More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t

[thebraketester]

And then she said:

SSDs are too clinical. Nothing beats the warmth of a spinning platter.

There will be someone.... somewhere....

[daddy cool]

I might start selling purified air in bottles so that the wifi signal flowing through it is unpolluted.

[gizlaroc]

theboss said:

We’re talking about a data stream of up to 10Mbps if we are talking 192/24 uncompressed or more typically
<1Mbps for 44.1/16 lossless.

Trust me - if a modern drive of any form, or network device is struggling to sustain this reliably something is seriously broken - and in any case the music will simply pause rather than alter in tonal quality.

I think the clutching at straws argument is that these differences affect electromagnetic noise arriving at the deciding device.

All BS IMHO.

I know somebody who would put the network switch on an anti vibration platform and then tell you everything sounds better.

It is to do with electrical noise, same with PSU's, it is not to do with the data packets, it is about how much electrical noise ends up being put into the system.


I ran a Raspberry Pi as my hifi source, Meridian Explorer 2 MQA usb dac (£99) hanging off the end of it, nice cheap source that beat everything sound wise under £3k that I tried.
I used a £15 Audioquest 3.5m to phono cable rather than the 50p one in the box and it was great.
However, I did use an iFi PSU after hearing lots of praise for it, this was praise from owners who were naysayers. Now, many argued that the £2 psu that always comes with the Raspberry Pi is doing more damage that normal and that may well be the case, but I was quite shocked at how much the better psu improved things. It was only £40 I think, but it certainly made a difference.

I was running Harbeth Speakers at the time with a highly modded Quad 405-2 amp, it was very revealing to changes, and that PSU took away the slight harsh edge you could get with poorer recordings.
There was a London Grammar track where it was extremely obvious the difference between with and without the iFi PSU.


I then swapped to some Celestion Ditton Speakers in that room, could hear so all difference with those, in fact, as nice as there are I could really not hear much between the modded Quad amp, Meridian Dac and an old Marantz PM4000 and a Chromecast Audio. So sold the lot and now running that with mains cable for speaker wire.


There are certain things that do make a difference, but you need the system, room and ears to hear it and most people just listening to the music will never notice.
It is like the cyclist who spends £500 on a light weight derailleur and sings its praises, or the track day nerd who puts on a carbon bootlid at £3k and swears blind it makes his car feel more planted. I'm sure they do notice it, but most normal people wouldn't.


Problem for the industry is the amount of BS put out just makes the whole thing laughable.

[Jobbo]

One day people will be nostalgic for the clicking of the read head on traditional HDD platters. Maybe they can be sold to hipsters in 2039

[JimbobVFR]

Jobbo said:

Oh dear. I imagine a separate NAS running SSDs, powered via a Russ Andrews kettle lead from its own dedicated spur, would be the best-sounding storage. Until one of these snake-oil sellers comes up with a pricier rebadged NAS with gold RJ45 sockets.

Melco are way ahead of you there.

https://www.futureshop.co.uk/melco-n10-digital-mus...

[Jobbo]

JimbobVFR said:

Melco are way ahead of you there.

https://www.futureshop.co.uk/melco-n10-digital-mus...

Oh dear, truth being stranger than fiction as ever

[PhilboSE]

TonyRPH said:

I saw this article on Facebook yesterday.

enjoythemusic said:

Enjoy the Music.com
HIFICRITIC
Volume 5 No. 3
Listening To Storage

"Listening tests reveal significant sound quality differences between various digital music storage technologies."

Article By Andrew Harrison and Stephen N. Harris

There are so many wild claims here. Striped sounds better than RAID etc. etc.

This is worse than the claims that the sound can be changed by different routers and switches.

These folk are truly deluded.

I read about half the article, and had to stop, because I fear my head would have exploded if I had finished it.

I presume these people take themselves seriously, and yet their assertions are so easily disproved by the fact that computers and networks, you know, work, that they must be utterly lacking in critical thinking.

[Zoon]

PhilboSE said:

TonyRPH said:

I saw this article on Facebook yesterday.

enjoythemusic said:

Enjoy the Music.com
HIFICRITIC
Volume 5 No. 3
Listening To Storage

"Listening tests reveal significant sound quality differences between various digital music storage technologies."

Article By Andrew Harrison and Stephen N. Harris

There are so many wild claims here. Striped sounds better than RAID etc. etc.

This is worse than the claims that the sound can be changed by different routers and switches.

These folk are truly deluded.

I read about half the article, and had to stop, because I fear my head would have exploded if I had finished it.

I presume these people take themselves seriously, and yet their assertions are so easily disproved by the fact that computers and networks, you know, work, that they must be utterly lacking in critical thinking.

Do they not understand that whatever arrives at the network card will be identical whatever RAID setting has been chosen?

[TonyRPH]

PhilboSE said:

I read about half the article, and had to stop, because I fear my head would have exploded if I had finished it.

I presume these people take themselves seriously, and yet their assertions are so easily disproved by the fact that computers and networks, you know, work, that they must be utterly lacking in critical thinking.

One does have to question just how much they truly understand about computers / disks and networks.

Zoon said:

Do they not understand that whatever arrives at the network card will be identical whatever RAID setting has been chosen?

Apparently they don't.

In the ensuing Facebook debate, one person replied with the following:

fb said:

I am no expert in these things, far from it.
I just don't believe in the "it's just 1's and 0's" way of looking at things.
Music and it's complicated harmonic structures is a hard thing to replicate.
A lot of people think that wire is just wire and electricity is just electricity.
Most of us have experienced our systems sounding better late at night when the national grid is less stressed.

[outnumbered]

JimbobVFR said:

Melco are way ahead of you there.

https://www.futureshop.co.uk/melco-n10-digital-mus...

Unbelievable... Although, if people are stupid enough to fall for this kind of thing and can afford it, it all keeps the economy ticking over, so what's not to like.

[mgv8]

Lost the will to read all the pages, but do people "run their cables in" or even pay for some on to do it?

[Heres Johnny]

Jobbo said:

One day people will be nostalgic for the clicking of the read head on traditional HDD platters. Maybe they can be sold to hipsters in 2039

And how a good defrag of your hard disk can improve the wow and flutter of the stream the 0 and 1s

[LordLoveLength]

PhilboSE said:

TonyRPH said:

I saw this article on Facebook yesterday.

enjoythemusic said:

Enjoy the Music.com
HIFICRITIC
Volume 5 No. 3
Listening To Storage

"Listening tests reveal significant sound quality differences between various digital music storage technologies."

Article By Andrew Harrison and Stephen N. Harris

There are so many wild claims here. Striped sounds better than RAID etc. etc.

This is worse than the claims that the sound can be changed by different routers and switches.

These folk are truly deluded.

I read about half the article, and had to stop, because I fear my head would have exploded if I had finished it.

I presume these people take themselves seriously, and yet their assertions are so easily disproved by the fact that computers and networks, you know, work, that they must be utterly lacking in critical thinking.

Not only that but what are they actually listening to?
For a few years now studios have been moving to Audio-Over-IP solutions. Traditional outboard kit has been replaced by plugins - virtual kit often accessed over a network.
Stageboxes are often network - connected to mixing desks and multi-track PCs

All of this studio network infrastructure that is so detrimental to the sound quality will be 'hard coded' into the finished product - yet apparently only the 'local' network adversely affects the sound?

If anyone thinks studios are using audio-grade gold plated RJ45s and switches they are in for a surprise...

[Honk]

mgv8 said:

Lost the will to read all the pages, but do people "run their cables in" or even pay for some on to do it?

As above Tony RPH is the go to guy.

[gizlaroc]

It is not about the data getting there though, it is not about the data getting corrupted or anything, it is about the devices that are attached adding noise to the playback device.
But we are talking DS Card vs hard drive vs NAS.

Raid vs single disc? Jesus fkin wept!!

Edited by gizlaroc on Tuesday 14th May 18:23

[TonyRPH]

Honk said:

mgv8 said:

Lost the will to read all the pages, but do people "run their cables in" or even pay for some on to do it?

As above Tony RPH is the go to guy.

[silentbrown]

outnumbered said:

Although, if people are stupid enough to fall for this kind of thing and can afford it, it all keeps the economy ticking over, so what's not to like.

What's NOT to like is that this kind of pseudo-science and pseudo-engineering simply devalues the real thing. It's really no different to homeopathy and anti-vaxxers.

[gizlaroc]

silentbrown said:

It's really no different to homeopathy and anti-vaxxers.

Hey!!!! WTF are you telling me now???!!

[tobinen]

I've just stumbled on to this thread and I've had a properly good chuckle

[Toltec]

A SAN housed in your personal tier 1 data centre surely?