Perrew,
No, I did not comment on the linear power sound quality at all. I simple said I did not do A/B tests between SSD and regular hard drives, when using the linear power supply.
When we did A/B tests between SSD external hard drives and regular hard drives, we used stock Mac Minis and our Mach2 units.
In the A/B tests, we used the same cabling, external HD enclosure, Mac, software and music. We simply swapped out the hard drive in the external enclosure. We used Memory Play in these tests since this is always a big debate.
We normally use a Firewire enclosure that has the Oxford chipset. When using a regular hard drive, we get a nice sounds stage, good detail, low background noise, good dynamics. It is way better than USB set ups we tried in the past.
When we swapped the SSD in for the regular hard drive, the noise floor was quieter. The dynamics improved, the width of the soundstage got better and the depth of the soundstage was much better. The sound was tighter too (i.e. cymbals had more definition).
I'm not saying everyone should run out and buy external SSD drives. They do sound better, but the price increase is significant. You may have other things in your system that need addressing.
The internal drive is a no-brainer, although you must be careful in doing the swap. The cost to replace the internal drive is reasonable and the gains are very noticeable.
Darrell
www.mach2music.com
