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Sound Quality of External HDD


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Hello all,

 

I'm experiencing serious (for me) degrading in SQ after expanding my external HD from 2T to 4T, and looking for an alternative storage. So would anyone with similar experiences recommend me a HDD with good SQ?

 

My computer for audio playback is a 2009 Mac mini, 4G ram, Audirvana 1.5 (I didn't like the sound of 2.0) w memory play and upsampling to the max. All music files are stored in an external HDD connected via firewire. I was using an OWC enclosure with WD 2T green HDD. (The enclosure was limited to 2T)

 

My speaker system is a mini maggie system with additional DWM woofer, power amp is Ayre V5 fed by a Calyx M DAP used as a USB DAC.

 

After the 2T HDD came full, I've replaced the external HDD with another OWC encloser, same chipset with 6T capacity, OWC MEP934FWU2 Mercury Elite Pro Oxford 934... in stock at OWC and WD 4T green. The sound quality is significantly bad with new HDDs, with less liquid texture, stiffer and grainier sound signature. I tried 2T WD green with the new enclosure, it sounded better, so I think the culprit is the HDD.

 

So would you recommend me a sonically better HDD? WD red? In my experiences the Hitachi 2T had quite loud spinning noises. And I heard the failure rate of Seagate is several times higher than Hitachi or WD (Why I went to WD, except its price). But I'd like to hear wisdoms from others.

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I'm experiencing serious (for me) degrading in SQ after expanding my external HD from 2T to 4T, and looking for an alternative storage. So would anyone with similar experiences recommend me a HDD with good SQ?

 

My computer for audio playback is a 2009 Mac mini, 4G ram, Audirvana 1.5 (I didn't like the sound of 2.0) w memory play and upsampling to the max. All music files are stored in an external HDD connected via firewire. I was using an OWC enclosure with WD 2T green HDD. (The enclosure was limited to 2T)

 

After the 2T HDD came full, I've replaced the external HDD with another OWC encloser, same chipset with 6T capacity, OWC MEP934FWU2 Mercury Elite Pro Oxford 934... in stock at OWC and WD 4T green. The sound quality is significantly bad with new HDDs, with less liquid texture, stiffer and grainier sound signature. I tried 2T WD green with the new enclosure, it sounded better, so I think the culprit is the HDD.

 

So would you recommend me a sonically better HDD? WD red? In my experiences the Hitachi 2T had quite loud spinning noises. And I heard the failure rate of Seagate is several times higher than Hitachi or WD (Why I went to WD, except its price). But I'd like to hear wisdoms from others.

Interesting... I am using a similar enclosure:

 

OWC OWCME3QHKIT0GB Mercury Elite Pro eSATA,... in stock at OWC

 

with a 2tb WD black (which is not noisy in spite of spinning at 7200rpm). I have been generally happy with this setup (both w a 2009 mini and now w a 2012 i7 mini).

 

I did notice at some point that plugging the HDs switching supply to the same line as my gear was worse than using another phase in the house (which I had already implemented in the past). My point is that maybe the new HDs power smps is putting some crud in the line. Could you try using the original enclosure's ps?

NUC10i7 + Roon ROCK > dCS Rossini APEX DAC + dCS Rossini Master Clock 

SME 20/3 + SME V + Dynavector XV-1s or ANUK IO Gold > vdH The Grail or Kondo KSL-SFz + ANK L3 Phono 

Audio Note Kondo Ongaku > Avantgarde Duo Mezzo

Signal cables: Kondo Silver, Crystal Cable phono

Power cables: Kondo, Shunyata, van den Hul

system pics

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Thank you for your suggestion, miguelito. I compared two HDDs using one same PSU that I felt better of two SMPSes came with each enclosure, so it is not the PSU. I'm trying to separate powers for the computer, audio gears and other gears but the number of mains in my room is limited. I think linear PSUs will do good but it's not easy to find a right one locally.

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