Sound quality depends on where you save your files!

Hi James,

yes, always using Asset to an NDX via UPnP.

using different servers did not change the results.

One more conclusion:

Naim should introduce an update to HDX, to allow using its internal hard drive for storing external files (like downloads). This would be highly beneficial. Phil had noted once that such an update was being planned, but postponed.

When I first got the HDX is was the 2x500Gb version. I used the HDX to rip onto internal drive and rip again to NAS. For ten albums auditioned I slightly preferred the playback from the NAS but I put this down to a placebo effect and concluded that there was no difference. Which is why I sunsequently had the HDX converted to SSD. Listening to files played back from QNAP and ReadyNAS I could not detect a difference, although I ended up exclusively on the QNAP for different reasons.

So I guess it just goes to show.

I also much prefer FLAC converted to WAV for HiRes material, which in many quarters would be regarded as bonkers.

Don't you just love subjectivity? But of course, the really important thing is that we each do things based on personal preferences and are happy with our choices. Bit like music really.

Hi, Simon,

I remember being intrigued when you discussed TCP window size elsewhere.  Is this a metric one can observe easily, or tweak?  If so, I would like to give it a try.  Can you suggest an approach?  FWIW, I bought my first smart switch a few weeks ago, but have not figured out any smarter things to do with it yet.

Thanks.

Nick

Harry, yes  the joy of personal choice can sometimes even replace the joy of music!

Simon, I don't know in which circumstances you compared NASs in your towers. I haven't compared any, in fact I don't have any experience with any NAS. It was only my assumption, based on my experience with my store locations in my shack, that fundamentally different designed NASs would have different sound. I am pretty sure that you would also hear the differences I was able to recognize over here.

It's interesting that you talk about differences between servers. It would be unimaginable to talk about this just a few months ago. Some weeks ago, a frequent forum member wrote exactly: "I will loose all my trust in streaming audio if different servers turn out to have different sound" There is actually no reason to loose trust or rush to upgrade/change hardware/server or anything. Let's just enjoy what we have. We are maybe just pointing at issues of potential further development in audio design.

Hi aysil

A while ago we were experiencing dissatisfaction with the sound we were hearing. We are using Foobar to stream via UPnP from 2 NAS drives to Qute/nDAC. On occasions the sound was lifeless/deadened in some way, not enjoyable. Yet music selected and played using the remote and Qute’s screen was a delight.

Eventually I came to realise that the unpleasant sound occurred when Foobar was selecting files from the NAS that was running it’s own UPnP server, the same files that we were selecting from the Qute with it’s remote.

Somehow, and I don’t know why, the files that were playable directly from the NAS via it’s own server were degraded when played via Foobar and it’s server. I guess the moral in this case is to ensure that only one UPnP server is involved in the playback at any one time.

Regards

Peter

In the latest HiFiCritic magazine, they compared different NAS drives from both the same and different manufacturers (a couple of QNAPs, Sinology and something else I can't remember). They also compared different drives in one of the NASs. Martin Colloms concluded that they all sounded different, some more than others, and ended up rating them separately.

Now I accept that these are probably quite subtle differences (although ISTR Martin saying one was obviously better than another) but it's interesting that there are any differences at all given that all of these are delivering the streams over TCP/IP.

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

I summarized the HiFiCritic findings in the thread *Listening to digital music storage devices* (how do I post a link to the thread ??) if anyone's interested.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Arthur Schopenhauer

PCM rips should be the same. If we assume that the Accurate Rip database checksums are correct then they should match those. Of course, a wrong rip could sound better. Though I thought Naim rippers were perfect and didn't seek to enhance the sound through the ripping process. 

The people from hi-fi critic are on a different planet if they can hear difference between hard drives in NAS boxes. Sorry, but the differences they hear have nothing to do with the disc types. There are lots of reasons why listening to the same thing twice on the same system you could prefer one to the other; to conclude it is because of different hard disk types is beyond silly. Really it is. 

If the bitstream delivered is the same then it will not be the reason for any difference in sound that you hear. Please folks don't be duped by this. 

When the data gets in to the Naim DAC it is stored in a buffer. The Naim DAC has no way of knowing how it got in to its buffer. The DAC is very carefully designed so it can always read a continous stream of data from the buffer at the right speed. 

Now yes, of course, if you start plugging things in to the mains and introducing other items in to a room or turn up thermostat on the heating then the listening environment changes and your subjective view of which sounded best out of A and B will change with it. 

Was the DAC at the same humidity and temperature throughtout?

Was the rest of the system at the same humidity and temperature throughtout?

Were there any external influences such as vibrations?

Were you as listener in an identical state for both listening trials?

Was ....

Well hope you see my point the list goes on ....  

Always remember this is digital. The DAC will see a 1 or 0 in its buffer and process it. Non digital factors may influence the sound, but how the bits were placed in the buffer cannot ... unless the ones that are there are wrong. [If so why whenever I record them through a UQ digital out do I get the same results, the UQ hasn't even got the clever buffer, but still no difference]. 

I think there are too many variables involved to draw a conclusion like hard disks in a NAS sound different - this is what is known as a spurious correlation. Did you know that in 1970s Ipswich Town scored more goals each season and that the Icelandic fleet's fish catch in the Greenland sea also increased - if you plot one against the other you get a nice line. So is it fair to conclude that the performance of the Tractor Boys was responsible for the increased prosperity of Icelandic trawler-men; outlandish as it may sound my conjecture is that these two events are unrelated. However, some students wrote authoritatively in their exam answers that a good season for Ipswich was great news for Iceland's brave fisherman (which iI suppose it was if they were fellow Town supporters). 

This why I ignore subjective reviews in magazines and urge others to do the same. One guy even says this amplifier is 1% better than this one - the phrase having a laugh comes to mind. 

I accept that people can hear differences, but I don't accept the conclusion from hi-fi critic - please tell me they had had a few or it was the April edition. 

All the best, Guy 

Here you go Jan..........Listening to digital music storage devices

Thanks you Peter ; but how do you do that ?

Jan-Erik, in order to post a link, you first select a text and then use the insert/edit link icon (with chain picture).

Thank you for bringing this thread to our attention, I had missed it during my busy festival days. It's really interesting!

Simon, maybe you could speculate on how RFI could influence the signal from hard-drives? Is it also not basically an analogue wave form, as you always point out?

It’s a real pain Jan, if it wasn’t for it being the Naim site with such a great core of helpful members I can’t imagine many would bother would they?

The way I do it is to copy and paste the url of the page into the message, this is then recognised as a hyperlink and the Insert/Edit Link button becomes active, you are then able to complete the details in the box that appears and post with the link. It was so easy when the buttons were always active; this seems to be one of the many improvements.

Best of luck, Peter  

I fear you may be chasing your own tails. Without a clear methodology for testing and a clear baseline to test against you will end up going round in (probably highly enjoyable) circles.

If the baseline is that one person finds a sound feels sharp or that a server is off you have nothing tangible to investigate except subjective aural differences.

I'm getting my dowsing rods out.

Tog 

This is a fascinating thread. What strikes me is that it exactly mirrors the situation of decades ago when logic dictated that all amplifiers should sound identical. Likewise turntables, so long as they revolved at the correct speed. It was widely accepted that loudspeakers were the only component capable of significantly altering the sound in a hi-fi system. Anyone who claimed otherwise was treated as being sadly misguided. Of course we all know better now, and we are aware that there are a multitude of factors that influence performance, some of them quite unexpected. I strongly suspect that those people who refute sound qualty differences in digital set-ups and hide behind known scientific principles to "prove it" will eventually be forced to eat their words! Time may eventually bring to light as yet unknown or poorly understood factors concerning digital music files. History has shown that our understanding of the world is like that - never static but continually evolving.......

Peter

maybe if full naim system owners except that naim are a very small company and they use sub contractors to produce parts/services they wouldnt keep looking for the holy grail.  i have the nx5 streamer into the dac and im delighted with them .hard drives issues/ cables/routers/pcs etc are very subjective  

@rich46 - Quite

You can fret about this stuff forever for all the good it will do as the rest of the world looks on and thinks .....@@@@5?? - Naim will have a new product out soon to worry about I'm sure.

Once you fall into the trap of attaching EM chokes to your cables and testing different hdds for harshness it is time for the white coats to ask you to spend few weeks in the country.

I'm off to install the Vortexbox 2.0 on my Togserve which incidentally is probably singlehandedly responsible for creating an EM field sufficient to explain the existence of both the "Bermuda Triangle" and David Cameron. 

@Simon - take your point - at least someone is making sense. 

Epic

Tog

I don't dispute folk hear differences; I simply think the assertion that it is down to hard disks and NAS drives is not correct. I'm not convinced we ever hear things the same way twice.

I wonder if when the dudes at hi-fi critic listen to some lossless music streamed over a high speed Internet connection they can tell what NAS and disks are being used?

If the sound difference is down to different hard disks then it should be easy to hear this irrespective of the intervening carrier network.  

A badly made NAS installed at home that blasts RFI and EMI around the place will have an audible effect. Which is as Simon is putting forward. However, if it is reasonably well isolated from your system then ..... 

Folks - data is being loaded in to a buffer and a DAC is reading it from the buffer, it doesn't know how the data got there, it doesn't care. That is whole idea of the buffer. 

HERE is an interesting read that explains why gold plated USB sticks sound better than ordinary ones It also explains how a specially treated PC makes better rips. It is all to do with Morphic Resonance: explains a lot really. 

All the best, Guy