Can HDD's sound different ?

The only differences I hear is that some run a lot quieter than others.  I like my nas to be pretty quiet.

No, nothing to do with "jitter."  A lot has been written about jitter and if you're curious the Wikipedia article is a good place to start.

I'm not sure that the noise of the disk matters that much when it is in a different room to the rest of the system and I might have been a bit sarcastic when I mentioned jitter, but I'm really interested to know if there are other people out there that think that there is an audible difference between disk drives and if so whether they can offer any science to explain this effect.

Over at HiFi Critic, there is some anecdotal evidence, but no science yet. But then, science usually starts with anecdotal observations.

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/h...ening_to_storage.htm

Interesting article Jan-Erik Nordoen, as you say all anecdotal but interesting none the less. It would have been even more interesting if there was some "blind listening" done. I think that perhaps there is a lot more to come on this subject in future.

I noticed that a Naim person was involved and I quote "Fellow computer audio enthusiast (and Naim PR person) Stephen Harris and I launched into some preliminary listening tests." Perhaps Stephen will show up and give us some more insights.

I remember a thread not too long ago about a CAT 7 cable or some fancy ethernet cable, the discussion got some red hot flaming and accusations of "snake oil". I wonder where this one will lead

Two different QNAP units were compared, so I wonder if the differences heard were due in part to different power supplies in the units.

Also, the article mentions that the processor in QNAP 2 is "optimized for low power consumption".

Lastly, differences were heard between different disks in the same QNAP.

So, differences in power supplies and / or in demands on power supplies as a possible explanation ?

Jan

PS. Flames of burning snake oil will be fanned in about 3 posts from now.

We didn't start the fire

Yes what i have noticed is that Seagate discs are better with folk music and Western Digital with rock music. As everbody knows you should always use Hitachi disks with jazz. classical music requires SSD. 

It is not only the brand that matters, but the speed of the drive .. with steady music with a constant beat you can get away with 5200 rpm drives, but for music like the Wombles with complex ever changing time signatures you really need 7200 rpm drives. 

if you play a lot of Country and Western music, and let's face it that is what most of us do, then a large disk Cash (sic) is recommended. 

It is best to avoid Toshiba disks unless you are a big ballet fan and like your disks to dance to music. 

i have been writing this up for an article in HiFi Cynic, a new magazine I hope to bring out if i can persuade people to pay me for playing with HiFi kit and writing fairy stories. 

As always if you listen to the same piece of music twice, you will hear differences ... to attribute these to different disks is either fanciful or there is something seriously wrong with the setup. The music playing part of the system doesn't go anywhere near the disks ... that said I have two different postman and when postman A delivers some vinyl to my house, it always sounds better than when postman B delivers it ... I'll see if the second postman can be ugraded (probably needs a RS232 cable). 

Please folks remember the DAC and what comes after matters far more. So at least wait until you are runnng a 552/500 before worrying over which disks sound best. Don't use a Hydra with your NAS and Naim kit on different heads though as this will cause issues - keep nasty NAS PSUs away from the HiFi .. also be careful  with UPSs, as some do nasty things to the sine wave in the electricity (you need to spend around £250 for a worthwhile smart UPS). 

I know I seem to knock HiFi magazines, but they disappoint me. Rather than doing silly comparisons they could be explaining real differences in features, specifications, the way things work, the build and so on. They could also explain to people how to set up various pieces of kit ... folk hereon are always asking how do I set this or that up, especially when networks and UPnP/DNLA is involved... so why not a mag that addresses those kind of issues. The people are not daft who write these magazines and I'm not implying that, but they could be producing far more informative and useful articles.    

My excuse is I don't get paid 

All the best, Guy

Currently playing Track 9 from Who's Next

I really have to ask if this article was first published around the first of April ??

There could be a difference. It is really not wise to rule something out just because you can't explain it. Too many people hear differences between cables, stands, etc. for it not to be possible that the 'computer' hardware/software can make a difference. Bits are not just bits, that it simplistic in the extreme. The linear nature of music reproduction makes it far more complex.

 I am also at a loss to understand the recurring dogma of 'blind testing'.  Yes it is possible for people to be influenced by perceptions, but some differences are noticed by partners or persons having no interest/knowledge of the subjective merits of the competing mechanisms.  However, there are far more confounding variables involved in acoustic comparison than sight.

So can we please avoid the unscientific approach of ' there is no accepted explanation of how that might be so so it can't be so'. 

I currently rip CDs to an HP computer (or a Sony laptop if the HP optical drive has a problem - Warner discs anyone?). From there I copy the files to 2 Lexar USB sticks. I also use my wireless network to play direct from the computers. I play the music through a Uniti or a Qute. The USB stick sounds better. The DAC is the same, the pathways are both upstream of it. If bits are bits and the buffer/DAC can sort out all issues how come I hear a difference?  I don't know, I just know I do. Would doing it blind make a difference? No. I tried it.  I have yet to compare the two drives but I am hoping soon to acquire a solid state drive and instal it in the HP.  I'll report back.

Andy

  Oh boy, this is wonderful.  What next?

Yet there just might be something in this.  J.N. and I copied some music onto two flash USB drives and we were astounded to hear significant differences between them.  At the time we assumed it was down to their ability and speed of reading back the files.  I wonder if anybody else has tried this.  If so, please give us your findings.

Richard

Sooner than expected. Even blind listening is coming for a good shoeing!

July to September 2011. Not saying I'm convinced or bothered by the way. My disks sound fine to me.

I had compared the same music files copy/pasted on three different HDDs (HDD in 1TB HDX, HDD in 1TB UServe, and HDD in my laptop) streamed to NDX as the client. I had written about this on these pages around a year ago.

I used different servers, it did not matter which server I was using, and the sound had consistently different characteristics depending on where the store location was. I concluded the sound quality does depend on where you save your files. This was my conclusion after long listening sessions throughout some weeks.

As Jan-Eric says this may be more the influence of the different power supplies of the different store locations. It is possibly related to RFI and EMI interactions with the music system. Transmission packet size parameters were also mentioned elsewhere in this forum as possible source of sonic differences.

Anyway, I totally agree with Guido that "the DAC and what comes after matters far more", but such differences do exist.

Thanks for all of your replies.

This is the (admittedly simplistic) way I conceptualise this.

When I play a CD a laser reads a series of pits and attempts to convert them into a stream of ones and zeros. Because of the nature of the medium and the mechanism it is possible for the stream to be less than perfect by the time it hits the DAC, and this can manifest itself in the quality of the sound.

When I play a WAV file from a hard drive it is very similar to opening an excel spreadsheet. If the ones and zeroes can be retrieved perfectly the spreadsheet opens, If they can't you get an error. All or nothing. If your HDD isn't broken it will give you a bit perfect copy of the file every time, so as long as the file can get to the DAC quickly enough the type of HDD logically can't have any effect on the sound.

To put it another way, if you play the identical WAV file from 2 drives and get a consistent and repeatable difference in the sound quality you MUST have a difference in the ones and zeroes that present themselves to the DAC. If the data that leaves both drives is identical to the data in WAV file then the drives are not the reason for the difference. If the data is different you have a sick drive. If the data is the same the sound difference is nothing to do with the drives.

I'm not saying that HDD's can't sound different, but if it turns out that they can I'd be fascinated to know what the mechanism is. 

I fixed it for you.

I'm stuck on 15 in the bonus tracks (1995 reissue). Guy, I perked up when I read your idea on another thread about Naim running a course. I think we'd make a great team ; our lectures would cancel each other out, but think of how hard the students would work. 

No, on second thought, what we need is a Naim wiki page. Didn't Mike Sae do something along those lines a few years back? 

But I digress, I don't know if different HDDs sound different, but I read it HiFi Heretic, where they don't take advertising and I pay $35 per issue, so it must be true .

Jan

Well, in my experience not all HDDs are/were the same.. However the culprit as usual is noise induced on the powerlines, and in the old days data flow.. But that bit probably can be ignored nowadays.

So if the HDD PSU is common to or in any other way influence (eg EMI) any delicate digital-audio clock circuit, then intermods could be caused in the clock output. In the real world these can be audible.

Time to start building and marketing ultra low noise power supplies for disc drives and NAS! Could be some money to be made.

I agree Simon, in my experience there is a great variation on power consumption, audible noise level, electronic noise level, reliability...

Better noise rejection on your main system should negate a lot of this. Might even need to adjust the ferrites if you change disc drives.