External HDD - does firewire have any benefit over usb 2 for sound quality?

[TSW]

Iam running a Mac mini into a Benchmark DAC using a Van den Hul glass toslink cable. I have an outboard toshiba HDD and am wondering whether there would be any sonic benefit to changing drives to a firewire drive? (I am playing lossless and AIFF files from the stored drive. )

 

Any insights are appreciated in advance.

 

[Guest]

Try it....

 

I have read that damping/isolating an external HD affects sound quality though.

 

As with anything YMMV.

 

 

 

[Christopher]

Hi TSW,

 

Provided that you continue to use a TOSLINK (Optical Cable) connection between your Mac Mini and your Benchmark DAC, I would not be too concerned about upgrading to an external firewire drive. A USB connection between your Mac Mini and your external drive should be fine for audio files, including AIFF.

 

However, if you decide to use a USB connection between your Mac Mini and your Benchmark DAC, then a firewire drive is recommended. Please see the following thread for further reading: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/asynchronous-USB-DAC-external-USB-HDD-Problem

 

Aside from sonic considerations, you may find a firewire connection to be faster when moving a large library or performing a back-up. Personally, I connect to my external drive via FW800. It works very well.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Best regards,

Chris

 

 

 

[Audio_ELF]

Firewire and USB between disk and computer are equal and equivilent (in terms of sound quality) unless they aren't...

 

One factor which **may** affect SQ is that (at least in theory) a USB connection uses more processing than a FireWire connection. Also power and grounding issues may affect the SQ. Also, as commented, USB drive with a USB DAC may cause troubles if both are using the same logical USB connection.

 

Though for my purposes I would consider them the same.

 

Eloise

 

[TSW]

This is all very helpful. I will stick with the USB drive for now.

 

Another random question on the off chance someone knows an answer: my USB drive will not mount to my Mac unless it is unplugged prior to start up, and then I plug it in afterward. Is there any way to fix this? I assume it is because the drive is powered from the USB drive too.

 

[Guest]

There have been reports that damping external drives [because of the spinning disk] does affect sound quality.

 

 

 

[Audio_ELF]

I think we read (and dismissed your suggestion) the first time you said it - repeating it doesn't make it any more true!!

 

Eloise

 

[Guest]

I think we read (and dismissed your suggestion) the first time you said it - repeating it doesn't make it any more true!!

 

Aaahhhhh, Groupthink at it's best. I suspect you are the mouth of the organism you call "We".

 

Getting old in the tooth I hadn't realized I already said it though, and being too lazy to check all the posts before I posted didn't help.

 

Ok, carry on.....

 

Oh BTW, power cords affects the sound of most DAC's, Pre's and Poweramps....has the collective agreed upon and accepted this at least?

 

:-)