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External hard drives and sound quality

I've just about filled up the internal hard drive on my Macbook with music files and am now looking at external hard drive options. Was wondering whether folks report any difference in sound quality when playing files from an external drive versus the internal?

I'm especially interested in hearing people's experiences using wireless hard drives. An Apple rep told me it would be no problem, as the hard drive wouldn't directly interface with the USB output, but I of course always like to be skeptical of anything an Apple rep says.
coverto
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,680 posts
 
Herman,

Well, I am what I say. And someone actually pays me pretty well to be what I am. So there!

I would adapt your position except the problem is then we would both be wrong.

You are free to stay clear of external drives if you prefer, but I will continue to use them.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,680 posts
 
Coverto,

Regarding wireless (NAS) drives, I tried one prior to my current external USB drives (and after using the internal disk drive prior to it filling up) and dumped it. It had nothing to do with sound quality, more that it was slow and unreliable, even when used only for backups. Other wireless NAS devices may be better.

My current Seagate USB drives are just the opposite, ie fast and reliable in every aspect. Other model external drives may have a different set of strengths and weaknesses as well.

Sound quality has never been an issue for me either in theory nor in practice because, well, as I pointed out disk drives HAVE NO SOUND. When a difference is heard, it is for other reasons. In my case (NAS, internal, external) I have heard no differences in practice.
herman
2,280 posts
 
Why do you assume I would not use them? I have 3 external drives hooked up to my computer. I have no idea whether or not they can affect the sound and neither do you because neither one of us or that other fellow have done the testing to prove it one way or another. I use software that loads a file into memory before it plays it which I like to believe mitigates any negative effects reading from any drive might have. It seems perfectly logical but I have no proof of that. For me to state external drives do affect the sound would be just as silly as you stating they don't because neither of us has any proof.

I'm having a hard time believing you are an engineer. If you are then you must have been trained in the scientific method yet you completely ignore the basic premises. You have a hypothesis that you now believe to be a scientific law with very limited testing. Going back to a previous post, using your logic you must believe that bumblebees can't fly. There is no scientific reason they can so therefore they can't. That is exactly the same logic as "People can believe what they want but there is no technical basis for it."

As for wireless I got my sister a 1TB Buffalo NAS drive that hooks to her wireless router via ethernet that works fine. She uses iTunes on a PC to stream from that wirelessly to an Aiport Express hooked into her stereo. No claims whether or not any of that affects the sound as I've done no comparisons but it sounds fine to me and she has no dropouts. The transfer rate is a bit slow but fine for audio. It also has a USB port so you can use that to hook up direct to the PC to speed things up when you load it.

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mapman's avatar
mapman
22,680 posts
 
Herman,

I have some evidence to support my "hypothesis".

I have used internal, external USB, and wireless NAS storage and I have heard no differences. Nor do I hear a difference having used three different computers as music servers.

I do hear differences whenever I change any other part of my system.

So my data points support my hypothesis even though scientifically it proves nothing as you say.

Also, none of this surprises me based on my understanding of how computer and audio systems work. So I am as comfortable as I can be in my "beliefs".

You are the one bringing "scientific law" into the discussion not me.

I also would state that I do believe bumblebees can fly, so your model for predicting my beliefs is apparently not working very well.

Hopefully my limited experience in the area of question can be of benefit to someone.

So what practical advice or opinion is it that you are offering those interested in the question again besides the wisdom of realizing that nothing proves anything?
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,448 posts
 
Mapman wrote: "I have used internal, external USB, and wireless NAS storage and I have heard no differences. Nor do I hear a difference having used three different computers as music servers."

Mapman - you're not going to win this argument because "somebody else might hear it". To me this is utterly nonsense that is anti-scientific and brings voodoo-harm to this forum. If we really don't know anything and have to test everything than perhaps we should test if red car has better gas millage than blue car before buying - because: "would be just as silly as you stating they don't because neither of us has any proof".

If we would pay attention to every possibility we would not have computers today.
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