It's been a bit frustrating how long it's taking me to do a series of comparisons. Combination of life, & I'm also a movie fan. While my main system is optimized for music (& is stereo, NOT 5.1); I also use it for film. For the sake of these comparisons, system is stock Oppo BDP-95 with an after market power cord that I don't currently remember the name of (it was recommended her), connected by Tara Pandora to a Mod Squad Line Drive Deluxe (same electronics are the first McCormick model), which is connected by Tara Analog standard to a McCormick DNA 1 Mod 12 (mod done by Conrad Johnson); connected by Tara Omni bi wired speaker wire to a pair of NHT 2.5 I's (IMO the system's weak point).
Did another brief comparison tonight; the 1st 2 tracks from Peter Gebriel's Scratch My back (Heroes & Boy In The Bubble) in 24/48.
Tonight I intentionally played them through the Seagate first. Sounded quite nice; I was thinking there was no way the Flash drive would be better.
I was wrong. The Adata Flash had a slightly bette sense of midrange liquidity, sound staging & air.
I'm still not finished; but am continuing to come to the conclusion that the HD is much more convienient; and that in my system the Adata (which I've done all comparisons on so far) is slightly better.
As the weak point in my system (imo) is a lack of detail in the NHT's, I'm guessing in a system with a higher level of resolution the differences would be more pronounced.
I'm still not feeling this is definitive, though.
For times where listening isn't the #1 focus, if it wasn't for the bloody 1-2 second gap the Oppo's flac decoder puts between tracks (wav's also), I would probably be ripping & selling most of my cd's. The HD is certainly good enough for 99% of 44/16 cd's. Of course an option is to edit certain tracks together, but there is only so much time in this life!
One other issue with that idea; as far as I can tell, with 44/16 the Oppo only sees HDCD on real discs, not in files (again both flac & wav).
Did another brief comparison tonight; the 1st 2 tracks from Peter Gebriel's Scratch My back (Heroes & Boy In The Bubble) in 24/48.
Tonight I intentionally played them through the Seagate first. Sounded quite nice; I was thinking there was no way the Flash drive would be better.
I was wrong. The Adata Flash had a slightly bette sense of midrange liquidity, sound staging & air.
I'm still not finished; but am continuing to come to the conclusion that the HD is much more convienient; and that in my system the Adata (which I've done all comparisons on so far) is slightly better.
As the weak point in my system (imo) is a lack of detail in the NHT's, I'm guessing in a system with a higher level of resolution the differences would be more pronounced.
I'm still not feeling this is definitive, though.
For times where listening isn't the #1 focus, if it wasn't for the bloody 1-2 second gap the Oppo's flac decoder puts between tracks (wav's also), I would probably be ripping & selling most of my cd's. The HD is certainly good enough for 99% of 44/16 cd's. Of course an option is to edit certain tracks together, but there is only so much time in this life!
One other issue with that idea; as far as I can tell, with 44/16 the Oppo only sees HDCD on real discs, not in files (again both flac & wav).
