Wiki? for SSD Primer and such

[cfmsp]

 

Chris,

 

have you considered adding a 'wiki' feature to CA?

 

There's talk of putting together an SSD primer, and a wiki would be good way to capture that sort of 'work in progress', esp. given that the format here on CA doesn't lend itself well to 'stickies'.

 

thoughts?

 

Clay

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Clay - I've been trying to figure out the best way to implement a Wiki here on CA. I'm not terribly impressed with what I've found so far. I want tight integration with the main site, such as usernames and passwords being the same for the site and the wiki etc...

 

I'm not a fan of Stickies at all (if you couldn't tell already).

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Looking hard at implementing a bridge between the main CA site and a MediaWiki installation. This will allow single sign-on and hopefully be seamless to the users.

 

[cfmsp]

 

 

great ideas, Chris!

 

I"m not a fan of stickies either.

 

clay

 

 

[Audio_ELF]

I love sticky buns? And used to put stickies all over my school books. A wiki sounds more appropriate here - maybe with some FAQ / CA101 type stuff too.

 

Eloise

 

[al128]

streaming audio from a computer to a DAC does not call for SSD (as a matter of fact nearly all of their benefits go unused for audio serving) ... just get a good traditional HDD ... and save the money for good hi-res downloads...

 

 

SSDs are great, but they offer very little advantage over a trad. HDD for serving audio ... your bottleneck is your USB or spdif interface ... any decent HDD has a bandwidth many times that of a USB port ...

 

to put it in an analogy ... you have a porsche which is stuck in first gear ... and to make it go faster you put a supercharger on the engine (while leaving the gearbox untouched)

 

 

cheers

al

 

[sandyk]

al128

The main enemy of PC Audio is the external and internal vibration of both the HDDs and the Optical writer itself, that rips the initial .wav file to the HDD.The SMPS in particular, is a major contributor to poor sound quality, due to it's fans and buzzing being conducted right throughout the PC metalwork.HDD cooling fans, and other fans also contribute to this deterioration.

Products such as "AFM02B Ultra Soft Acoustic fan Mounts" will help reduce this problem.

Vibration in external HDDs appears to be an even greater problem, as does the quality of the external PSU.

A linear PSU, or battery power as "silverlight" has demonstrated, is superior.

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/PC-Performanceupgrades-impact-sound-Honest-Canvass-Opinion#comment-24403

 

See also the reply from "Siverlight" in this thread, and especially the 2 replies from "silverlight" in this later thread, especially his reference to using an internal SSD.

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/CD-Japan-server#comment-24994

 

[cfmsp]

"to put it in an analogy ... you have a porsche which is stuck in first gear ... and to make it go faster you put a supercharger on the engine (while leaving the gearbox untouched)"

 

the point of an SSD is NOT to make the porsche go faster.

 

The point is to to lessen other impacts the 'engine' might have on the car, i.e. vibrations, unwanted (exhaust) noise, "jerky" acceleration (i.e., unnecessary hard disk access), etc.... IOW, turn the Porsche into a BMW.

 

 

clay

 

 

 

[al128]

i see ...

 

hmmm ... what does drive vibration do to my 0s and 1s? ... my browser comes on wheater the fan is spinning or no - EVERY TIME - so there arent any bits lost... arent those old fashoned CDPlayers way worse, they need to do real time error correction of a scratched disc (as opposed to a DAC that is fed the already checksum-checked .flac file)???

 

even if those things should influence (which I do doubt)

arent there any (imho smarter) software solutions available?

 

I seem to recall that foobar allows you to force it to load a whole track into memory an play it form there ... cost: *cero*

 

my point is still that SSD is very unefficient, esp. for any highres music ...(again, I am talking about hobby-applications ... a multi million dollar studio that needs to have all bases covered is obv. a different pair of shoes)

 

 

also ... on dirt-cheap netbooks, there are quite a few that allow the fan to be forced off by software-settings ... cost: *cero*

 

 

I get the distinct feeling the $400.00 x ft speakercable snakeoil vendors are now moving into computer audio territory ;o) (no insult meant, not directed to anybody particular posting here)

 

cheers

al

 

ps: yeah ... I AM CHEAP ;-)

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Al - I definitely hear what you're saying about what should and shouldn't make a difference based on a certain set of knowledge people have about how computer audio works. But, I disagree with your conclusions. I've been A/B testing SSD v. HDD v. NAS for quite a while. I also demonstrated this comparison to two large groups of people on two different days at the Computer Audiophile Symposium at Fantasy Studios in June. The results are unanimous that SSD clearly has a sonic improvement v. HDD and NAS drives. I have nothing to gain by one drive sounding better than another and I did not sway the audiences in any way. Yet, everyone agreed that SSD improves the sound.

 

I highly recommend you try an SSD as long as the rest of your computer playback chain is configured correctly. Misconfiguration can lead to everything sounding the same (bad) and giving false results to many tests.

 

[al128]

Chris,

i accept and respect your opinion - you have obv. Done more testing than me...

 

Did you also do some ABX testing? We all know our mind can be very powerful...

 

Also, what is the rationale behind a SSD sounding superior? Is there any consensus on a rationale?

 

Thx for any information, Al