XXHighEnd

Hi Peter, Hi all,

After reading the last post about the HD choice I have another question.

When building my audioPC I choose for a 5400 RMP instead of a 7200 RPM HD.
Reasons: less power consumption, less heat, less sound, longer life but I also realized that it has less speed.

Now I am asking myself (and you all) was it a good choice.

Is it better to go for a 7200RPM HD in relation with the use of XXHighend
And does the HD buffer size has any effect on this all?

Hey Wim,

IMO the 5400 instead of 7200 doesn't matter at all for normal XXHE useage. A bit depending on the speed of your system it will matter at copying though, but still not the 5400:7200 relation.

If you think the powerconsumption is less and that this matters by itself, I would do it.

The buffer size always matters I think, especially when small portions are never needed (we always need large chunks of data). So, the larger the better, I would say.

Peter

I agree with you. it wont matter. The slowest HD is still much faster than the biggerst audio bitrate by 100s times.

Now if you use a SSD for the OS disc is another matter...

I need some advice...

I have two different types of SSD:
i) OCZ Vertex Turbo (120GB) - read up to 270MB/s, write up to 200MB/s, sustained write 120MB/s
ii) OCZ Vertex 2 (90GB) - read up to 285MB/s, write up to 275MB/s, sustained write 250MB/s

Which option do you think will yield the best SQ?
a) both OS and XX on Vertex 2
b) both OS and XX on Vertex Turbo
c) OS on Vertex 2 and XX on Vertex Turbo
d) OS on Vertex Turbo and XX on Vertex 2

EDIT: I should have mentioned that I use the 'Copy to XX drive by standard' function.

Cheers,
Mani.

You should use the fastest SSD for system. It doesn't matter where you keep your XX folder as long as it's on a fast drive imho. Maybe Peter will clarify that for you.

1. XX on the fastest sustainable write drive.
2. Put the OS on the XX drive.
3. Sell the other one on eBay. :)

I am not sure about 2, and therefore not about 3.

Peter

That's exactly what I suspected - use the fastest sustain write drive for XX... and for the OS also (why not?). I'll report back if I feel the SQ has changed.

Thanks.

Mani.

Maybe a little offtopic, but I think you will find that interesting. I unmounted my Samsung 1.5TB eco (5400RPM) hdd from PC and placed it on a docking station with separate PSU. The connetion with PC is through eSATA, so basically the same. I thought that would eliminate the negative impact of the HDD on my sound card, but guess what, even that the hard drive is 30cm away from PC, the interference goes over the ground of eSATA cable or back to the socket outlet, don't know, but what I know is that when I unplug the docking station's PSU from the socket, the sound becomes more open, less edgy/digital - better. So don't tell me that storage doesn't matter. People laugh when somebody writes about different SQ when it comes to HDDs. It's not about performance, it's about sth else - negative effect on power.

This is (probably) why I have always said that it is sufficient to have a SSd in here. Just that. Don't play music from it or whatever ... it just has to be in there (powered).

So I will believe it.

Yes, this is interesting.

But the obvious question is, what is causing the interference? Perhaps anything with a motor has a negative affect on SQ? (I know that many people cite the motor and servo-system as being the main issues with CD-transports.) If so, then you've got to get all the HDDs and fans out of the PC (the route that I've taken). This should lower the power consumption of the PC also, which might help.


This is also interesting. My experience, playing around with wordclocks, PLLs and RAM buffers in DACs is that this is what less jitter sounds like. Some people describe jitter as sounding 'muddy' and 'muffled'. In my experience it sounds more 'edgy' and 'bright'. But perhaps a lot is dependent on the jitter spectrum.

Mani.

So, I spent a couple of hours installing the new SSD yesterday (option a above). Any improvement in SQ over my previous 2x slower SSDs? Well, I'm not really sure. But I'm happy with the SQ I'm getting from XX - although I was before too!

I think it's time for me to stop the PC tweaks now...

Mani.