NVMe SSD designed for audiophiles

[rafa]

On 9/9/2022 at 4:42 PM, di-fi said:

With a M.2 NVME to PCIe adapter and this cable AND the right voltage could external power work for a 'standard' NVMe M.2 SSD? but how to be sure to be only on external power?

 

http://www.adt.link/product/R42SF.html

 

 

This is m.2 to pcie. Then you need another one pcie to m.2 to be able to connect your m.2 drive again.

 

[Rsmaximasr]

“Have always been on the fence about running OS in RAM vs off the Optane drive... RAM was more incisive but Optane was smoother.“

 

You do know that the OS executes from ram not any kind of disk, maybe you don’t. Just like all music files, they are read from storage or maybe some cache then loaded into memory before output thru some Ethernet/pcie/usb/other protocol.

This is why the theory of making a nvme/ssd “audiophile” quality is bogus. What is an audiophile device/ssd/nvme going to do for you when that data (OS, file, data) is read into memory? Now somebody will think they have to make audiophile quality memory sticks!!!
 

[Ghmi]

1 hour ago, Rsmaximasr said:

“Now somebody will think they have to make audiophile quality memory sticks!!!
 

 

Well, RC filters for RAM have been available for quite some time already : https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/alimentations/elfidelity-axf-75-power-purification-pc-hifi-memory-ddr4-p-11163.html

EVERY possible niche for audiophile scams is taken already. You can add RC filters or gold basically to every part of a computer and audio setup, and there are way enough people in the audiophile community who have more money than understanding in electronics to buy that.

 

It's kinda sad, but well, you can see that as a form of wealth redistribution. The part which bugs me is the added power consumption and fire hasard, particularly when people start replacing switching power supplies with linear power supplies, having an unknown number of  separate power sources connected in random ways etc.

[MarcelNL]

3 hours ago, Rsmaximasr said:

“Have always been on the fence about running OS in RAM vs off the Optane drive... RAM was more incisive but Optane was smoother.“

 

You do know that the OS executes from ram not any kind of disk, maybe you don’t. Just like all music files, they are read from storage or maybe some cache then loaded into memory before output thru some Ethernet/pcie/usb/other protocol.

This is why the theory of making a nvme/ssd “audiophile” quality is bogus. What is an audiophile device/ssd/nvme going to do for you when that data (OS, file, data) is read into memory? Now somebody will think they have to make audiophile quality memory sticks!!!
 

you know that dogma's are mostly bogus too? It's kondof sad that you seem to be able to decide about something without any trying or testing. There is a more appropriate thread for your kind of discussion; something with 'objectivist' in it 

[Ghmi]

53 minutes ago, MarcelNL said:

you know that dogma's are mostly bogus too? 

 

How computer hardware and software works isn't really all that "subjective". You can just check your OS documentation and see how RAM and virtual memory are handled. That's how it's done, not through some wildly unreliable "testing".

Spoiler : unless you're using a very exotic OS, all of the data goes through the RAM before being ultimately handled by the CPU.

 

How the music sounds to you is subjective, sure. How a computer works, not so much.

[MarcelNL]

28 minutes ago, Ghmi said:

 

How computer hardware and software works isn't really all that "subjective". You can just check your OS documentation and see how RAM and virtual memory are handled. That's how it's done, not through some wildly unreliable "testing".

Spoiler : unless you're using a very exotic OS, all of the data goes through the RAM before being ultimately handled by the CPU.

 

How the music sounds to you is subjective, sure. How a computer works, not so much.

I'll kindly point you to the 'objectivist' topic, all computers handle data in a predefined way yet that does not explain the huge differences in sound quality on one and the same platform. 

[Ghmi]

Off course it doesn't explain those differences in sounds quality : none of the digital parts of a computer play any role in sound quality.

 

It's all up to your analog circuit and your subjectivity. If you notice any difference while adding filters to digital parts, it just means that at least one of those two isn't as reliable as you think it is. Maybe your analog setup is messed up and your sound quality just varies randomly. Or maybe it's all in your head and you just really want to believe that your ears are better than they actually are, some kind of snobbism, or a need to justify the purchase of expensive snake oil. Or both.

 

This being said, I don't think a real audiophile would care this little about how his setup actually works and end up treating it like it's some kind of crystal power magic.

[fas42]

8 minutes ago, Ghmi said:

It's all up to your analog circuit and your subjectivity. If you notice any difference while adding filters to digital parts, it just means that at least one of those two isn't as reliable as you think it is. Maybe your analog setup is messed up and your sound quality just varies randomly.

 

 

The unfortunate truth is that essentially all "analog setups are messed up" ... lower resolution playback will make it harder to hear this; the greater the 'nominal transparency' the easier it becomes to notice things. The only solution is to improve the integrity of the playback chain on the analogue side, a non-trivial task.

 

Sound quality varies, but not randomly - if one takes the investigation of this seriously, then a causal link will always be found. But the industry still doesn't consider this as important as playing with new tech ideas, or bling - hence, progress in resolving the issues is mighty slow ...

[Rsmaximasr]

Most of the people who buy into  bogus technologies want to believe that they hear a difference so they don’t look bad after spending hundreds/thousands of dollars. I have friends that have hundreds of thousands of $$$ invested in their audio system and they sound like $&&$, and they keep spending tens of thousands trying to make it sound better (maybe they need femto m.2 nvme devices), but they sure like bragging about their $100k turntables and $200k speaker systems.

[Exocer]

3 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

you know that dogma's are mostly bogus too? It's kondof sad that you seem to be able to decide about something without any trying or testing. There is a more appropriate thread for your kind of discussion; something with 'objectivist' in it 

@MarcelNL not worth the effort. Let them do what they’ll do to appease themselves 😎 while we sit back and enjoy…

[Ghmi]

22 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The unfortunate truth is that essentially all "analog setups are messed up" ... lower resolution playback will make it harder to hear this; the greater the 'nominal transparency' the easier it becomes to notice things. The only solution is to improve the integrity of the playback chain on the analogue side, a non-trivial task.

 

Also a task which doesn't just come down to buying expensive stuff. But an interesting task, at least.

I work with small analog signals for a living, the kind for which the location, shape and thickness of pcb traces matters, and which sometimes requires not just filtering caps but running on batteries. When I see two caps slapped on a 700$+ ssd, it makes me nuts.

 

Exocer : don't worry too much about us. I'll be able to enjoy quite a lot of true analog live music with 600$ not spent on 2 caps on a SSD, or 1250$ not spent on a fancy 20 MHz clock with extremely low jitter measured at 10Hz.

 

 

[Carlosoptico]

It's always the same .  Throughout history there have always been ultra-conservative fanatics who refuse to know the truth of things, just because they say so, without having experienced it, out of egocentrism.  The best example, Galileo.  One can work in the computer sector, but if you have not experienced the impact that the different elements that compose it produce on the final sound, you are not an expert in sound with computers, even if you are an expert in computer science in general.  On my server I have had Intel M.2 SSD disks (760), SATA Apacer SLC and the M.2 NVME femto, two units of each and the differences are very large, in addition to USB and NET femto cards first and XE later , Neotech copper DC cables and then Mundorf silver/gold.  The Intel M.2 took its power from the motherboard, dirtier than the one that powered the SATA and M.2 NVME femto SSDs that took it from an LPS JCAT Optimo Duo.  But also, the noise generated by the SATA connection makes the M.2 NVME through PCIe and directly to the CPU, have a better sound.  That's my experience.  Adding an external Jcat Master OXCO Clock to the Jcat USB XE card powered by an LPS Plixir Elite BDC has made the server sound much better than it did 4 years ago without all the new updates.  That's experience!!!  It is not talk, without an empirical basis. Carlos

[Ghmi]

1 hour ago, Carlosoptico said:

It's always the same .  Throughout history there have always been ultra-conservative fanatics who refuse to know the truth of things, just because they say so, without having experienced it, out of egocentrism.  The best example, Galileo.  One can work in the computer sector, but if you have not experienced the impact that the different elements that compose it produce on the final sound, you are not an expert in sound with computers, even if you are an expert in computer science in general.  On my server I have had Intel M.2 SSD disks (760), SATA Apacer SLC and the M.2 NVME femto, two units of each and the differences are very large, in addition to USB and NET femto cards first and XE later , Neotech copper DC cables and then Mundorf silver/gold.  The Intel M.2 took its power from the motherboard, dirtier than the one that powered the SATA and M.2 NVME femto SSDs that took it from an LPS JCAT Optimo Duo.  But also, the noise generated by the SATA connection makes the M.2 NVME through PCIe and directly to the CPU, have a better sound.  That's my experience.  Adding an external Jcat Master OXCO Clock to the Jcat USB XE card powered by an LPS Plixir Elite BDC has made the server sound much better than it did 4 years ago without all the new updates.  That's experience!!!  It is not talk, without an empirical basis. Carlos

 

I'm not an expert in "sound with computers". I'm an expert in measuring very small analog signals with computers. Which is way more constraining, but has an advantage : I don't have to relay on my ears and subjectivity to "see" the effect of electronic components. I am equipped to measure this effect directly at every stage of the process. When I talk about a signal and a noise, I have a clear definition of said signal and noise, and am able to directly measure it.

 

And based on this expertise, I can tell you that :

 - your aren't experiencing nor testing anything. That's not how you do that. If you want to test the effect of a component, you start by measuring this effect directly on its inputs and outputs before even looking at the "final result".

 - what you say makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and shows that you have absolutely no clue about what you're doing. You don't even remotely understand what sound is and how "sound with computers" works.

 

The 700$ SSD is a good example : 

1. there's no sound nor noise at the SSD level. The signal you call sound is first generated by your DAC. It simply doesn't exist before that stage. Your music at this stage is purely digital, and noise in a digital signal isn't defined and filtered in the same way as in an analog signal. Noise at the digital level is due to jitter or bit changes. The capacitors used as a filter on the scammy SSD are analog filters : the only thing they can do in terms of digital noise is make it MUCH worse.

2. data doesn't go "through PCIe and directly to the CPU". It goes from the SSD to the RAM, then the CPU cache, where it's processed. If you're worried about noise in the analog sense of the term, the CPU cache is FULL of it. It's on the CPU die, that's the worst place of the whole computer and anything you can do is negligible compared to that.

3. If you're worried about digital noise, just get ECC RAM and clock timings right. Probably won't make much of a difference considering how reliable it all is nowadays, but that's how you do it. If you're worried about analog noise at the digital stage, well, you're worried about a drop in an ocean. The very functionning of your computer IS analog noise and there's nothing you can do about it unless you shut down the whole computer. Just isolate your analog circuit and shield it properly. The only things you need to run on a separate stable power supply is the DAC and amps.

4. having a separate power supply for an SSD is a whole world of pain. You're not just adding a new power source, you're also adding a new ground. What's the potential difference between your grounds ? How are they connected together ? Did you use the star point grounding technique ? This has a huge potential to create more digital and analog noise, or even to completely mess-up the SSD.

 

What you do isn't "empirical". It's "subjective" in the pejorative sense of the word. You don't even have the beginning of a test : you just buy expensive snake oil and decide that it works because you don't want to admit you've been scammed.

If you're ok with spending enough to buy an actual music instrument in devices which can only degrade your system, fine. But you've been warned : you're buying expensive scams which in the best case have no effect whatsoever and in the worst case make your computer less reliable, much less efficient and less safe.

[MarcelNL]

here we go again...the fact that you are unable to measure something does not mean it does not exist.

[rafa]

12 minutes ago, Ghmi said:

there's no sound nor noise at the SSD level. The signal you call sound is first generated by your DAC

You are missing whole point which is, it is all electricity all the way from data on the drive to speaker driver.

It doesn't matter how we call signals on the path.

[Ghmi]

24 minutes ago, MarcelNL said:

here we go again...the fact that you are unable to measure something does not mean it does not exist.

I am perfectly able to measure this kind of signals and noises. It's far from being as challenging as anything I do for a living.

Considering the budget you put into snake oil, you are also able to measure these, you just don't want to.

 

19 minutes ago, rafa said:

You are missing whole point which is, it is all electricity all the way from data on the drive to speaker driver.

It doesn't matter how we call signals on the path.

"Eletricity" isn't a signal, and it matters very much how we call signals on the path : digital and analog signals are fundamentally different. They're encoded in very different ways, at very different frequencies, don't suffer from the same kind of noise, and aren't processed nor carried in the same way.

It's like saying "it's all just sound anyway, why can't I just use a 2$ buzzer instead of expensive speakers ?".

 

[Currawong]

45 minutes ago, Ghmi said:

I am perfectly able to measure this kind of signals and noises.

Then why don't you? Nobody cares what your qualifications are. Nobody cares what you know or think. As insane as the idea of a low-noise SSD is to many people (including myself) unless you can produce an actual, useful experiment with these SSDs that gives meaningful information, near nothing you write serves any purpose.  And yes, people who believe that they are getting an improvement, including the manufacturer, should have experiments that show an actual benefit as well. 

[Ghmi]

12 minutes ago, Currawong said:

Then why don't you? Nobody cares what your qualifications are. Nobody cares what you know or think. As insane as the idea of a low-noise SSD is to many people (including myself) unless you can produce an actual, useful experiment with these SSDs that gives meaningful information, near nothing you write serves any purpose.  And yes, people who believe that they are getting an improvement, including the manufacturer, should have experiments that show an actual benefit as well. 

Send me one of those scams, I'll gladly test it. Or better : I can recommend the equipment you need to do that (less expensive one than the SSD itself) and write you a test plan if you're willing to do the work. One thing I won't do is give money to scammers. 

 

A "low noise SSD" isn't insane. It's stupid. It's not even an idea : it doesn't mean anything. The very functioning of a SSD is noise from an analog standpoint. The only low noise SSD you can get is a non-functioning SSD.

 

The manufacturers your are talking about do not have any meaningful experiment to show for a very simple reason : they don't actually have products to sale and test. They're scammers. They sell you the groundless belief that the sound of your system has improved in an untestable way.

 

All digital products with added analog filters are scams based on the fact that the people who buy them are somewhat familiar with analog electronics but have no understanding of how different digital and mixed-signals electronics are.

[Rsmaximasr]

I worked at 1 of the leading solid state technology manufacturers in the world (pcie, ssd, nvme: all enterprise grade components, not your cheap stuff we use in our computers), and I will ask some of these engineers if the tested any of their products for audio sound quality. Since the same firm is the largest hard drive manufacturer, I’ll ask the same question about their hard drives. I ran into an audiophile manufacturer at an audio show that told me this was the best sounding hard drive in his testing and only used these in his products. I asked him which drives he tested. I told him who I worked for and some of the disk drives were the same exact drive, just different labels on them. We made drives that others rebranded with their logos. There is only a few manufacturers that make hard drives but there are dozens of manufacturers labels on them.

[yamamoto2002]

I read somewhere on the internet, in early 2000s, HDD manufacturer actually listened the requests some requirements from audio visual industries, more specifically, from manufacturers of video recorder, and produced purpose built firmware for them! This special firmware do following things:

 

When data read/write CRC error happens, conventional HDD firmware retry several times to read/write the same sector until data is read/write successfully. But for video recorder use-case, user experience is better to read/write wrong data on one sector (one frame of image is corrupted) and continue to record/play, than retrying for 10 seconds to r/w one sector of data and 10 seconds of video is lost/stopped

 

and this kind of special firmware is used until today, as special HDD model for surveillance video recorders

[MarcelNL]

4 hours ago, Rsmaximasr said:

I worked at 1 of the leading solid state technology manufacturers in the world (pcie, ssd, nvme: all enterprise grade components, not your cheap stuff we use in our computers), and I will ask some of these engineers if the tested any of their products for audio sound quality. Since the same firm is the largest hard drive manufacturer, I’ll ask the same question about their hard drives. I ran into an audiophile manufacturer at an audio show that told me this was the best sounding hard drive in his testing and only used these in his products. I asked him which drives he tested. I told him who I worked for and some of the disk drives were the same exact drive, just different labels on them. We made drives that others rebranded with their logos. There is only a few manufacturers that make hard drives but there are dozens of manufacturers labels on them.

I work as freelancer for one of the leading pharma companies, actually all those white round pills they sell are the same and are made by just one contract manufacturer, they just put a different label on them and insert a suitably altered package insert to go with it. FDA EMA and PMDA are in on this scam.

 

Did you at all read ANY part of the background on this topic?

[Exocer]

18 hours ago, Ghmi said:

Exocer : don't worry too much about us. I'll be able to enjoy quite a lot of true analog live music with 600$ not spent on 2 caps on a SSD, or 1250$ not spent on a fancy 20 MHz clock with extremely low jitter measured at 10Hz.

 

Oh so you've followed some of my posts (or checked my profile)? Awesome 😎. There are ways to try some of what i've listed there. A lot of it doesn't cost an arm and a leg either. But admittedly, some of it is very expensive. Definitely up to the listener(s) to buy into these sorts of things. 

 

As for the Femto NVME - count me in as a naysayer who ended up experimenting with it, and, ended up liking it VS some other really popular options. I just wish it didn't cost so much 😁. 

[Carlosoptico]

For me, listening to music recordings has more to do with recording a musical act (sometimes the musical act) than with electrical measurements of analog signals.  What device measures the depth, width or altitude of the sound scene.  Or its three-dimensionality and holographic quality.  Or how to measure the correct location of the interpreters.  Or the intelligibility of each of its melodies, even in a large orchestra.  Phew!  So many things, but above all, what device measures, what is felt by many people, who have experienced it, that it sounds like a real event!  That has been my evolution since 2019, with building a music server.  From music coming out of the speakers to attending a very rewarding sound experience.  !!!  That cannot be measured!!!  Same Apacer ECC RAM, same motherboard, server grade and Intel Xeon CPU.  Only the SSDs and cards and the DC and ATX power supplies were changed.  With the same Devialet 400 amplifiers, Kimber Kable Select 3030 cables and Audio Physic Cardeas Plus speakers, purchased with a 60-70% discount in store and very little work.  If it doesn't come from the source, not even God can improve it!!  my friends say.  All the updates contributed something important and the sum is an enviable result. Carlos

[Rsmaximasr]

When you write to a hard drive, you are writing to the drives cache and then it is written from cache to the actual drive. If there are problems writing the block of data to the drive, it is tried a few times before it will write to another sector, this takes tens of milliseconds, not seconds.

 

In audio, we are talking about write data once and read it thousands/millions of times, so we are more concerned about the read speeds. This is why you use a program like Roon or audirvana that has an index of the disk locations of each audio track, and this index is best to have in memory. Also, when you play music from disk/ssd, the system will do read ahead and cache the data so it’s in memory when it’s turn to play. 

[MarcelNL]

Let's continue with some ON Topic;  when using the dual Xeon Sage MB ,how do folks use the femto drive for OS? stuck on a PCIe adapter or on the M.2 slot that is only connected via the chipset?

 

I have the Asus Hyper card on the way so I can try both, but I'm lazy ;-)