News This NVMe SSD Is Geared Towards Audiophiles

[Admin]

According to a post on an audiophile forum, a new SSD has been created that supposedly enhances audio quality all by itself.

This NVMe SSD Is Geared Towards Audiophiles : Read more

 

[ottonis]

The audiophile community tends to be somewhat esoteric at times, that's why some companies can sell audio cables 100x as expensive as "normal" cables, and the alleged sound advantages of which actually never materialized in a blind testing.
That being said, I like the pSLC approach of this drive that makes it very durable and significantly extends its time of usage.
This might be of interest for everybody who prefers a fixed, static set-up ("switch on and don't touch ever again") approach.

 

[papaspud]

There is a special natural feeling, it becomes more smooth and calm, the thickness is slightly increased, and overall it is more resistant to hearing but still slightly dry."

Sounds like something you could say about a glass of wine, to justify it's price.... a bunch of nothing.

 

[malachi.b]

I'm an IT guy, firmware audio engineer and did a fair bit of recording on computers over the years.

This product is 99% marketing nonsense. What Tom's Hardware says is basically true, that you're dealing with ones and zeroes. The 1% truth comes in that unwanted noise is very prominent from the computer and tends to permeate incoming analog signals. External audio ADCs / codecs really get this under control well, but sometimes you do still get bleed.

I had recordings where you could faintly hear the hard drive in the back of the signal, and it was not because it was directly audible but rather traveled up the Firewire cable itself as digital noise likely into the ADC directly. So, there are conditions where you want to reduce the noise in that context and the extra caps on the SSD could indeed help.

That said, your by far best bet is to get a better isolated external ADC / Codec and not diddle with the no-win scenario of quieting down the electronics of the PC itself. As one would imagine, it's all about purity of the incoming analog signal.

And insofar as the SSD directly improving audio quality, creating a thicker sound...that's pure nonsense.

 

[Lafong]

There is a special natural feeling, it becomes more smooth and calm, the thickness is slightly increased, and overall it is more resistant to hearing but still slightly dry."

Sounds like something you could say about a glass of wine, to justify it's price.... a bunch of nothing.

Absolutely correct.

Round, somewhat insouciant, with only a hint of obtuseness. Mouth feel vaguely reminiscent of an 8 inch crescent wrench.

 

[ottonis]

I'm an IT guy, firmware audio engineer and did a fair bit of recording on computers over the years.

This product is 99% marketing nonsense. What Tom's Hardware says is basically true, that you're dealing with ones and zeroes. The 1% truth comes in that unwanted noise is very prominent from the computer and tends to permeate incoming analog signals. External audio ADCs / codecs really get this under control well, but sometimes you do still get bleed.

I had recordings where you could faintly hear the hard drive in the back of the signal, and it was not because it was directly audible but rather traveled up the Firewire cable itself as digital noise likely into the ADC directly. So, there are conditions where you want to reduce the noise in that context and the extra caps on the SSD could indeed help.

That said, your by far best bet is to get a better isolated external ADC / Codec and not diddle with the no-win scenario of quieting down the electronics of the PC itself. As one would imagine, it's all about purity of the incoming analog signal.

And insofar as the SSD directly improving audio quality, creating a thicker sound...that's pure nonsense.

Once I had a laptop that produced some weird noise whenever I moved the mouse. That noise was indeed creeping into the headphones and was clearly audible.
So, yes, you might have a point that shielding electronic components may contribute to keeping the signal path from the DAC to the analogue audio output as clean as possible.
That being said, most people who are halfway serious about hi-fi music will use external audio devices.

 

[Neilbob]

Maybe they're hoping people who think Beats are high quality headphones will buy these.

 

[InvalidError]

This product is 99% marketing nonsense. What Tom's Hardware says is basically true, that you're dealing with ones and zeroes. The 1% truth comes in that unwanted noise is very prominent from the computer and tends to permeate incoming analog signals. External audio ADCs / codecs really get this under control well, but sometimes you do still get bleed.

With the amount of stuff between the SSD and analog output (an entire PC), there is practically no way in hell that whatever noise may be caused directly by the SSD isn't getting swamped by incidental noise from PCIe, chipset, GPU, CPU, RAM, peripherals, etc.

 

[USAFRet]

Digital is 1's and 0's.
This drive imparts a 1.1. Richer, rounder, warmer sound.

Closer to the original vinyl, especially if you're sampling 78RPM vinyl, from the Before Times.
Similar to the oxygen infused, or oxygen free cables.



As the manufacturer states:
pSLC mode: There is a special natural feeling, it becomes more smooth and calm, the thickness is slightly increased, and overall it is more resistant to hearing but still slightly dry.

The thickness....

 

[Deleted member 1353997]

I think it's time for me to sell nail clippers for audiophiles.

With the proper trim, your nails are less likely to interfere with the sound waves coming out of your speakers, allowing for a richer, rounder, warmer sound quality even more real than real.

/s

 

[OMGPWNTIME]

As someone who has always been obsessed with audio quality; I've always used high quality DACs with quality AD/DA converters into quality studio monitors, I will never understand the absurd amount of garbage people seem to believe with regards to audio. It's no surprise there's an endless amount of products tailored to their nonsense. From those outrageously stupid expensive cables to forcing ASIO always or magical wave transformation. Of course you wan't decent quality cables but you can get those for less than $60. People don't seem to even understand the purpose of ASIO through a DAW, or that WASAPI is fully capable of bit perfect audio. The easiest improvement to your audio is set windows audio to 100% to limit the windows mixer interaction (obviously WASAPI exclusive bypasses the mixer always) and match your audio bitrate to your source as windows will resample.

 

[DougMcC]

This sounds like an amazing product, right up to the part where the audio becomes more resistant to hearing. I think all of us true audiophiles know that what you want is the absolute lowest resistance to hearing. Seems like one of their designers must have screwed up big time and misunderstood the spec!

 

[Chung Leong]

Sounds like something you could say about a glass of wine, to justify it's price.... a bunch of nothing.

I remember a study from years ago where researchers served wines to subjects spanning a wide price range but which were in fact exactly the same wine. Brain scans showed that the pleasure center was stimulated more by the "more expensive" ones. Our brain can actually sense a difference that we imagine exists.

One trick that the restaurant has known for a while is that heavier utensils make food tastes better. In this case we're not even consciously aware of a connection between taste and weight.

The mind makes it real, basically.

 

[atmapuri]

that WASAPI is fully capable of bit perfect audio. The easiest improvement to your audio is set windows audio to 100% to limit the windows mixer interaction (obviously WASAPI exclusive bypasses the mixer always) and match your audio bitrate to your source as windows will resample.

Ahumm... Cough...Oh really? While playing audio, enable the"preview pane" in the Windows Explorer. Then select a .txt file to be able to see .txt file content on the right side in the preview pane.

Notice the audio skipping a second.

If you are really careful, you can hear desktop windows switching in the WASAPI and various other nonsense. To be honest ASIO is much better, but also not immune to this. The reason is simply that that Microsofts wonderfull high speed software and Chrome etc... like to be fast. So they set their own thread priority to real time audio to open a file and show a picture.

Only the MAC can do it right. As long as you keep the app in foreground and don't mess around.

Kind Regards!
Atmapuri

 

[bernardv]

With each year passing in the digital era it is becoming increasingly clear that audiophiles = rich idiots.

 

[Giroro]

I'm an IT guy, firmware audio engineer and did a fair bit of recording on computers over the years.

This product is 99% marketing nonsense. What Tom's Hardware says is basically true, that you're dealing with ones and zeroes. The 1% truth comes in that unwanted noise is very prominent from the computer and tends to permeate incoming analog signals. External audio ADCs / codecs really get this under control well, but sometimes you do still get bleed.

I had recordings where you could faintly hear the hard drive in the back of the signal, and it was not because it was directly audible but rather traveled up the Firewire cable itself as digital noise likely into the ADC directly. So, there are conditions where you want to reduce the noise in that context and the extra caps on the SSD could indeed help

As an electronics engineer, I pretty strongly disagree that a couple random electrolytic caps connected to (the 5v rail???) Will do anything whatsoever to affect the electromagnetic emissions of an SSD in a audiable frequency.

I would call the capacitors a tinfoil hat, except that wrapping this in tinfoil might actually do something to suppress all that MHz-range noise from coupling onto some data line somewhere in some way that magically alters the binary data in a digital audio stream without breaking it entirely.

I don't know how a (I assume spinning) HDD could mess with a firewire interface. All I can come up with is that maybe the hdd had a bad flyback diode and the back emf was somehow obliterating some firewire data in the motherboard's chipset. Which probably would have come across like some really harsh pops or interruptions... IE obviously "broken" sound, not the placebo junk audiphiles beleive in. But I don't see how electrolytic capacitors would have helped that problem.

Either way, I'm very curious to see if they even bothered to wire those decorative caps up to anything at all. In the meantime we should call this drive what it really is: a lie designed to steal money from dumb rich music lovers who don't know how magnets work.
So, basically, the target market for these drives is $haggy2dope, and nobody else.

 

[Krotow]

Once I had a laptop that produced some weird noise whenever I moved the mouse. That noise was indeed creeping into the headphones and was clearly audible.
So, yes, you might have a point that shielding electronic components may contribute to keeping the signal path from the DAC to the analogue audio output as clean as possible.
That being said, most people who are halfway serious about hi-fi music will use external audio devices.

You just described usual motherboard or aftermarket sound card with cheap audio PCB layout circa 1997-2005. I also noticed interference in audio from PC when moved from older PC where good sound cards like original SB16, SB AWE32 and GUS Ultrasound cards had basically no interference, to new PC with audio built in motherboard. Indeed it was possible to hear mouse moving and hard drive access Then I upgraded to better motherboard with S/PDIF optical output and interference in audio was not a problem anymore.

I think it's time for me to sell nail clippers for audiophiles.
With the proper trim, your nails are less likely to interfere with the sound waves coming out of your speakers, allowing for a richer, rounder, warmer sound quality even more real than real.

Unfortunately there are not much of them.

 

[InvalidError]

You just described usual motherboard or aftermarket sound card with cheap audio PCB layout circa 1997-2005.

AC97 CODECs and their implementation on motherboards were generally horrible, that is why I ended up tossing an Audigy 2 in my P4 back then. On-board audio got massively better all-around along the migration to HDA.

 

[onewhoknowsmore]

fun o read a lot of <Mod Edit> from people who have no idea what they're talking about,

 

[USAFRet]

fun o read a lot of <Mod Edit> from people who have no idea what they're talking about,

Please....enlighten us.

 

[onewhoknowsmore]

see that no one have no idea how sound is produced in a computer and what affects it,

 

[Krotow]

AC97 CODECs and their implementation on motherboards were generally horrible, that is why I ended up tossing an Audigy 2 in my P4 back then. On-board audio got massively better all-around along the migration to HDA.

DAC circuits on usual consumer motherboards didn't got much better at today. Luckily there are choices for average folk now like S/PDIF out on motherboard with acceptable quality external DAC or good USB headphones. Also DAC alone will not save listening experience if speakers are crap. I don't mean audiophile price grade crap here. After tossing out my 2 decades old Sony headphones bought at 2000 in Nuremberg's Saturn in favor of Corsair Void Pro USB headphones, I suddenly was able to understand everything said in movies and game dialogs without losing music features. I assume that audiophile grade SSD would improve nothing here. Can't fix audio quality loss caused by bad headphones or damaged hearing.

 

[samopa]

Why did they use pSLC instead of real SLC ?
With the price they charge, they can cover SLC NAND chip price and market it as "Real SLC".

 

[Krotow]

Why did they use pSLC instead of real SLC ?
With the price they charge, they can cover SLC NAND chip price and market it as "Real SLC".

(in Mr. Crabs voice) Money. With pSLC is possible to make smaller and cheaper drives. More profit for blackjack and hookers to company bosses. And who cares about small print?

 

[InvalidError]

DAC circuits on usual consumer motherboards didn't got much better at today.

Back in the AC97 days, motherboards often put audio circuitry on the same power and ground planes as everything else and that is a key reason why most AC97 implementations sound like garbage which lets you hear noise from every little thing like moving the mouse around.

With HDA, it became standard practice even at the low end for motherboard manufacturers to split analog ground and power planes to isolate audio from the rest of the system so most digital noise stays on the digital side and you can even see the plane split by shining a sufficiently bright light through the board.

After tossing out my 2 decades old Sony headphones bought at 2000 in Nuremberg's Saturn in favor of Corsair Void Pro USB headphones, I suddenly was able to understand everything said in movies and game dialogs without losing music features.

I doubt this has anything to do with the headphones themselves. More likely, it is surround down-mix to stereo screwing up the sound because the sound engineers couldn't be bothered to make sure their mix was compatible with stereo output. I discovered this myself when my sister gave me a pair of cheap speakers from a PC she tossed out and I decided to use them to "upgrade" my stereo setup to ghetto-surround. The cheap speakers are horrible but still let me hear a bunch of stuff that previously getting lost in the stereo down-mix.