External hard drives and sound quality

Mapman - Name brand of the drive is also very important. Names starting with sibilant like Seagate or Sony will bring more sibilant sound (logical) while name brands containing word "digital" - like Western Digital should be avoided at all cost (we all know what digital does to music). Word of caution about Maxtor. On the surface it looks OK but after closer look we learn that Maxtor bought HD business from Quantum in 2000 that bought HD business from DIGITAL Equipment Corporation in 1994. Again digititis could attack our system. One cannot be too careful. It is all perfectly logical but if you don't believe me, let me quote Herman's post:

"but I am saying it is impossible to predict what effect something will have on a system without trying it."

Assuming you really are, it still doesn't refute any of what I said. If you are not it lends less credence to your position but once again, you can't prove a negative by focusing on one aspect of a problem.

Have you done extensive research and explored every possible reason why changing a component could in any way affect the operation of a computer system and scientifically proven that it does not or could not affect the sound?

I think I've made my point. Unless you can prove it does not then the possibility exists that it does no matter what you choose to believe.

Happy listening.

Herman,

Well, I am what I say. And someone actually pays me pretty well to be what I am. So there!

I would adapt your position except the problem is then we would both be wrong.

You are free to stay clear of external drives if you prefer, but I will continue to use them.

Coverto,

Regarding wireless (NAS) drives, I tried one prior to my current external USB drives (and after using the internal disk drive prior to it filling up) and dumped it. It had nothing to do with sound quality, more that it was slow and unreliable, even when used only for backups. Other wireless NAS devices may be better.

My current Seagate USB drives are just the opposite, ie fast and reliable in every aspect. Other model external drives may have a different set of strengths and weaknesses as well.

Sound quality has never been an issue for me either in theory nor in practice because, well, as I pointed out disk drives HAVE NO SOUND. When a difference is heard, it is for other reasons. In my case (NAS, internal, external) I have heard no differences in practice.

Why do you assume I would not use them? I have 3 external drives hooked up to my computer. I have no idea whether or not they can affect the sound and neither do you because neither one of us or that other fellow have done the testing to prove it one way or another. I use software that loads a file into memory before it plays it which I like to believe mitigates any negative effects reading from any drive might have. It seems perfectly logical but I have no proof of that. For me to state external drives do affect the sound would be just as silly as you stating they don't because neither of us has any proof.

I'm having a hard time believing you are an engineer. If you are then you must have been trained in the scientific method yet you completely ignore the basic premises. You have a hypothesis that you now believe to be a scientific law with very limited testing. Going back to a previous post, using your logic you must believe that bumblebees can't fly. There is no scientific reason they can so therefore they can't. That is exactly the same logic as "People can believe what they want but there is no technical basis for it."

As for wireless I got my sister a 1TB Buffalo NAS drive that hooks to her wireless router via ethernet that works fine. She uses iTunes on a PC to stream from that wirelessly to an Aiport Express hooked into her stereo. No claims whether or not any of that affects the sound as I've done no comparisons but it sounds fine to me and she has no dropouts. The transfer rate is a bit slow but fine for audio. It also has a USB port so you can use that to hook up direct to the PC to speed things up when you load it.

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