High End Audio Bullshit!

[billfitzmaurice]

Single greatest upgrade to any computer, using anything without one frustrates the crap out of me now.

+1. It doesn't actually quadruple your processor speed, but the program loading time is so drastically reduced that it seems that way. I can't say if they're crash proof, but with no moving parts it's far less likely.

[chad1376]

What's not mentioned in the video, and to me is far more relevant, is that the sound chip or sound card in the PC will affect the sound..

Geoff

This. The inside of a PC is probably worst place in the world for analog anything. Get the digital signal out of the PC and into an isolated DAC. Toslink for total electrical isolation.

[wogg]

I don't have any SS drives, so I know nothing about them.
Wolf

Oh man you should. Single greatest upgrade to any computer, using anything without one frustrates the crap out of me now. Basically the random read speed compared to an old spinning platter is off the charts, so your boot up and program loading times are cut down to near nothing.

But your audio won't sound any better

[Wolf]

In his defense, he is from the Netherlands and English isn't his first language. He has a pretty interesting channel on YouTube where he builds his own planar magnetic speakers from scratch.

I think he posts over on DIYaudio. I thought I recognized the guy in the initial video intro. Now I know of whom you speak.
Wolf

[chad1376]

Oh holy hell. I just scanned a few seconds of this. He looks nerdy and bland, which might give him an air of 'puter legitimacy to that room full of old dudes that are even more clueless about how computers work.

Not trying to be aged biased here, but anyone in that audience with even rudimentary computer savvy would have screamed "BULLSH*T" from the back of the room.

This guy spews the same garbage - SSD sounds better that HDD. Not noise - sounds better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j3yihXJkLY

Meanwhile, I'm going to upgrade my PC from 16gb to 64gb of ram, to see if I can hear the difference

[dlr]

What's not mentioned in the video, and to me is far more relevant, is that the sound chip or sound card in the PC will affect the sound. High quality sound cards, such as SoundBlaster, will make a difference to the sound and come with various software to let you do cool things.

Our PC and SoundBlaster card are old, and maybe things have changed, but when we bought the PC the 'on board sound' was poor. The SoundBlaster improved the sound, and of course exactly the same information was coming from the disk drive.

Geoff

There's a good article at the Bodzio Software site by Bohdan, the creator of SoundEasy and the Ultimate Equalizer, the latter one that I use on my dipole system. The paper may be rather old with regard to hardware today (no date in the paper nor at the link), but given the stats of PC motherboard integrated audio back then, today's systems, probably even cheaper, basic PCs are likely to be more than adequate.

Computer SNR (pdf)

He has a quote from an old PETT thread in 2012, so even back then PC motherboard audio was often sufficient. I use a Delta 1010 and even Delta 410 for test bed, but I suspect that a good PC today may match the capability of these now obsolete cards.

dlr

[300Z]

Where is the link to this video? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In the first post?

[DohBCooper]

The funny thing is that the first few minutes are generally decent computer advise for performance, it all falls apart when he relates it to sounding better. It's like he read stuff about recording workstations, had no idea what any of it meant, then decided that was related to sound quality.

I got bored by 7 minutes though and skipped to the end a bit... clueless bugger.

Also, some of the steam was taken off the video text rebuttals when they can't spell worth a damn.

In his defense, he is from the Netherlands and English isn't his first language. He has a pretty interesting channel on YouTube where he builds his own planar magnetic speakers from scratch.

[carlthess40]

Where is the link to this video? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Geoff Millar]

I'll try to be charitable about the video and think that the presenter might be confused because hard disk drives look a little like a turntable, with the arm sweeping across a spinning disc to retrieve information. But the information stored on a hard drive is digital, not mechanical, so the alleged analogy doesn't work.

Hard drives make noise when they spin, but that's not the same as turntable rumble, which affects the music. SS drives are much faster and have no moving parts, but they store the information in the same manner as hard disk drives, i.e. in digital form.

What's not mentioned in the video, and to me is far more relevant, is that the sound chip or sound card in the PC will affect the sound. High quality sound cards, such as SoundBlaster, will make a difference to the sound and come with various software to let you do cool things.

Our PC and SoundBlaster card are old, and maybe things have changed, but when we bought the PC the 'on board sound' was poor. The SoundBlaster improved the sound, and of course exactly the same information was coming from the disk drive.

Geoff

[Wolf]

Sure, I have known many a "noisy" hard drive. But this is a solid state drive he is talking about ! ! !

Those aren't all that noisy...

In my home, it's the rattling of things (those old windows, pictures on the wall, etc.) that are the main annoyances.

I don't have any SS drives, so I know nothing about them.
Wolf

[wogg]

The funny thing is that the first few minutes are generally decent computer advise for performance, it all falls apart when he relates it to sounding better. It's like he read stuff about recording workstations, had no idea what any of it meant, then decided that was related to sound quality.

I got bored by 7 minutes though and skipped to the end a bit... clueless bugger.

Also, some of the steam was taken off the video text rebuttals when they can't spell worth a damn.

[300Z]

I actually am not sure about what surprised me the most, him or the audience who didn't really call him out on his crazy claims.

[charlielaub]

Sure, I have known many a "noisy" hard drive. But this is a solid state drive he is talking about ! ! !

Those aren't all that noisy...

In my home, it's the rattling of things (those old windows, pictures on the wall, etc.) that are the main annoyances.

[Wolf]

In terms of the isolation or damping of the 'turntable mechanism' changing the 'breath' of the sound, that is utterly crap. However, in terms of noise-floor, everything that vibrates can induce or contribute to the noise floor in your room. I know my BD player can be a bit noisy. I know the desk my daughter studies at vibrates a bit with louder music playing. Damping the desk and the player's chassis to reduce the buzzing of these is not any different than room treatment via damping or diffusion- but it's not to make the sound/source better. It's to make the environment around them less of a contributing source or contributor to the noise floor and the room induced distortion. There is sooo much snake oil due to proclaimed 'fixing' of a cause that has no bearing on what they are trying to improve.

Later,
Wolf