SSD in iPod and trick to make sound quality really outstanding - Page 2

You are a believer in quite a few discredited myths,...a power cord making a difference in SQ??? Oh, no, you really are a lost child - my condolences to you,...I shall exit this thread now and bid you farewell.

 Actually power cords do make a huge difference. They can effect resistance of the incoming AC wave. They can effect Volt Amps Reactive and just amperage in general. That is why power cords are UL rated for certain amperage level the more stable current you have the better the system will sound. The way this effects digital is because the power cord can add noise or not add as much noise and AC is a signal is a sound wave basically a quiet power cord with good current and low resistance will give you stable 60hz signal many digital clocks base their clock frequency off of incoming 60hz signal if the signal is distorted or clipped or noisy in any way it will effect analog as well as digital signals.  Stop criticizing people for things you don't understand and haven't heard different equipment enough to understand. 

As for the buffer issue HDD vs SSD Just because you have a "jitter reducting buffer" doesn't mean it is free of jitter, or "better sounding" If you never have to introduce error correction or do any buffering it will sound better because it won't have to fix the damage done by jitter because there will be no jitter. This is exactly why sofisticated transports do sound magnitudes better than others. the Esoteric are a good example of this. They have very little digital glare and a lot more air and transparency No error correction is the best and I would believe that SSD would achieve this result in a better way. 

Edited by HiFi FOR METAL - 3/29/11 at 9:42pm

^you have no idea what you are talking about, and it shows  So obvious, not even worth the time to post how wrong you are.  What do you have a BS in?  BS?  Its best not to tread a territory that you don't have fundamental understanding of.  You can be an 100 years experienced audiophile, but misconceptions are misconceptions.  Guess what causes misconceptions...  I just mentioned it.   If you are trying to convince, make your supporting premises reasonable, or use opinions and make circular arguments like others do to annoy the hell out people that are more mature and rational.

 

The sad truth is, people that believe in cables don't really have credentials.  

Edited by High_Q - 3/29/11 at 10:19pm

the things we do for Sound quality!

Some period long time ago, you believed the world was flat and blamed to everyone who said this world is circular!!

 

 

I think a numerous theories is supported on the different sound when AC cable is changed and also Cryogenic process, Fuse changing and etc. (for example).

 

 

Then, open your mind and look around.

 

 

However, I have no comment on sound of SSD in iPod. Then, let me test your iPod WindowsX haha.

Edited by JoKethePanda - 3/30/11 at 11:32am

Sorry, I am a bit lost here. Are you saying that error correction or buffering will introduce jitter? Can you elaborate more on why they are?

Still, if there is any difference on SSD caching or not, I really don't understand why SSD which is much slower than RAM(the cache) can give less jitter, so much that it is audible. One reason that may come into mind is that the interface of SSD transmits data better than the interface of the RAM, but is it?

 

And then one could question what the command "Disable caching" actually do. Is the processor then reads the data solely from the storage? Or only partially and still cache some of the data, or so. The reason I ask is I found strange why to disable cache at all. Won't it be very inefficient for the processor to have to get the data straight from the storage? (I/O bound?)

 

Miku39 sorry for taking so long to respond. to answer your question Error correction doesn't add jitter it just cannot fix all of it Jitter is a timing based distortion so any time domain changes in clock speed and timing effect the sound in phase coherence, sound stage, and frequency recomposition. basically the less fixing you have to do post facto the better the result, because the error correction can't reconstitute data or timing information that isn't there, or if it is there the error correction can only do so much to fix a jitter damaged signal. I can tell you that I have heard 4000 dollar clocks put on really good CD players and heard it make a huge difference it was as if I stepped forward a few rows in a live instrumental concert I heard better attack and decay artifacts and the like. The transport and clock and the effects of jitter can effect timbre, as well as pace rythm , and timing. Compared to analog digital doesn't usually convey decay all that well, There are exceptions with better clocks and jitter control and the like, but this is why the small differences can make a huge difference in the realism of a signal. 

 

in an SSD vs HD comparison I would imagine that HDD with it's read mechanism would potentially impart more jitter than SSD Cashing probably avoids much of this, but I am not sure what it is cashing it could be cashing with already jitter laiden signals and therefore SSD would eliminate much of this intrinsic jitter. Much of this technology needs to be tested and better testing for jitter made right now we can only theoretically test beyond 10 pico seconds of jitter there are no scopes that can test beyond this at this point even though less jitter artifacts are still audible and effect every part of the signal. Reconstitution of a digital signal after it is damaged is like trying to added image stabilisation to a shaky video, you can "correct" for this in post but your images will still look magnitudes better without any shaking" the same applies to jitter.  

There is absolutely no way that I would risk bricking any of my 'pods simply to try this little gem out.

Sorry to revive an old thread but better than starting a new one.

Has anyone actually sat down and compared sound quality of an ssd iPod against its hdd sibling? Or even just an iPhone vs iPod? Is there a perceivable sq diffrence? In particular in a separate Dac situation such a CLAS or fostex? I doubt there is any perceivable difference

I am no expert at any of these, but isn't it still a digital signal at the point of the hard disk? regardless it's a SSD or HD, it has not pass the processor/DAC section of your ipod. It'll need to be a big differences to be able to hear it (flac, 320kbps, 128kbps), and even at that some people can't hear it (maybe not people on the forums here ).

I can't really imagine that SSD vs HDD would actually have an audible difference.  And since there's no ABX anywhere that I know of to prove it, I don't see a reason to even entertain the possibility.  There are plenty of other quantifiable benefits to SSD, though.

I'm with you Shadin. I was just curious to what others thought, esp on the "theory" of jitter and caching etc. I think it would have an even less effect if you are bypassing the DAC as lxxl points out.

 

Anyway I have purchased a HDD ipod so I will let you know soon if there is any audible difference to the iPhone 4S

 

P.S. I am surprised that the old "128 vs FLAC makes no difference" argument is still around. On a decent amp/IEM setup, the difference is profound. Actually even on a cheap USB Logitech PC headset 128kbs sticks out like a sore thumb...

Edited by Lillee - 2/26/12 at 4:05pm

Flash-storage based iPods DO sound better than those with traditional HDD's .

It's because the motors and all the movement inside the HDD creates vibrations and noise .

This noise travels via your big fat cryo-freezed linseseed-coated custom paladium-cable right into your ears ..

Kinda like when the cable brushes against your clothing !

Also, when the HDD has to spin up there might be to little juice left for your cans :)

 

If this is what they meant by it sounding better/different then it's a total non-issue when strapped to a CLAS or Fostex...

 

Fostex tops up ipod so battery issue is a non-issue.