External HD VS Flash Drive Sound Quality Question

I'm compelled to create an account instead of lurking. There should be no direct difference in sound quality due to hard drive or ssd or usb cables. The files are transferred to the Oppo as files and Oppo does the conversion from file in Oppo memory to audio and the differences in components discussed here shouldn't make any real difference. To put it another way, if you put your bank statements on a hard drive, flash drive, or SSD and then tried to read it over a USB cable, would you expect to get different results on the computer? Would your bank statements be more accurate if you used an audiophile quality USB cable? The data is transferred and then opened by Excel (or whatever) and displayed. The frequency at which errors would happen in the transfer from data source to computer would be extremely low. If you trust bank statements or homework to these storage technologies, then the audio files are just as reliable in terms of 100% fidelity after transfer.

With that said...I do own an Oppo 103 and switched to using an SSD since it seems my wireless network couldn't transfer high-res 5.1 files fast enough for continuous play (really choppy buffering problems like when you try to watch a video online and it just can't keep up and buffers). But the hard drive transfer rate over USB is much faster and more reliable than a crappy wireless connection. There is a big difference between not having sufficient bandwidth (buffering problems and no continuous play) and loss in fidelity or sound with continuous play (which should NOT happen).

The only other source of differences would be from some subtle interactions in stuff other than pure transfer issues (does the power source interfere in some way with other cables, etc.). Personally, I would suspect the impact is reasonably low for reasonable hardware. The most annoying sound impact that I can think of would be that some spinning disks I've owned I can actually here them spin and the heads move (you can hear on computer boot up...the ticking that isn't from the fan). This is worse if the data is fragmented. Defrag your spinning disks! :) SSD don't have the problem since there are no moving parts.

While I don't know for certain which physical differences would cause what sound differences, in the world of cd there are HUGE difference both between standalone cd transports, digital cables, & at least some of us hear differences between power cables (I certainly do, though I don't understand why).

Taking that comparison here (both the Flash drive & the hard drive are filling the same role as the standalone cd transport); on the one hand we have a solid state device with no power, no cable & no moving parts.

On the other hand, we have a spinning disc, a $2.00 digital cable, a $5 cable including a power supply (the power supply alone in my Esoteric cd transport is probably a $100 part), & who knows what inside the box connecting the hd to the USB enclosure.

As I mentioned in one of the posts above, I can also only check the polarity in 1 position at this time on the drive due to the physical set up of my power conditioner.

All that said, I'm still not 100% certain that the Flash Drives sound better; I can only say with certainty the flash sounded much better on a solo Piano album. I just haven't had the time to do more comparisons. I will admit I developed a bias from the one comparison, but I do plan to check a few more albums when I can.

For complete transparency, the comparison I made on the Jarrett is between a Seagate Backup Plus 2 TB STCA2000100 USB 3.0 HD & an Adata C008 32 GB USB 2.0 Flash.

Thanks for your viewpoint Krikdf, but it has turned out pretty often that things that shouldn't affect sound quality do, at least for some people. Have you compared high res files on flash drives to the same files on your your SSD into your Oppo?

I don't have an SSD.

Hi Moomoo, my question was for Kriskdf. I hope he will compare flash drives to his SSD and tell us what he hears.