Audiophile SSD?

[The Flying Sloth]

9 minutes ago, Niksa said:

I have missed that custom circuit boards, would you mind to show that statement?

I'd have to go through Glenn's old YT videos to find it but in short, Glenn was called out for supporting something that is very clearly just a rebadged Clevo for double the price and in a followup video (a Q&A soon after IIRC) he confirmed he had spoken to the owner of Slick Audio and that only the case was provided by Clevo. Similar top what the owner of the brand is claiming here after being called out for selling rebadged NUCS. the owner chastises those who would dare say such a thing because he has tweaked the bios to make the PC sound better or something..... Honestly not quite sure what his point is.

For more hilarity you can see this thread and a very similar one here 

Believe me, I understand the cost of downtime but unfortunately Slick isn't the kind of outfit to have a tech sent to your location to resolve issues, rather, they're the type that offers you an upsell to a 3 year warranty that requires you to send your $10,915 clevo rebadge to them for repair. I'd be more than happy to accept this argument if the warranty was not specifically written to remove coverage in the case of "Operation of the Products in conjunction with equipment, software or other items manufactured or sold by any third-party or the Purchaser." which coincidentally is exactly what anyone using the machine for it's intended purpose would do....
 

 

50 minutes ago, Niksa said:

TLDR support an know-how costs quite some money

We're not talking about expensive servers where uptime is crucial here, we're talking about rebadged clevos.
With the aforementioned support (or lack thereof) and sheer immensity of knowledge required to bulk order generic laptops and charge double for them because of your 'tweaks to the bios' we should all be multi-billionaires.

[kasugatei]

3 hours ago, The Flying Sloth said:

Similar top what the owner of the brand is claiming here after being called out for selling rebadged NUCS

He is saying exactly what I said to you. I used Supermicros an example. In the case of Supermicro 5k USD server becomes 10k server. Even free OS was used then (Centos). So those BIOS and OS tweaks did not fall from the sky. That was product of the trial and error. I know that process quite well. I am also not willing to share all my “trade secrets” for free. 
I have another example for you. During my university days one guy sold Raspberry Pi with thermal probe to the pharmaceutical company for 5000 euros. He was providing full support for a 50eur tops of hardware which was just tracking a refrigerator temperature. My mentor from the university told me that it is no longer Raspberry Pi, it is now a product. Was the price too high? Damn, it was. Did he scam them? No he didn’t. He told them his price and they paid him for the product which is doing exactly what it is advertised to do and what they asked for and they were happy with the solution. 
 

3 hours ago, The Flying Sloth said:

For more hilarity you can see this thread and a very similar one here 

I could only see ad hominem to the owner. Yes, it is rebranded Clevo and NUC, no one is denying that, even the owner. Remember my story about Supermicro, same thing. Supermicro is the major OEM for server hardware. Again, free OS and Supermicro hardware is being sold for twice the price. Hell, even sometimes open source software is being “sold”. By sold I mean implementation and configuration of the software. As I said before, know-how costs money. 
 

Again, is he falsely claiming that his PC will sound better? Nope. He is just claiming that his PCs are optimized for audio production. Is it worth double the price? For me personally nope, but for some people it is worth the price. 
 

3 hours ago, The Flying Sloth said:

We're not talking about expensive servers where uptime is crucial here, we're talking about rebadged clevos.

If someone needs to finish a (paid) recording project on rebadged Clevo which got broken, how is that different from broken rebadged  Supermicro is unable to do its task? In any case money is being lost. In the case of servers that number is usually quite higher, but then again the price of the hardware (+ integrator commission) is also proportionally higher. 
 

4 hours ago, The Flying Sloth said:

With the aforementioned support (or lack thereof) and sheer immensity of knowledge required to bulk order generic laptops and charge double for them because of your 'tweaks to the bios' we should all be multi-billionaires.

And again no one is stopping anybody to do so. Rebranding OEM stuff and charging premium is present everywhere. Slick audio owner has found his niche. If I could think about  anything similar I would do the same. Another example, why Fruit of the loom shirt with some band logo costs 2 times+ than the just regular Fruit of the loom shirt? Both are the same shirt in the end minus the print. 
 

 

We went quite into the off topic, but to summarize from the original topic. SSD will have no effect whatsoever on the audio. The only critical part is where AD conversion happens. PC is part of the digital realm and no component of the digital realm will affect zeros and ones of the audio file thus “audiophile” SSD is scamming people with false claims. However, Slick audio is selling rebranded OEM systems for higher margins with tweaked BIOS and tweaked OS. They are not claiming that their system will sound better or anything that belongs in the false claims territory like that SSD does. As I said before, IMHO I would never pay the price for it, but some people will and I don’t see anything remotely similar to the original topic. 

And lastly one anecdote which is perfectly suitable. Transmission of some truck got broken. Since it was quite expensive truck the new transmission system was also ridiculously expensive. And long story short truck owners found a guy who claimed that he can fix it so they brought the transmission to him. Guy told the owners that it will cost them 10000 dollars to fix it. They agreed. That guy just took the hammer and smashed one spot of the transmission unit and said that it was fixed. Owners said the hell they are going to pay 10k USD for just one hammer hit. Then guy explained to them that they are not paying him for that hit, but for the years and years of experience that led to the exact spot and exact strength of the hammer hit. 

 

[geo3]

3 hours ago, Niksa said:

no component of the digital realm will affect zeros and ones of the audio

This isn't entirely true. There can be issues with clocking between the source and DAC. It's not going to change any of the bits but could affect time arrival of the bits causing jitter. A buffered stream like USB shouldn't care but may affect SPIDF. Though most decent DACs should be able to compensate. 

[CTR640]

I still can not fathom the dumbness and comprehend this nonsense. "Audiohile ssd"? It would be any portable audio devices obsolete then.

I guess a certain group of audiophiles only looks at scientific measurements instead of actually listening for their own sake and enjoyment...

[The Flying Sloth]

4 hours ago, Niksa said:

He is saying exactly what I said to you. I used Supermicros an example. In the case of Supermicro 5k USD server becomes 10k server. Even free OS was used then (Centos). So those BIOS and OS tweaks did not fall from the sky. That was product of the trial and error. I know that process quite well. I am also not willing to share all my “trade secrets” for free. 

 

No, he's not, in fact he specifically says he knows people can't build it cheaper because he gets parts at wholesale. He's not claiming it costs more because of his 'extensive knowledge' and even if he were that's anj absolute load because no amount of bios or OS tweaks will make the damn thing have significant performance improvements unless the machines were incorrectly configured in the first place (beyong considering overclocking).

You keep relying on the server example which is not at all relevant here. The servers are expensive because of the support available but we have already seen that there is not such support available for these machines and the warranty is worded specifically to not cover use with other hardware which literally everyong using the maching for music prodiction (except entirely ITB outfits) needs to do.

I understand your point, that no matter what it is, adding ram to a barebones chassis or adding a thermocouple to a Raspberry PI it's a value add and as such the price goes up. I just think it's a stupid point because in all other instances the insane value add is because there is a niche that requires specific hardware/software and for it to work. The servers actually require configuration and have support to ensure downtime is minimal, the pharma lab required specialist hardware (no matter the price) with full support again ensuring that downtime was minimal for a mission critical role.

This man is selling computers for a job that any old computer could complete for, there is no meaningful niche. THis is more along the lines of Daniel Wellington watches, they're literally $2 aliexpress jobbies with a brand label on them that they then charge hundreds for, that's precisely what Slick Audio is doing, getting a generic product, throwing their brand on it and calling a day all while explaining at you how good of a deal you're getting because you could never build it yourself for less.
 

 

5 hours ago, Niksa said:

Rebranding OEM stuff and charging premium is present everywhere. Slick audio owner has found his niche. If I could think about  anything similar I would do the same. Another example, why Fruit of the loom shirt with some band logo costs 2 times+ than the just regular Fruit of the loom shirt? Both are the same shirt in the end minus the print. 

This is where you and I differ, I'm niot a supporter of ripping off consumers with rebadged OEM products, having said thatm your example here isn't relevant. See, adding a band logo is actually a value add as the shirts are now appropriate for sale to a new market that otherwise would not purchase them. Adding the logo likely also meant that there were licensing fees payable to the bands and beyond that, everyone knows a shirt is a shirt, nobody is under the impression that a band shirt is any better at being a shirt than any other shirt based on the comments of the owner. The owner didn't make any 'tweaks' to make the shirt perform better, it's transparent, you're paying extra because you decided you wanted a shirt with a logo on it. Typing that out, maybe you're not as far off as I thought, you're paying for a logo. The difference is that the band doesn't pretend they designed the underlying shirt.

Daniel wellington portrays themselves as the designer of their watches just like Slick Audio does their computers. There's a reason those who enjoy watches have absolute distain for Daniel Wellington and it is for exactly the reasons I have outlined, the exact same reason Slick Audio should be held in the same contempt. The brand label on a Slick Audio machine (it's a sticker, they just puit a sticker on them) does not inherently open up the market to new sectors that the produict would not otherwise have been able to reach, where a branded shirt appeals to the followers of the band and increases overall sales nobody would have otherwise not purchased a computer without the Slick Audio branding.

I'm not saying that their computers don't work, I'm not saying that there is no value in the business of prebuilt computers (comparing the extra cost of most prebuilts to this would only make Slick look worse), but what I am saying is that it is disingenuous to cllaim that nobody could build a machine cheaper than you do and that your machine will perform better when in reality the only value you have added is that of the sticker you put on it. I know you're going to want to bring up the server example again, or the pharma company but you must understand, much of that value add was for support, something that is not a consideration here.

I have no interest in discussing this further, we are too far off topic.

[Mojo-Jojo]

As an electronics engineer, after reading the topic, I think I kind of get what these people are talking about. They seem mostly concerned with power noise which can travel down to the DAC/Amp and affect audio, and "clocking issues". I know from experience that transferring files can actually cause audible, distracting noise if the power supply is not filtered well. The separate power jack on the SSD seems to be its main selling point and could actually help in keeping noise out of the PC/Mobo power supply.

 

Clocking issues should not be an issue unless streaming without any buffer whatsoever.

 

So I guess you technically could make an argument for the design of this. Just too bad that the mobo is chock-full of switching regulators, as are the power supplies which are all a nightmare for EMI, making the whole thing kind of useless. This is exacerbated by the fact that the people in that topic seem to be using compact systems, like NUC's, which would have to have more compact power supply/regulator designs and thus less filtering. Plus, if you just power your DAC/Amp externally and use optical/isolated audio interfaces, you basically don't get transmitted noise at all, no matter how noisy the inside of the PC is.

[Bartholomew]

"ossilator" ?

 

I suspect those big caps probably arent electrolytic but snakeoilityc ones.

 

Im off to write 1's to all my ssd cells, those empty 0 cells make my pc sound hollow.

 

[kasugatei]

3 hours ago, The Flying Sloth said:

no amount of bios or OS tweaks will make the damn thing have significant performance improvements unless the machines were incorrectly configured in the first place (beyong considering overclocking).

This is so wrong on so many levels. Overclocking is not an end game when it comes to the performance. I can tell you from my personal experience that just few tweaks in the bios can bring significant improvement in certain applications. It is not overclocking and the default settings are NOT wrong. They are just not optimal for some specific tasks. 
 

Regarding my server example, you didn’t understand it at all. So let me go low level. 
Supermicro as is from the store is 5k. OS is free. Company x is selling the same server with the same OS for 10k and they are rebadging it. The only difference is that in that case they are installing the OS and configuring it. That is considered a normal business practice. How the hell is that any different at the core from what Slick audio does?

I have tons of examples to cover my claims, but it will be useless to proceed any further. 

[dilpickle]

Once you go down the audiophile rabbit hole you will be amazed at the things you find.

 

This guy claims he can hear the difference between a dozen Ethernet cables:

 

https://audiobacon.net/2017/07/09/sotm-iso-cat6-special-edition-the-flavors-of-audiophile-ethernet/

 

He also says that streaming from a cable modem sounds different than DSL. That whole site is a good read when you want a nice laugh.

 

Here's a good video too

 

https://youtu.be/fr8O_jZhpl4

 

I guess you cant blame the people who make money off this. It's the ones buying it who are absolute suckers.

[CTR640]

1 hour ago, dilpickle said:

Once you go down the audiophile rabbit hole you will be amazed at the things you find.

 

This guy claims he can hear the difference between a dozen Ethernet cables:

 

https://audiobacon.net/2017/07/09/sotm-iso-cat6-special-edition-the-flavors-of-audiophile-ethernet/

 

He also says that streaming from a cable modem sounds different than DSL. That whole site is a good read when you want a nice laugh.

 

Here's a good video too

 

https://youtu.be/fr8O_jZhpl4

 

I guess you cant blame the people who make money off this. It's the ones buying it who are absolute suckers.

Some random sucker claims he can hear the difference between Ether cable than DSL?

 

Quote

As with all components, the SOtM dCBL-CAT7 isn’t perfect. Aside from its physical unwieldiness, the midrange is slightly recessed and it’s an overall leaner sounding cable.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! Now my ears have seen everything.

[Roswell]

Majority of equipment in the high end audiophile world is snake oil. 

[Bitter]

2 hours ago, dilpickle said:

Once you go down the audiophile rabbit hole you will be amazed at the things you find.

 

This guy claims he can hear the difference between a dozen Ethernet cables:

 

https://audiobacon.net/2017/07/09/sotm-iso-cat6-special-edition-the-flavors-of-audiophile-ethernet/

 

He also says that streaming from a cable modem sounds different than DSL. That whole site is a good read when you want a nice laugh.

 

Here's a good video too

 

https://youtu.be/fr8O_jZhpl4

 

I guess you cant blame the people who make money off this. It's the ones buying it who are absolute suckers.

Question, are they using them as network cables or the same cable and pinout for carrying multiple analog audio signals across one cable?

[Roswell]

5 hours ago, Bitter said:

Question, are they using them as network cables or the same cable and pinout for carrying multiple analog audio signals across one cable?

They’re using them as network cables to interface with their equipment. All digital. These people are wholeheartedly convinced digital data can be influenced by cable quality outside of typical packet drops and such.

It’s pretty wild reading through the comments from that link.

[Bitter]

9 minutes ago, Roswell said:

They’re using them as network cables to interface with their equipment. All digital. These people are wholeheartedly convinced digital data can be influenced by cable quality outside of typical packet drops and such.

It’s pretty wild reading through the comments from that link.

So much for giving them the benefit of doubt I guess. Yikes! I mean you literally either get the 1 or 0 or you do not get the 1 or 0, you don't get half a digit. I mean I do like how older stereos sound and I do like the old receiver I use with my PC, it's all analog and big transistors and a gross class G amplifier with a big relay that clicks on with a loud clank after it warms up for a second. Nice little festoon bulbs glowing behind the face.

[Loudface_Bob]

https://audiophilestyle.com/profile/26183-darkforce/ Bad look.

[Padgriffin]

So one thing nobody seems to have brought up is that the thing is running in pSLC mode, which basically simulates SLC on a TLC NAND by putting 1 byte to 1 cell instead of 3 bytes to 1 cell. This reduces the effective capacity to 333GB.

 

Also, no, they're not doing it because of performance or drive endurance (neither of which should even be a concern for any NVME SSD that's just storing music), but because it appears that their logic is because TLC physically "compresses" 3 bytes to 1 cell, it also somehow reduces the soundstage/texture? of the music. pSLC doesn't do that, so the music sounds better.

Quote

TLC mode: It sounds like background music, no features and powerless, everything is flattened, lacks extension and density.

pSLC mode: There is a special natural feeling, it becomes more smooth and calm, the thickness is slightly increased, and overall it is more resistant to hearing but still slightly dry.

 

I'm relatively new to the whole audiophile scene and it's truly impressive how much money people are willing to spend on snake oil. It's also truly impressive how much of that snake oil is also crap. I suppose you need some way to justify the rapidly diminishing returns to scale found in the audiophile world- this explains why things like the $7000 Effect Audio King Arthur somehow manage to win awards while also getting slapped with a D- by Crinacle for shit tuning.

[H713]

None of the high-end cables business is based off measured data - it's been shown time and time again that no real difference is measurable if the system being used is normal.

 

But... the profit margins on high-end cables is huge, and most of the people selling them have figured out that audio is quite possibly one of the least-demanding applications you could possibly come up with for a cable. 

 

Reality of the matter is that you could use 10 gauge litz wire twisted quads for your speaker cables, and it wouldn't sound any different from a piece of aluminum zip cord.

 

I use RG58C/U for my unbalanced interconnects and Canare L-4E6S for balanced interconnects. Speaker cables? As long as it's heavier than 18 AWG, is non-ferrous (ferrous cables actually would introduce measurable distortion) and isn't aluminum, I don't care. 

[Stahlmann]

Lol the saddest thing probably is that there actually are people out there believing in what it says and buying it. There is ALWAYS someone gullible enough, not just "audiophiles".

[GoldenSound]

On 12/5/2021 at 12:24 AM, Caroline said:

Audiophile motherboard you say?

You joke but....

https://www.sotm-audio.com/sotmwp/english/portfolio-item/smb-q370/

 

WWould love to see linus get his hands on one of these
I'll try to get one at somepoint and do some measurements to see if it has any demonstrable impact at all on any of the DACs I have about.

 

[GoldenSound]

On 12/11/2021 at 7:02 AM, Roswell said:

They’re using them as network cables to interface with their equipment. All digital. These people are wholeheartedly convinced digital data can be influenced by cable quality outside of typical packet drops and such.

It’s pretty wild reading through the comments from that link.

So with a DAC, the performance of it can objectively and subjectively be influenced by the level of jitter on the connection. And this can be caused by a multitude of things. The biggest problem is usually the source itself (PC optical for example usually has abhorrent jitter).
But also the cable itself if not to the correct impedance spec this can also cause issues.

There are some digital signals such as USB where it either works or it doesn't.
But for audio, many protocols such as I2S, AES, SPDIF carry a clock signal which the DAC uses as a reference. And if that clock signal is poor, either due to the cable, source, or interference, then you'll have a measurable (and potentially subjectively audible) hit to performance