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Gang, As posted on Computer Audiophile yesterday.
I have been toying with getting a new computer for use at shows and stuff. I was thinking it would be cool to get a Mac Air but the preformance had me a little leary.
So make my own but better....
I scored a new MacBook 2.4GHZ/2BG off ebay for $1100. I then got 4gb of memory for $100 and then I scored a Samsung SSD 64GB SATA2 drive for $600. Believe me the Samsung is worth it! It's fastest damn drive I have ever used.
Ok step one make sure the original works. Boot up check stuff ok...
1) unplug, remove battery, remove L bracket to expose the memory and drive.
2) pop out the old memory plug in the new.
3) pop out the old drive, take off the protective sleeve put it on the new drive and pop the drive in. I could have done this in 15 minutes but did not have the correct star driver to take off the protective sleve.
4) battery and power supply connected power up. Hold C down put in the install DVD.
5) format drive, partition for boot.
6) install the OS and software.
Just to give you idea of the speed here... typical raw install takes about 1:50. It was done in less than 35 minutes.
I will report back but really at $1800 or the Price on standard sata drive 1.6GHZ Mac Air. This thing will run circles around it. Albeit not as cute!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The damn system runs circles around everything else I have. The current draw on this drive is so much less that the laptop runs cooler drawing less power and therefore less noise.
Battery usage is easily 50%... I went on 4 hours yesterday downloading stuff with the display on full and battery was at 63%.
This is really cool...
Thanks
Gordon
J. Gordon Rankin
Follow Ups:
Hope this doesn't burst anyone's bubble ;-) Killer prices on these "Super Talent"-brand drives! (see link, below)
Neat project, Gordon!
Guys,
A dealer asked why I think this works better and I said....
Ok let's look at how we preceive audio reproduction. I feel that there is a curve, let's say exponetial in nature. When we derive a system that is say 90% accurate we say ok that's pretty good. To achieve say 3% more we find that spending almost 3x the amount is necessary.
In that regard do something like this may add that silly little 1% over a similar system.
Or maybe it is because it is sooo freaken cool.
No it does sound better...
A friend of mine did this... he took out his DVD drive in his MacBook pro and put in a 320GB hd. He then swapped out the main drive for a 32GB drive for the OS. He puts his library in the 320GB only partial as he has 3T full now and then uses his Silver Crimson into the MacBook Pro and then into the rest of his system (Shindo pre and new 80W amp-DeVore SilverBacks).
Thanks
Gordon
J. Gordon Rankin
I have an 8GB Kingston Datatraveller 400 USB flash drive where OS X Leopard running iTunes and not much else on my Macbook from the flash drive. In a different room I have a Mac Pro as a server with some 6 TB storage for some 6000 CD and quite a lot 96k/24bit and 128x DSD files, mainly digitized from LP, but few original high-res recordings as well.
This way playing through the Ethernet between the server and the flash booted Macbook, I have no moving parts and the majority of the bits played from the 2 GB ram of the MB. The intetrnal 120 GB HD is unmounted of course, I do not need it, but you can use it this to store your music only.
Like it much better than playing on the ordinary way. I have the Altmann Attraction DAC. Fun to see how the cache is is filled on the flash memory, as the led is blinking for a very short time in every few minutes.
In black or vanilla white? Is 4 gb of ram really necessary? Am thinking of getting a black one...
dave
Great price on the Samsung drive Gordon! I'll start checking around- looks pretty easy to convert my MacBook Pro. Just have to get a #6 Torx driver.
It helps to download the disassembly instructions from PowerBook Medic and iFixIt. (Macbook Pro disassembly is same as Aluminum PowerBook G4.)www.ifixit.com/Guide/
http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Take-Apart-Repair-Manuals-p-1-c-258.html
Gordon, I have not gone that far, but I did recently upgrade to a Mac Pro (for my photog work) and dedicated one internal hard drive to my iTunes library. So I no longer use an external drive via firewire. Suddenly, the music sounds better. More natural and certainly more dynamic. Is this possibly an effect of having the music accessed within the machine and not externally?
Faster speed is expected....what about the sound?
Guys,
First off this thing on Lossless files sounds as good as others in AIFF.
I cannot believe how cool it runs. I had this on all day loading this that and other and it was not even warm.
I have yet to even hear the fans go on.
Well worth the price.
Thanks
Gordon
J. Gordon Rankin
This is an interesting comment. About a year ago, I mentioned that AIFF sounded better to me than Apple Lossless (or any other lossless). I got ridiculed for not knowing what I was doing. I'm glad to know that I wasn't completely off the mark.
Congratulations on your new set up!
Saying... "First off this thing on Lossless files sounds as good as others in AIFF."
Is just saying that playing Lossless files sounds as good as others playing Lossless files...unless AIFF sounds better than other lossless files.
If you don't mind me asking. Are there any particulars that can be noted....like faster seek times, less or no blips in play back, cleaner and faster ripping of CD's, etc., etc.
I guess what I am asking is, what attributes of a SSD enhance or improve Computer Audio?
AIFF sounds better than other lossless files. Even on an ipod.
Thats interesting to know....but I dont see how that relates to SS-Drives.
But thanks for the info. I should try a couple of CD's and listen for myself.....
Sorry for the confusion. I'm just saying that whenever you convert a digital signal from one format to another, you can hear the change. I doesn't really matter what kind of hardware you are using, conversion is conversion. Zipping it seems to have the same effect, as Apple Lossless sounds different compared to the original AIFF source signal.
If you start with a 16/44.1 AIFF source, you should leave it that way for the best possible sound. Just my opinion, 2 cents, FWIW, etc.
Are you claiming that if you copy a WAV file then the copy sounds different? If so, which one sounds better?
Tony Lauck
"Perception, inference and authority are the valid sources of knowledge" - P.R. Sarkar
No, if you copy exactly it should be fine.
For example; if you start with a wav file and make your copy a wav file then that's good. But if you start with a store purchased CD (AIFF) and rip it as Apple Lossless, then you should be able to hear a difference. Notice I say "a difference" because for many people the slight difference is acceptable. An extreme example of a difference that is unacceptable (to me) is when I record something analog to 24/96 and then convert it to 16/44.1. When I record my own music at 24 bits and 44.1 kHz I can also hear the change when I dither to 16 bits to make a CDr. But that change is acceptable to me. The benefits of the 24 bits on my recorder outweigh the sound of dithering to 16 bits.
I hope that I haven't made things even more confusing. I just wanted to point out that when you do not "copy exactly" you can hear a change. Remember, it's just my opinion anyway.
Actually AIFF is a file format defined by Apple. Similarly, WAV is a file format defined by Microsoft. Although some of the control formats are different, the actual audio data in AIFF and WAV files is similiar, just raw PCM samples. (The difference is the order of bytes in the 16 bit words, which differ because Motorola processors and Intel processors store arithmetic in a different order in memory.) Store bought CDs have data in a different format as defined by the Philips/Sony Red Book, although they too have the same PCM data.
If you hear differences between Apple Lossless and AIFF you might try converting the lossless back to AIFF. You should end up with the same audio data. However, while playing a Lossless file your processor has extra work to do, and it is possible for this to cause audible effects. I don't hear differences on my system when playing FLAC compared to WAVs, but both sound better than playing CDs directly. The best results come when I use cics' cPlay application, because the audio data for a complete play list has been copied into RAM memory before the music starts.
Tony Lauck
"Perception, inference and authority are the valid sources of knowledge" - P.R. Sarkar
If we can get past the semantics, can we agree that if we change the original raw PCM samples in any way, then it is possible to hear that change in the copy?
If enough people tell me that I can't hear such a change then I will accept it as fact. (At least that's what I will say from now on to keep the peace. No sweat.)
We can all agree that some changes to the PCM samples will change the sound. (Otherwise we wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Beethoven and Beatles.) On the other hand, most people would agree with me that changing a low order bit in a single sample of a loud section of music will not make an audible difference, everything else being kept the same.
Where the disagreement starts is when the low order bit in many samples starts changing (e.g. dither issues) or where different filtering techniques are used to convert the original bits into a continuous analog waveform. Disagreement gets more intense when discussing whether there are audible side effects of various implementation techniques, e.g. caused by motors, power supplies, or software. (This includes the difference between playing AIFF and WAV files, where on a given system it may be necessary to do a byte swap when playing one format but not the other.)
There are even people who believe that other possibilities exist for influencing the sound that aren't covered by these categories, but until I can find a better way of understanding what these people are saying I personally don't find their remarks useful. Perhaps in the future they will be better able to articulate their points or I will be more receptive to their statements, perhaps goaded by a few sensory experiences that do not fit my present model of reality.
Tony Lauck
"Perception, inference and authority are the valid sources of knowledge" - P.R. Sarkar
You make some excellent points Tony. Thanks for hashing this out with me. It's true that articulating my thoughts is a challenge for me. That's a big problem considering that I try to post them here. I hope my lack of writing skills doesn't completely discredit me.In the old days, when we made an analog recording, every copy of the original recording was clearly different than the original. Noise was added or the dynamic range was reduced in the copy. No one ever argued the point that the original analog recording played back on the original recording machine always sounded better than any copy. For some reason, we now believe that once we digitize the master signal, we can make a copy that sounds exactly like the original recording played back on the original machine. I'm not really convinced of that. It might be true, but I'm just not totally convinced.
You have digital recording equipment set up in your possession. Have you ever noticed that an original recording played back on the same machine that it was recorded on sounds better than your best attempt to make a digital copy? I'm sure your skills and equipment are way better than mine (I still have a lot to learn), but I'll bet that you can hear the difference between the original and the copy and you can't really explain why. There is a disconnect, a change in timing, or something, but there is a change. (I know, there I go again. *Sigh*)
BTW, this thread has really gone quite a ways. I originally posted just to say that I could hear the difference between an uncompressed music file vs. the same file in Apple lossless. Thanks for the intelligent response. I have learned a thing or two.
I guess my honest question will not get answered by anyone...
If you don't mind me asking. Are there any particulars that can be noted....like faster seek times, less or no blips in play back, cleaner and faster ripping of CD's, etc., etc.
I guess what I am asking is, what attributes of a SSD enhance or improve Computer Audio?
I don't think anybody KNOWS the answer to that, I can make some completely unsubstantiated conjectures though.
I have heard this "uncompressed sounds better than lossless compressed" before. The uncompressed was also converted back to original format and was exactly - byte for byte - the same as the original. I've been trying to figure out what might be the cause of this.
The most likely explanation to me is differences in seek timing between compressed and uncompressed files. If you have an uncompressed file that is layed out contiguously on the disk the time between seeks to the next track should be very regular. With a compressed format there is no fixed relationship between time and location in the file, some parts of music will compress better than others. Thus exactly when the drive has to seek to the next track is going to vary. I'm hesitant to use the word, but there will be jitter in the seek timing.
Since the seek is a mechanical movement caused by fairly strong electrical currents through coils, there will almost certainly be noise induced in the power supply wires and EM fields radiated by the drive. The conjecture here is that this noise can affect DAC conversions and bus transmissions that will be subtly audible. And that noise with a higher "jitter" will be more objectionable than that with less jitter. (note this is different than the more commonly discussed clock edge jitter, but the path of audibility might actually go through clock edge jitter)
Since a SSD does not have the high currents going through coils the assumption is that the PS noise and EM fields it emmits will be less than those of a mechanical disk.
Again I have not done any experiments, I have no data to back up any of this, but it seems to me to be the best explanation of observations.
John S.
Thank you John,
At least you have a somewhat plausible answer, its better than nothing
That is very cool! I'd like to do that with my Macbook, but I need more space...like 200gb minimum. I guess I'll have to wait a few years for the drives to get that big.
I’m jealous!
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