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External HD VS Flash Drive Sound Quality Question

Hi have an Oppo BDP-95. I am up to around 25 Flash drives which is getting ridiculous.

2 questions (hoping for folks who know the definitive answers; I have my own guesses, bu that's all they are.)

1. HD Tracks has written that the Flash drives sound better than any spinning disc or drive due to lack of jitter from lack of a spinning disc. Is that accurate?

2. I have noticed a new generation of external hd's that get all there power through the USB port, & do not require an out board power supply.

A. Would there be any detectable sonic difference either way? If so, which is better: the cheap wall wort power supplies or getting power solely through the USB line?

B. The Western Digital USB drives with no power supply have a proprietary cable that looks quite cheap. Would the lack of an audiophile USB cable be sonically problematic?

I'm basically trying to decide whether to ditch the lash drives or a USB hard drive; & if so whether to go with a powered or unpowered drive. A couple +'s re the new WD's: they are teeny & they run cooler than the Seagates I've used.
moomoo
moomoo OP
81 posts
 
Either I'm going brain dead, or my "s" & "t" keys are intermittently not working (or both......)
almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
It's definitely putting out a lower (digital) volume level than discs or flash drives. No idea why. Not a big deal, I'd say I'm turning the volume control 1-2 clock markings higher
If so, I'd expect that the reason is not that the hard drive is "putting out" a lower volume than the discs or flash drives, but that for some reason the player is treating the data that is received from the hard drive differently than the data that is received from the other media. Perhaps shifting the data within each sample by one bit location, at some point in the data path, which would probably result in a 6 db change in volume.

Regards,
-- Al
moomoo OP
81 posts
 
A couple more quick comments: I'm going to break what I said above about waiting:

1. The volume issue was me; I'm too embarrassed to say what I did, bit it was me.

2. WITHOUT a/b ing at all, my initial reaction is that other than missing HDCD (the Oppo only encodes HDCD on discs), 44/16 sounds fine; based on memory 44/16 sounds just as good as it does on disc. As I may have to do a major physical downsize, I may end up ripping most discs to hd's.

3. I hear very little difference WITH THE HARD DRIVE between hi-res & 44/16. Based on memory alone, the Flash drives & real discs are much better on hi res. Don't know if it's my imagination, or a cable issue; but that's what I'm hearing.

The Oppo's strength is sound staging & depth on high res material, & at least today that strength is almost totally gone with hi-def files played back through the USB HD (identical files to those I've been playing on the Flash Drives).

Again, I will report back in a couple weeks, though I do not expect to have the money to try audiophile cabling options in the meantime so that will remain a variable.
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tomcy6
2,533 posts
 
Thanks for the update Moomoo. I hope you can get those high res files sounding like they should. I'm looking forward to hearing more on your findings.
moomoo OP
81 posts
 
I still haven't spent enough time, but my initial reaction is on hi-res with the BDP-95 The Flash Drives seem to sound quite a bit better. I so far haven't heard much difference with 44/16, though.

I need to spend more time before I make that statement definitively, though.

The main comparison I did was the 96/24 Flac version of Keith Jarrett - Koln Concert. The Flash seemed to have more air, better soundstaging, definition & more detail; the hard drive was a bit bright in the loud passages where the Flash was not.

Identical files.
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