SSD = Solid State Drive, which is best..?

Hmack posted:

flammenwerfer posted:

Well Martin Colloms prefers HDD over SSD in his Uniti Core review.

Said it sounded more dynamic and tightly focussed.

And he claims to be a  genuine professional hi-fi reviewer?

Takes me back to  the good old days in the mid 80s of green felt pens (or was it blue?) and little black triangles you placed on each of your CDs & power plugs. I seem to remember that Jimmy Hughes was the main culprit. These really were the days.  

I have to admit to trying this out a couple of times. I think my original CD copy of Dire Straights - "Brothers in Arms" still has the original little triangle on one side. I tried it out, thought to myself "what the *** are you doing? Get a grip on yourself", and am only now beginning to recover from my embarrassment at having given it a go.

I find it really hard to believe that anyone can hear a difference between hard-disk makes or types. Just a step (or two) too far for me I'm afraid. 

why the best servers on the market, as innuos zenith se, antipodes dx, melco n1z, use ssd?  

Probably because the engineers behind have tested and found ssd better sounding than hdd.

Or its to  to do with them being more of a  premier product with a premium price and SSD is a premium medium. You don't pay 4000 for something that sounds like an aircraft taking off.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

flammenwerfer posted:

Well Martin Colloms prefers HDD over SSD in his Uniti Core review.

Said it sounded more dynamic and tightly focussed.

Well Simon-in-Suffolk prefers it when the natural Humidity is  greater than approx > 75% when critically listening to his Naim 552 based system. He says the sound is more organic and natural compared to lower Humidity.. He hasn't  quite gone to the extent of getting a humidifier for his listening room yet - but I understand he is considering it. Any view from the forum on which Humidifiers create the best sound?

Eoink answers Simon-in-Suffolk in the same vein.  My house has a cellar which naturally hasn’t enough humidity to keep wine corks moist, so I needed to humidify it to protect my small wine collection. I bought a humidifier from Argos for around £20 about 10 years ago, it’s one of the ones designed to humidify rooms for kids with asthma, basically a water reservoir above a heater which slowly pumps steam into the air. It is pretty much silent in operation, I would worry that it has a noisy power supply, so use a different ring main, and I don’t need to say don’t point the steam outlet at the black boxes (or the silver one). 

French Rooster posted:

Hmack posted:

flammenwerfer posted:

Well Martin Colloms prefers HDD over SSD in his Uniti Core review.

Said it sounded more dynamic and tightly focussed.

And he claims to be a  genuine professional hi-fi reviewer?

Takes me back to  the good old days in the mid 80s of green felt pens (or was it blue?) and little black triangles you placed on each of your CDs & power plugs. I seem to remember that Jimmy Hughes was the main culprit. These really were the days.  

I have to admit to trying this out a couple of times. I think my original CD copy of Dire Straights - "Brothers in Arms" still has the original little triangle on one side. I tried it out, thought to myself "what the *** are you doing? Get a grip on yourself", and am only now beginning to recover from my embarrassment at having given it a go.

I find it really hard to believe that anyone can hear a difference between hard-disk makes or types. Just a step (or two) too far for me I'm afraid. 

why the best servers on the market, as innuos zenith se, antipodes dx, melco n1z, use ssd?  

Probably because the engineers behind have tested and found ssd better sounding than hdd.

Actually, I can understand why they might use SSD drives rather than conventional drives, but I would be very surprised if any of these manufacturers were to make any claims of better sound quality as a result of the use of SSD drives. 

I haven't checked any stats, but I guess it may be the case that the engineers who chose to specify SSD drives did so because they believe that SSD drives are more reliable, faster and less prone to failure. Alternatively, it may be because, as simonpeterarnold points out, a reference to the use of SSD technology looks better in advertising material, and more in keeping with what you would expect in a 'premium' product.     

Hmack posted:

French Rooster posted:

Hmack posted:

flammenwerfer posted:

Well Martin Colloms prefers HDD over SSD in his Uniti Core review.

Said it sounded more dynamic and tightly focussed.

And he claims to be a  genuine professional hi-fi reviewer?

Takes me back to  the good old days in the mid 80s of green felt pens (or was it blue?) and little black triangles you placed on each of your CDs & power plugs. I seem to remember that Jimmy Hughes was the main culprit. These really were the days.  

I have to admit to trying this out a couple of times. I think my original CD copy of Dire Straights - "Brothers in Arms" still has the original little triangle on one side. I tried it out, thought to myself "what the *** are you doing? Get a grip on yourself", and am only now beginning to recover from my embarrassment at having given it a go.

I find it really hard to believe that anyone can hear a difference between hard-disk makes or types. Just a step (or two) too far for me I'm afraid. 

why the best servers on the market, as innuos zenith se, antipodes dx, melco n1z, use ssd?  

Probably because the engineers behind have tested and found ssd better sounding than hdd.

Actually, I can understand why they might use SSD drives rather than conventional drives, but I would be very surprised if any of these manufacturers were to make any claims of better sound quality as a result of the use of SSD drives. 

I haven't checked any stats, but I guess it may be the case that the engineers who chose to specify SSD drives did so because they believe that SSD drives are more reliable, faster and less prone to failure. Alternatively, it may be because, as simonpeterarnold points out, a reference to the use of SSD technology looks better in advertising material, and more in keeping with what you would expect in a 'premium' product.     

perhaps you are right....

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

flammenwerfer posted:

Well Martin Colloms prefers HDD over SSD in his Uniti Core review.

Said it sounded more dynamic and tightly focussed.

Well Simon-in-Suffolk prefers it when the natural Humidity is  greater than approx > 75% when critically listening to his Naim 552 based system. He says the sound is more organic and natural compared to lower Humidity.. He hasn't  quite gone to the extent of getting a humidifier for his listening room yet - but I understand he is considering it. Any view from the forum on which Humidifiers create the best sound?

Don't know which make is better but for sure all of them will sound broken without a LPSU.

I prefer SSD because it runs cooler.

one with a Peter Belt triangle on it will sound even better and let’s not forget putting a piece of paper under one foot of your equipment makes an amazing difference 

Hmack posted:

Actually, I can understand why they might use SSD drives rather than conventional drives, but I would be very surprised if any of these manufacturers were to make any claims of better sound quality as a result of the use of SSD drives. 

I haven't checked any stats, but I guess it may be the case that the engineers who chose to specify SSD drives did so because they believe that SSD drives are more reliable, faster and less prone to failure. Alternatively, it may be because, as simonpeterarnold points out, a reference to the use of SSD technology looks better in advertising material, and more in keeping with what you would expect in a 'premium' product.     

I think Melco does, but then their SSD drives work differently to conventional ones, as previously explained. This is more to do with longevity I suspect, but it's a difficult thing to test. However, given the very sensitive nature of the electronics in close proximity to these drives, it would seem highly likely that not having mechanical things with associated vibrations whirring so close to them would be of benefit to sound quality.

tonym posted:

Hmack posted:

Actually, I can understand why they might use SSD drives rather than conventional drives, but I would be very surprised if any of these manufacturers were to make any claims of better sound quality as a result of the use of SSD drives. 

I haven't checked any stats, but I guess it may be the case that the engineers who chose to specify SSD drives did so because they believe that SSD drives are more reliable, faster and less prone to failure. Alternatively, it may be because, as simonpeterarnold points out, a reference to the use of SSD technology looks better in advertising material, and more in keeping with what you would expect in a 'premium' product.     

I think Melco does, but then their SSD drives work differently to conventional ones, as previously explained. This is more to do with longevity I suspect, but it's a difficult thing to test. However, given the very sensitive nature of the electronics in close proximity to these drives, it would seem highly likely that not having mechanical things with associated vibrations whirring so close to them would be of benefit to sound quality.

I suppose that doing away with mechanical hard disks and associated vibrations would intuitively appear to be a good thing. However, when you consider how an SSD drive actually works, then intuitively one would also be a little wary about its effect on sensitive electronics, possibly even more so.

I'm not an electronic engineer, so I don't know for sure. However, I am still very sceptical about any claims that sound quality is affected by a specific choice of hard disk make or type.  

Indeed, almost certainly there may be a noticeable difference sound .. but to say one has more quality than the other I think is a little tenuous...it might be one is more subjectively preferable.. which is something entirely different.

i also agree with an earlier comment.. in this world of higher value consumer audio, bling factor seems to be a rather  important component, almost the more bling there is the more one can charge for the price...... and I suspect since these  are newer technologies than hard disk, then SSD has a greater bling factor... but if they are more efficient and ultimately simpler to construct and more reliable than electro mechanical devices then they should get cheaper and then it should simply be a natural evolution...

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Indeed, almost certainly there may be a noticeable difference sound .. but to say one has more quality than the other I think is a little tenuous...it might be one is more subjectively preferable.. which is something entirely different.

If one evaluates with "Tune-Dem" or as a part calls it "Tune-Method",... then it evaluates for the same musical norms....... Whether you live in Sweden, England, USA or Spain ect.

That's why this method is so good, no matter where we live in the world, we know what we're talking about, when we compare listening reviews on forums...... for all use the same evaluation method.

At Lejonklou's forum,...it is a requirement to use that method if you are to report the impression...... It Is Good,...then,unfolding man's personal subjective liking..... and anyone can evaluate what is reviewed from the same standards.

Tune-Method is also by far, the best when it comes to evaluating "MUSICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PRODUCTS".
Therefore, it is with Tune-Dem,Tune-Method no problem to evaluate musical differences between hard-disks........but of course it is a bit awkward,... it takes time ????.

/Peder ????

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

flammenwerfer posted:

Well Martin Colloms prefers HDD over SSD in his Uniti Core review.

Said it sounded more dynamic and tightly focussed.

Well Simon-in-Suffolk prefers it when the natural Humidity is  greater than approx > 75% when critically listening to his Naim 552 based system. He says the sound is more organic and natural compared to lower Humidity.. He hasn't  quite gone to the extent of getting a humidifier for his listening room yet - but I understand he is considering it. Any view from the forum on which Humidifiers create the best sound?

Who is Simon in Suffolk?

Martin Colloms is a well respected reviewer.

He just reported his findings and may have not been able to explain why.

Don’t kill the messenger.

And I I respectfully ask you to practice what you preach, don’t shoot the messenger or not respect  the views of those who are not professional reviewers . BTW I haven’t a clue who Martin Colloms is, but I assume  he is a well regarded journalist by some, that’s cool... and severeal  active UK participants on this forum have met me... whether they respect me or not is entirely up to them. 

And I think you missed my point.. and I suspect you know... now if you shared your subjective findings it would have been potentially interesting as we could have explored it with you, but to repeat the questionable  subjective findings of someone who is not active as far as I am aware on this forum is of questionable merit and benefit to the community here, in my opinion.

Drikus posted:

Timo posted:

Is this a serious question — an audiophile SSD??!! 

You may laugh but I hear a difference in sound quality between files played on HDD and SSD in favor of SSD.

Same. My Mac Mini has an SSD and a HDD... music sounds noticeably better when played from the SSD.

flammenwerfer posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

flammenwerfer posted:

Well Martin Colloms prefers HDD over SSD in his Uniti Core review.

Said it sounded more dynamic and tightly focussed.

Well Simon-in-Suffolk prefers it when the natural Humidity is  greater than approx > 75% when critically listening to his Naim 552 based system. He says the sound is more organic and natural compared to lower Humidity.. He hasn't  quite gone to the extent of getting a humidifier for his listening room yet - but I understand he is considering it. Any view from the forum on which Humidifiers create the best sound?

Who is Simon in Suffolk?

Martin Colloms is a well respected reviewer.

He just reported his findings and may have not been able to explain why.

Don’t kill the messenger.

 

if 4 unknown members have tested at home ssd vs hdd and say the same, i will more trust them than  one opinion of Martin Colloms,  Michael Fremer or well respected naim forum members .  And in absolute way, i will first and above anyone trust my ears.

Absolutely.. trust your own ears, and share your  own views and let others discuss and explore them with you... it’s what this community I feel is all about.

BTW I use SSD and balanced HDD with large buffers, as well as Hybrids (part SSD / part HDD) in my NAS and Macs and mini servers... I have not attributed any sq difference to disk technology, but I have to other aspects on network attached storage devices, and been able to measure differences that affect prefereable SQ ... I can’t definitely say there is cause and effect... but so far I have been able to  measure a correlation.

I have a two TD SanDisk harddrive in my core

I can get a samsung 1 TV  860 SSD for about £190 which I can accept if there is an improvement in sound quality ...I also expect a reduction in running noise also

I can manage space wise with 1 TB

Is it worth the £200 for the sound improvement??

Any thoughts pls

Japtimscarlet posted:

I have a two TD SanDisk harddrive in my core

I can get a samsung 1 TV  860 SSD for about £190 which I can accept if there is an improvement in sound quality ...I also expect a reduction in running noise also

I can manage space wise with 1 TB

Is it worth the £200 for the sound improvement??

Any thoughts pls

 

Sound improvement as value for money is very much a personal thing. Given what some people pay for what others may regard as quite marginal improvements (though they may describe as night and day, which to me means so absolutely different that an almost totally deaf person would still perceive the difference,, but the forum is somewhat prone to hyperbole), to some the answer would undoubtedly be a resounding yes, and not to others.

To me, when I set up my Mac Mini I had no thought as to any effect on sound quality, but SSDs just made sense to me in terms of reliability and silence.

Japtimscarlet posted:

Is it worth the £200 for the sound improvement??

Any thoughts pls

As IB states, its a very personal thing. For me I would say yes, it seems to make a difference in my system - the sound is more fluid and a tinge of hardness in the upper mids is removed when playing from SSD. However you may feel it makes no difference.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Absolutely.. trust your own ears, and share your  own views and let others discuss and explore them with you... it’s what this community I feel is all about.

Just right Simon,...agree,that's what the forum is for.!!

But it can be difficult for many to understand, or hear differences in test-occasions,unless you think about the details.....
Then it will be easy comments that... ◾ When will this madness end. ◾ ????.

You have to be incredibly careful when testing,...The products must have exactly the same conditions.

◾ Stand in the same place,... listen to the first, remove it,and put the other in exactly the same place.
In other words,do not set them next to each other.There is always a difference in resonance frequencies in the substrate,which can affect the product to be tested.

◾ The same power-cable.
◾ The same Interconnect cable.
◾ The same ehternet cable.
◾ Think of cable-direction,easy to miss on the   ehternet cable.
◾ Cable-dressing,the cables in exactly the same place at each test.

◾ The contacts at all ends, should be drawn in and out 10 times before the first Test, and between each Test.
This is to remove any oxides.

◾ Check the electrical phase,... does not apply to you in England ????.
◾ The same volume.
◾ The same music.
◾ Listen for the musical message,...not the sound.
◾ Tune-Method, in Sweden, for example, we use this covered test method.

◾ The products should have been electrically connected for as long.

These are a few points to consider, when evaluating two products against each other.

If I forgot something, please supplement.
And of course,...The music system must be 100 % optimized before the test time,..otherwise it will be harder to hear small differences.

/Peder ????

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Absolutely.. trust your own ears, and share your  own views and let others discuss and explore them with you... it’s what this community I feel is all about.

 

Exactly — but Flammenwerfer doesn’t get it I think. Instead he’s trying to live up to the name he gave himself — a bit silly I think. I noticed the editing of his posting — good... 

I thought his posting was rather juvenile, not to say offensive, too.

I don't have a clue or care who Flammenwerfer is but I do know and respect Simon in Suffolk.

best

David

flammenwerfer posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

flammenwerfer posted:

Well Martin Colloms prefers HDD over SSD in his Uniti Core review.

Said it sounded more dynamic and tightly focussed.

Well Simon-in-Suffolk prefers it when the natural Humidity is  greater than approx > 75% when critically listening to his Naim 552 based system. He says the sound is more organic and natural compared to lower Humidity.. He hasn't  quite gone to the extent of getting a humidifier for his listening room yet - but I understand he is considering it. Any view from the forum on which Humidifiers create the best sound?

Who is Simon in Suffolk?

Martin Colloms is a well respected reviewer.

He just reported his findings and may have not been able to explain why.

Don’t kill the messenger.

 

MC is a reviewer, and unlike some othersquoted on the forum I have been aware of his writing o er a period of many years. Some people agree with his views, other do not. I don’t know how respected he may or may not be, but that has nothing to do with whether people agree with his views.  Simon-on-Suffolk is a forum member, well known to regular readers as someone who combines scientific understanding and assessment with subjective assessment, generally trying to fit the former to the latter in the intrests of greater understanding (my interpretation). Some people agree with his views, and I imagine others do not. I get the impression that he is generally well respected within this community, but that indeed does not mean you have to agree with him  - though as he tends to present reasoned arguments, if you disagree it would be appropriate to consider what aspect of his argument you find faulty.

Martin Colloms did not pick up on any of the problems we were having with the Core. At the time the forum was awash with reports of problems. I now have a new tarnished view of Hifi reporting.

That being said I am delighted with my Core, but have no Orchestral music.

Peder posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Absolutely.. trust your own ears, and share your  own views and let others discuss and explore them with you... it’s what this community I feel is all about.

Just right Simon,...agree,that's what the forum is for.!!

But it can be difficult for many to understand, or hear differences in test-occasions,unless you think about the details.....
Then it will be easy comments that... ◾ When will this madness end. ◾ ????.

You have to be incredibly careful when testing,...The products must have exactly the same conditions.

◾ Stand in the same place,... listen to the first, remove it,and put the other in exactly the same place.
In other words,do not set them next to each other.There is always a difference in resonance frequencies in the substrate,which can affect the product to be tested.

◾ The same power-cable.
◾ The same Interconnect cable.
◾ The same ehternet cable.
◾ Think of cable-direction,easy to miss on the   ehternet cable.
◾ Cable-dressing,the cables in exactly the same place at each test.

◾ The contacts at all ends, should be drawn in and out 10 times before the first Test, and between each Test.
This is to remove any oxides.

◾ Check the electrical phase,... does not apply to you in England ????.
◾ The same volume.
◾ The same music.
◾ Listen for the musical message,...not the sound.
◾ Tune-Method, in Sweden, for example, we use this covered test method.

◾ The products should have been electrically connected for as long.

These are a few points to consider, when evaluating two products against each other.

If I forgot something, please supplement.
And of course,...The music system must be 100 % optimized before the test time,..otherwise it will be harder to hear small differences.

/Peder ????

Sometimes if it takes that much effort to hear a difference, I do wonder it it is significant enough to be worth worrying about. Meanwhile the biggest problem I find is that all too often if the system is reasonably good I end up forgetting that am trying to compare, and simply end up being drawn into the music.

i had never heard of this ‘tune’ approach until just a few months ago - not sure if it was you or someone else whose description was the first description I’d read. I will have to try sometime, as I think it may help when comparing small refinements - but I don't think it would work with major character differences like choosing speakers: e.g for me, if a speaker didn’t do full or deep bass, it is a complete non-starter for me no matter how well it carries the tune.