Unexpected improvement in SQ

Posted by: dayjay on 02 September 2015

Just before I went on holiday, a couple of weeks ago, I ordered a Thunderbolt hard drive to use with my Mac mini and Audirvana.  Up to that point I'd been using an Assetnas over Ethernet to host the music. The main/only reason I moved to the thunderbolt drive was that I was running out of disk space and wanted to separate off music from video which I also store on the Nas and it was a toss up between this and putting a second drive in the nas.  I got back from holiday early this week and spent a couple of days setting things up and moving files around and have spent the last couple of days testing things out.  One thing that is instantly noticeable is an improvement in SQ and it isn't a subtle improvement.  Much better flow of music, better definition/clarity and a tighter deeper base with smoother treble.  If I had added a power supply to my amp and got this improvement I would have been happy, I'm very surprised and a little mystified to have got it from changing a hard drive. I'd be interested in any views on why this might be?

Posted on: 02 September 2015 by Williewonka

David - a question - do you leave your system powered on all the time?

 

If so - there is a theory that the circuits get "saturated" and as a result degrades the sound. Powering down rectifies the issue. Powering down eliminates the "saturation"

 

I used to leave my system on 24/7 and then tried powering down every 4-5 days. The results were clearly audible with a much better all round performance.

 

It seems to take my system about 6 days to revert to the sound I had after leaving on for extended periods

 

I still don't really understand the why's - but it does sound better :-)

 

So I'm not sure whether a hard drive is responsible for your improvements..

 

I have tried several hard drives both single units, USB drives and RAID configs and they all sounded identical.

 

Just something to ponder :-)

Posted on: 02 September 2015 by dayjay

Interesting, I do leave it powered on all the time but when on holiday I power down the amp. I'll keep an ear on things are try that out at some point in the future.

Posted on: 02 September 2015 by Bert Schurink

I had similar experiences with powering down. It looks like it sounds better overall - so I will also consider to power down every now and then. 

With regards to your hard disk. Powersupply and other factors can have quite an effect on your sound quality (audible), so it doesn't amaze me too much. 

Posted on: 02 September 2015 by Stevee_S
This is an interesting one and powering down occassionally is certainly cheap, easy and quick enough to try. Would there be any optimal time to leave it powered down for, ten minutes, an hour, overnight? 

 

Posted on: 02 September 2015 by Olek_K
Originally Posted by Williewonka:

David - a question - do you leave your system powered on all the time?

 

If so - there is a theory that the circuits get "saturated" and as a result degrades the sound. Powering down rectifies the issue. Powering down eliminates the "saturation"

 

I used to leave my system on 24/7 and then tried powering down every 4-5 days. The results were clearly audible with a much better all round performance.

 

It seems to take my system about 6 days to revert to the sound I had after leaving on for extended periods

 

I still don't really understand the why's - but it does sound better :-)

 

So I'm not sure whether a hard drive is responsible for your improvements..

 

I have tried several hard drives both single units, USB drives and RAID configs and they all sounded identical.

 

Just something to ponder :-)

so if you power down every 4-5 days and your system needs 6 days to fully swing you are never there. or I don't get it

Posted on: 07 September 2015 by Williewonka
Originally Posted by Olek_K:
Originally Posted by Williewonka:

David - a question - do you leave your system powered on all the time?

 

If so - there is a theory that the circuits get "saturated" and as a result degrades the sound. Powering down rectifies the issue. Powering down eliminates the "saturation"

 

I used to leave my system on 24/7 and then tried powering down every 4-5 days. The results were clearly audible with a much better all round performance.

 

It seems to take my system about 6 days to revert to the sound I had after leaving on for extended periods

 

I still don't really understand the why's - but it does sound better :-)

 

So I'm not sure whether a hard drive is responsible for your improvements..

 

I have tried several hard drives both single units, USB drives and RAID configs and they all sounded identical.

 

Just something to ponder :-)

so if you power down every 4-5 days and your system needs 6 days to fully swing you are never there. or I don't get it

If I leave it powered on for 6 days (or more) the system reverts to a little flatter sound

 

But I can leave it on for up to 4-5 days and it still sounds very dynamic

 

I have not experimented on how long to leave it powered down - I simply turn it off overnight a couple of times a week

 

Once powered back up it does take around 30 minutes for the system to settle in order to get the best sound.

 

The times may vary depending on the components you have - I have not played with powering down individual components to see what effect that has.

 

Perhaps someone could try that?

 

I'm very satisfied with powering the whole system down overnight  :-)

 

Regards...

Posted on: 08 September 2015 by Mayor West
Dayjay, is it not because of the way the music is feeding into the MM i.e. via thunderbolt rather than ethernet? I find the sound indistinguishable when playing music through Audirvana directly from the SSD on my MacBook Air or via an external hard drive connected the the MacBook Air by USB. I wonder whether it's Thunderbolt that has given the improvement in SQ.
Posted on: 15 September 2015 by Williewonka
Originally Posted by Mayor West:
 I find the sound indistinguishable when playing music through Audirvana directly from the SSD on my MacBook Air or via an external hard drive connected the the MacBook Air by USB. I wonder whether it's Thunderbolt that has given the improvement in SQ.

The really nice feature about  Audirvana -  it internally buffers the data from all hard drives prior to sending that data on to a DAC - i.e. via USB link

 

So all hard drives "should" all sound the same.

 

I currently run my music from a NAS drive, but I have tried the hard drive on my iMac and a outboard USB drive - I could not discern any differences.

 

However - the USB cable was a whole different story. I now use a dual cable joined at the DAC - one cable is for data only and the second goes into a separate USB power supply (my DAC uses USB power)

 

Adding this cables was a huge improvement in quality - probably due more to the separate power supply.

 

Regards...

Posted on: 16 September 2015 by Mayor West
Originally Posted by Williewonka:
Originally Posted by Mayor West:
 I find the sound indistinguishable when playing music through Audirvana directly from the SSD on my MacBook Air or via an external hard drive connected the the MacBook Air by USB. I wonder whether it's Thunderbolt that has given the improvement in SQ.

However - the USB cable was a whole different story. I now use a dual cable joined at the DAC - one cable is for data only and the second goes into a separate USB power supply (my DAC uses USB power)

 

Adding this cables was a huge improvement in quality - probably due more to the separate power supply.

Hi Williewonka. Here, are you referring to USB from your iMac to your DAC? If so, I agree; I found using a Chord Company USB Silver Plus cable to be a big improvement over the stock cable supplied with my DAC.

Posted on: 16 September 2015 by dayjay

Thanks for the replies, interesting.  After reading up a bit on the forums I'm about to order a USB regen for between the mac and my hugo, read good things about them and the cost is so low that its only a small risk.  Should be interesting.

Posted on: 16 September 2015 by Mayor West
Originally Posted by dayjay:

Thanks for the replies, interesting.  After reading up a bit on the forums I'm about to order a USB regen for between the mac and my hugo, read good things about them and the cost is so low that its only a small risk.  Should be interesting.

I'll be interested to hear your report

Posted on: 03 October 2015 by Williewonka
Originally Posted by Mayor West:
Originally Posted by Williewonka:
Originally Posted by Mayor West:
 I find the sound indistinguishable when playing music through Audirvana directly from the SSD on my MacBook Air or via an external hard drive connected the the MacBook Air by USB. I wonder whether it's Thunderbolt that has given the improvement in SQ.

However - the USB cable was a whole different story. I now use a dual cable joined at the DAC - one cable is for data only and the second goes into a separate USB power supply (my DAC uses USB power)

 

Adding this cables was a huge improvement in quality - probably due more to the separate power supply.

Hi Williewonka. Here, are you referring to USB from your iMac to your DAC? If so, I agree; I found using a Chord Company USB Silver Plus cable to be a big improvement over the stock cable supplied with my DAC.

Mayor West - apologies for any delay in responding - was on vacation :-)

 

The cable runs from the iMac;s USB to the v-Link192 specifically.

 

 

I did try this cable with both leads plugged into the iMac, but the separate power supply was noticeably better.

 

Bought the cable off Ebay for around $50 

 

Cables are more important than many choose to believe :-)

Posted on: 04 October 2015 by Williewonka
Originally Posted by Williewonka:
Originally Posted by Mayor West:
Originally Posted by Williewonka:
Originally Posted by Mayor West:
 I find the sound indistinguishable when playing music through Audirvana directly from the SSD on my MacBook Air or via an external hard drive connected the the MacBook Air by USB. I wonder whether it's Thunderbolt that has given the improvement in SQ.

However - the USB cable was a whole different story. I now use a dual cable joined at the DAC - one cable is for data only and the second goes into a separate USB power supply (my DAC uses USB power)

 

Adding this cables was a huge improvement in quality - probably due more to the separate power supply.

Hi Williewonka. Here, are you referring to USB from your iMac to your DAC? If so, I agree; I found using a Chord Company USB Silver Plus cable to be a big improvement over the stock cable supplied with my DAC.

Mayor West - apologies for any delay in responding - was on vacation :-)

 

The cable runs from the iMac;s USB to the v-Link192 specifically.

 

 

I did try this cable with both leads plugged into the iMac, but the separate power supply was noticeably better.

 

Bought the cable off Ebay for around $50 

 

Cables are more important than many choose to believe :-)

For cables like the onw I use just Google "Power supply and USB cable separate audio signal cable"

 

Please note - I have no affiliation to the cable provider - I'm just making this info available to members so they can maximize their own personal sound quality.

 

Regards... 

Posted on: 05 October 2015 by karlosTT

If we are talking here about the iFi Gemini cable, or equivalent, I am still struggling to "get" the concept behind this.  Well, I partially get it, but not fully.....

 

The idea of separating the USB power from the signal seems sensible enough (I assume this is achieved by removing some connector strips within the two 'A' plugs ?).  BUT, is it fair to assume the USB bus goes to the same lengths of isolation/separation ?  I would guess not, and if the upstream section allows for potential interference between power & signal, to what extent can that be mitigated downstream (in the cable) ?

 

Also, at the B plug end of the cable, the 2 components seem to be merged again.  Would that not simply cancel out the 'benefit' brought by the cable itself, and carry any USB power noise into the DAC ?  A DAC which, incidentally, may not even need USB power at all.  I can see a case for offering another cable design which picks up and carries signal only, for use with self-powered DACS.

 

Appreciate any further insight to the technical goings on with this cable, which might allay my concerns above......