), while the SDXC card reader for all 2010/11/12 minis is controlled by a Broadcom chip that also handles the Gigbit Ethernet.

 

If I do get an SSD to play with I will certainly try it attached to the internal SATA (since that is one of only a couple of configurations I have not tried), but based on what everyone else (over in the SD card thread) said, even an internal SSD lost out to the SD. And Tranz's shielded extension of the SATA to outside the chassis (along with powering the SSD externally) is too messy for my taste at this point. Maybe if I put the motherboard in a new chassis… But I have other things in mind.

 

Ah, OK, got confused about the bus.

 

Was it a preference for *music* on the SD vs. SSD (not what I'm interested in) or the *OS* on SD vs. SSD?

[Audio_ELF]

Can you summarize what you did?

 

Its confusing.

I believe the Music Mini computer was connected to the Desktop Mini via a crossover (I assume) Ethernet cable. The drive storing the music files was also connected to the Desktop Mini.

 

To allow the Desktop Mini to still access the internet, a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adaptor was added.

[Jud]

When I combined this with room correction software memory effects, the music becomes even more realistic than any live performance.

 

Jealousy is a terrible thing.

[souptin]

I believe the Music Mini computer was connected to the Desktop Mini via a crossover (I assume) Ethernet cable.

 

Please excuse my pedantry - there's no need to make or find a crossover cable to try this, normal cable will do. Used to be a right pain back in the flat earth days, but not any more - modern macses deal with the issue automagically.

 

On the SD card, dunno if this has been mentioned before: Latest gen macbook airs - going back at least a year in fact - use SD cards for the internal disk. Penny only dropped when I had to take mine for repair and the genius kept calling it that. I've been well chuffed with the sound quality from the air (until it broke!).

 

Obviously there's lots of things with potential sq impact, giezza break it's in the bedroom not an acoustic lab. But, anecdotally and with much equivocation chalk me up on the like column.

[Snowmonkey]

On the SD card, dunno if this has been mentioned before: Latest gen macbook airs - going back at least a year in fact - use SD cards for the internal disk.

Speaking of pedantry, is that a SD or a SSD card they are using?

[Jud]

On the SD card, dunno if this has been mentioned before: Latest gen macbook airs - going back at least a year in fact - use SD cards for the internal disk.

Speaking of pedantry, is that a SD or a SSD card they are using?

 

Does it matter? It's all flash memory.

[souptin]

Speaking of pedantry, is that a SD or a SSD card they are using?

 

One of these:

MacBook Air 11" (Mid 2012) 64 GB Drive (661-6618) - iFixit

[Krutsch]

Does it matter? It's all flash memory.

 

Yes, it does matter. SSD drives are intelligent in that they employ wear leveling and cell voltage monitoring for data reliability; and SSDs are WAY faster, both with respect to latency and throughput.

[Superdad]

Yes, it does matter. SSD drives are intelligent in that they employ wear leveling and cell voltage monitoring for data reliability; and SSDs are WAY faster, both with respect to latency and throughput.

 

Indeed they are much faster. But what I want to know is which bus those unique SSD cards run on. They don't look like a SATA interface. So indeed the MacBook Air might offer something special SQ-wise. Funny, I have a brand new MB Air with 8GB stashed in a sealed box for my daughter's 18th birthday in January (she is going to go off to some college to study neuroscience and she has suffered long enough with my old G4 Powerbook). I might have to "pre-test" it for her...

[baddog]

This might help answer your questions, wonderful gift BTW, looks like it won't be long for this world..

 

 

 

 

SSD Storage Details

As first reported by AnandTech, the "Mid-2013" MacBook Air models all use a new PCIe-based SSD rather than a SATA-connected one like earlier SSD-equipped MacBook Air models.

More specifically, AnandTech shared that the SSD in these systems use a custom Appledesign with a "PCIe 2.0 x2 interface, capable of a theoretical maximum of 1 GB/s in each direction."

[Krutsch]

Indeed they are much faster. But what I want to know is which bus those unique SSD cards run on. They don't look like a SATA interface. So indeed the MacBook Air might offer something special SQ-wise. Funny, I have a brand new MB Air with 8GB stashed in a sealed box for my daughter's 18th birthday in January (she is going to go off to some college to study neuroscience and she has suffered long enough with my old G4 Powerbook). I might have to "pre-test" it for her...

 

As bplexico states above, it's PCIe - all SSDs will be there, shortly, as it supports multi-lane data paths and will easily scale to match the newer SSD speeds. As far as SQ... modern SATA or PCIe are way, way, way faster than what's needed for transporting audio data; it's also hard to imagine significant differences in electrical noise (no spindle motor, et al.). But, who knows...

[Superdad]

As bplexico states above, it's PCIe - all SSDs will be there, shortly, as it supports multi-lane data paths and will easily scale to match the newer SSD speeds. As far as SQ... modern SATA or PCIe are way, way, way faster than what's needed for transporting audio data; it's also hard to imagine significant differences in electrical noise (no spindle motor, et al.). But, who knows...

 

Krutsch and Bplexico, thanks to you both. It is great to know that the SSD cards of the Air use the PCIe bus. Yes, our daughter will get tremendous use out of the new laptop (I bought it on Black Friday so I could get the $150 Apple Store credit--for an Airport Extreme to replace our ancient household wifi router), but I sure do worry about it getting stolen from her dorm room while at college.

 

Krutsch, everything I have heard so far leads me to believe that the SQ differences (between ALL the various drive and storage interfaces) are due to varied combinations of electrical "noise" (switching, PS interference, etc.) and attention demanded from the processor due to the drivers and protocols used to talk to those interfaces. As far as I can tell, speed does not seem to be a factor.

 

Then again, I have so far zero experience with an SSD via any interface, so that limits the reliability of my opinions. I will probably order a small SSD this week--just so I can say I have tried it. But I suspect that the SQ from it will be mostly dependent upon the interfaces I use to attach it (internal SATA, external Thunderbolt, or one of the many OWC Mercury enclosures I have).

 

BTW, a teaser to a new report: I am now using a really good 25-ft Ethernet cable between my two Mac minis (crazy, but it was shockingly easy to hear), and this has allowed me to set the Gigabit Ethernet on each to an MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) of 9000 byte frames--what are referred to as Jumbo Frames. Not only do the music files buffer faster into Audirvana, but I think it sounds better! I won't be able to do a controlled listening test on this until mid-week, but this does hold some promise. If I do identify a repeatably audible difference, then I will put more effort into getting one of the even more efficient [than Apple File Sharing TCP/IP] protocols to work. Those are UDP, NFS, and iSCSI. Stay tuned--at least those of you interested in maximum SQ via Ethernet.

 

Best,

ALEX

[Jud]

 

BTW, a teaser to a new report: I am now using a really good 25-ft Ethernet cable between my two Mac minis (crazy, but it was shockingly easy to hear), and this has allowed me to set the Gigabit Ethernet on each to an MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) of 9000 byte frames--what are referred to as Jumbo Frames. Not only do the music files buffer faster into Audirvana, but I think it sounds better! I won't be able to do a controlled listening test on this until mid-week, but this does hold some promise. If I do identify a repeatably audible difference, then I will put more effort into getting one of the even more efficient [than Apple File Sharing TCP/IP] protocols to work. Those are UDP, NFS, and iSCSI. Stay tuned--at least those of you interested in maximum SQ via Ethernet.

 

Best,

ALEX

 

XXHE has a setting for this (the size of the "chunks" loaded into memory). It very audibly affects sound quality. User acg (Anthony) has posted some comments here at CA and more extensively at the Phasure forums about measurements he's done on this.

[Jud]

Does it matter? It's all flash memory.

 

Yes, it does matter. SSD drives are intelligent in that they employ wear leveling and cell voltage monitoring for data reliability; and SSDs are WAY faster, both with respect to latency and throughput.

 

Yes, I know.

 

Apologies for my "shorthand." What I meant was that the memory chips themselves would be the same in terms of electrical noise, etc., so what would really be of more interest was the bus. PCIe is reasonably fast and has the advantage, from Apple's point of view, of being proprietary. Whether there is any difference re noise (lot of stuff on the PCIe bus, though it is divided up into "lanes") remains to be seen (or heard).

 

Edit: BTW, re proprietary, what I mean is that Apple is the only company I know of that has main storage for a computer configured in this precise way at the moment.

[wwaldmanfan]

A laptop allows easy use of battery power, eliminating the need for an LPSU. However, it will be more expensive to start with, and particularly with regard to RAM there unfortunately is now no way to add more post-purchase. It's surface-mounted to allow an ever-slimmer profile and lighter weight. So maxing RAM with the laptop must be done as a purchase time upgrade, which is of course more expensive.

 

One of the tradeoffs between Mini and MBP if you want 16GB of RAM and no SMPS.

 

I guess you are referring to the latest Retina MacBook Pros. However, Apple is still shipping the 2012 13" non-Retina MBP 9,2 ($1,199). Add a DIY 16gb RAM upgrade ($189) and an SSD drive kit ($107) from OWC, and you've got a powerful machine for under $1,500, including Thunderbolt, FireWire 800, USB 3.0, Ethernet, the SDXC card reader, and a built-in CD drive, plus the original 500gb HD drive in an external, bus-powered SATA/USB 3.0 enclosure.

 

Apple - MacBook*Pro - Technical Specifications

 

Upgrade Memory for Apple MacBook Pro to 8GB, or 16GB DDR3 1600MHz SDRAM + SSD and Drive options up to 1.0TB - for all 13

[alsterfan]

Krutsch and Bplexico, thanks to you both. It is great to know that the SSD cards of the Air use the PCIe bus.

 

Best,

ALEX

 

Hi Alex,

me too I would like to thank you for all your testing and letting us know what you are momentarily thinking about. Still not so familiar with Mac OS as with Windows, it is great getting background information that might push me into a new direction. Presently I am listening via iMac with Mavericks on an external SSD and the music files on a 2tb 2.5´´ silent HDD drive. Both are connected to USB with the music HDD having an external 5V power supply. Thus I am able to deactivate the internal HDD and Time Machine.

Being made curious by your technical information I put some music files on a sd card. Using this as a new source indeed results in a sonic improvement, not big but audible.

Now I´m thinking about a MacBook Air because of its SSD card using the PCIe bus...

Perhaps you or someone else could tell me if using a Core i7 has advantages over Core i5 sonicwise?

 

Thanks a lot and best wishes,

Uwe

[Superdad]

Now I´m thinking about a MacBook Air because of its SSD card using the PCIe bus...

Perhaps you or someone else could tell me if using a Core i7 has advantages over Core i5 sonicwise?

 

Dear Uwe:

 

That is a hard question for me to answer as I do not have two identical model (but one each i5 and i7) Macs on hand. The 2012 i7 from my desk (when booted with SD card) does sound a very small amount better than my 2010 Core 2 Duo that usually does the music system duty, but that's not really the comparison you are after.

 

I know that a lot of folks here use various MacBook Pros and Airs for their music systems. Last week I tried out my wife's work 2012 MacBook Pro 13" i5 (only 4GB RAM) by booting from my same optimized Mavericks SD card. I have to say that I was disappointed in comparison to my Mac mini. It was light in the bass--lacking impact and dynamics. This was only on battery. I did not remember to try it with the power adapter.

 

Best of luck with whatever you choose.

 

Regards,

ALEX

[wisnon]

Wouldnt a simple logic device that plays back a SDXC card be a better transport than any computer?

[Jud]

Wouldnt a simple logic device that plays back a SDXC card be a better transport than any computer?

 

You would then not be able to use a software player, and would be dependent on the filtering in your DAC.

[Superdad]

Wouldnt a simple logic device that plays back a SDXC card be a better transport than any computer?

 

Well, setting aside for moment what Jud just said, let's talk about this in different terms:

 

Obviously you are not referring to a cheap external SD card>USB reader, since that defeats the whole point by reintroducing the USB stack, etc.

 

Secondly, what really IS a "simple logic device?" Instructions (s/w) to read data off the flash memory has to run somewhere, loading and selecting tracks, etc. and even if the "device" resided inside the DAC (i.e. DAC with SD card slot), the data read has be clocked into the DAC properly.

 

Now if you want to put a small, low powered ARM-based module in a DAC, that's fine and some products do just that (see the Community Squeeze project). A Wandboard (what the Community Squeeze is based around) offers everything on one tiny board, including Ethernet, USB, an SD card reader, and much more. But again, it is essentially an embedded computer--you run Fedora or any small Linux variant on it.

 

There is nothing wrong with that (and in fact John Swenson and I are planning an ambitious product around a Wandboard, and an SD slot will be among the multiple inputs), but there just is no easy way of getting around software and an operating system of some sort. Sure, I suppose some clever firm with lots of resources could design a purpose-built processor (or maybe program a core into an FPGA) to do nothing but read SD cards into its DAC. But:

a) Who wants a DAC that only reads SD cards and does not accept any other input;

b) If the device has the smarts to take other inputs, then it will have some sort of processor and you might as well use it in other ways;

c) The advantage of SD card is only that it is a very clean and quiet route for general purpose computers to playback from. It just happens to sound better than other interfaces--USB Firewire, or SATA (at least the limited variations of SATA I have tried--external SATA may be quite good).

d) One still has to have some sort of interface to control playback--software again!

e) As Jud said, everyone has their own favorite PB s/w.

 

In fact, the point of my OP was that I have found I can, at least with Mac minis (which use the same chip for Ethernet and SD card interface) equal the sound of SD card with a direct, Mac-to-Mac Ethernet connection (using a 25-ft. run of the wonderful Belden-based, 10GX, bonded-pair, Cat6a Ethernet from BlueJeansCable.com). So right now, the only thing that trumps this is RAM disk for the music files.

 

-------------

Last night I was fiddling around trying to set up an NFS server/client between my minis, with the much more efficient UDP protocol (versus AFP as normal Apple Bonjour sharing is done, and versus the TCP stack usually used by NFS). It is tricky because I have stripped my music server Mavericks on SD card of a lot of extraneous processes, and some of those may be needed for the NFS Manager (NFS Manager) to work. Plus I have never done this before.

 

The point is to further reduce overhead in the Ethernet transfer--to bypass some of the TCP stack. I am encouraged to so, partially by John S., and partially due to the positive experience I have had with setting the MTU (maximum transfer unit size) of my dedicated Mac-to-Mac connection to "Jumbo Frames" 9000. (Only the very wide bandwidth BlueJeans cable has allowed me to do this; the connection would not work at that frame size with the 3 lesser cables I tried.) The effect of this change, besides sending larger data packets with the same framing overhead, was a further degree of naturalness in the sound, and more solidity and dimension to instruments.

-----------------

 

So back to SD and the idea of dedicated readers: I think people are liking SD in computers for both the SQ and for some the convenience. I know of some SD player boxes from overseas, but I don't see those fitting the bill.