External hard drives and sound quality

I agree with there is no appreciable sonic improvement or degredation going onboard or outboard with the drives containing the files.

Wireless G allows sufficient through put of packets so it should be good enough to allow seamless playback. Interruptions can occur, but these are normally caused by outside factors affecting the frequency 'G' operates at. Vista as well using it's Windows default packet sending settings can be an issue for streaming wireless info, but it's an easy fix.... another thread I posted here shows exactly how to overcome slow feeds/seek and interruptions or 'drop outs'.

I can stream DVD's I've place onto a NAS drive via G to my laptop without interruption of either the audio or video stream, and I did not compress The DVD's orig info... it/they were ripped at 1:1.

There are threads here which expand upon which way is better, wireless or wired, if you look into the discussions search engine. I seem to recall the use of ethernet wire as being better.... I think.

I've tried both ways but not both ways with the exact same PC OS. Just XP Pro SP3 and Vista SP2.

Reportedly Macs have an easier time of it sonically, than do PCs. As with your own audio rig though, theres more than just a couple things which will come into play that can and will affect the audio output from your personal confuser and the overall SQ.

Enjoy.

Mapman and Blindjim are quite correct. There is no sonic drawback to using external hard drives. I use 2 LaCie d2 Quadras connected by firewire 800, with good results. Haven't tried a wireless hard drive, so I can't advise about that. Good luck.

i have some recent experience with this topic and some odd observations. i began, as you, ripping and storing on my laptop and about 6 weeks ago had filled it. this led to the process of evaluating external storage...nas, usb hd etc and i finally decided an a seagate blackarmor nas 110. i transfered all my music from the laptop on to the nas and to my big surprise, i had a noticeable improvement. things were airy and open where as i had a muddy, loose sound with my laptop (this negative change in sonics occurred as it got closer to full, was not always like this). very strange but very real. my guess is this had to do with overload on the processor in my laptop as there were more than a few quirks with the drive full. i realize many will say i am crazy but that is what happened. i am finding more and more that everything matters in computer audio. stuff we used to think did not actually does. i have a feeling we will all learn allot as this format begins to mature.

good luck with your transition...

You ask a question that only you can answer. The only way you can tell is to try it and see if you hear a difference. These types of questions always get 2 types of responses which has already occurred.

1. bits are bits, how could it possibly matter?

2. Everything matters. I tried it and heard a difference.

Go to the audioasylum.com PC audio forum and you can find a lot of discussion about this. People propose that solid state drives sound better, lower rpm drives sound better, if you have a usb dac then a firewire drive sounds better and vice versa, different usb ports sound different, etc.

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Take a look at Western Digital's heavy duty drives enterprise class.