PC audio has come a good distance through the years. An honest sound card is effectively well worth the cash. Audiophiles are recognized to spend exorbitant quantities of cash within the pursuit of audio excellence, however there are limits. An audiophile SSD although? Seize the tin foil hat.
Tom’s Hardware drew our consideration in direction of the Audiophile Style forums, the place a developer proudly confirmed off a 1TB NVMe SSD with a number of optimisations that intention to offer improved 3D sound and “dynamic sound no different SSD presently can provide and even near.” Yeah. Positive. Proper.
The specs of the drive look adequate. There’s a 1TB capability, or 333GB in pSLC mode which is supposedly the mode that makes the magic occur. There’s an exterior clock oscillator, Audionote capacitors, elevated PCB copper isolation, gold plated connectors and even an exterior 5V energy enter. That may all sound fairly good if we had been coping with analogue alerts. Consideration to element on the electronics facet of issues will often enhance analogue sound high quality, although maybe not a lot on the bodily storage facet. There are different extra influential elements in between the SSD and your ears.
The issue with this idea is that an SSD shops binary information that’s saved in 1s and 0s. These 1s and 0s shouldn’t encounter any interference or alteration till they attain the audio processing a part of the PC or DAC the place they’re transformed to analogue. That’s the realm the place digital parts will have an effect on audio constancy, and by that point, the affect of the SSD is irrelevant. For the reason that storage medium is seemingly so necessary, I ponder if an audiophile thinks in regards to the CD that price 10c to fabricate once they pop it right into a $2000 CD participant?
Its fascinating studying a few of the feedback from customers on the Audiophile Model boards who actually do imagine that their ears can detect the distinction between this SSD and a daily client drive. I ponder if a blind audio take a look at would reveal the identical? Affirmation bias at its most interesting.
I truly contemplate myself a little bit of an audio buff. A high-quality set of audio system is an actual funding. I’ve a set of Klipsch Reference audio system that I’ve had for over ten years, they usually’re price each one of many roughly $5000 I spent on them. However my PC connects to a Rotel amp by way of S/PDIF and so this SSD would have precisely zero affect on what comes out of my audio system.
We merely need to snicker on the absurdity of an audiophile SSD. There’s no info on worth, however absolutely it gained’t get near this $10000 Ethernet cable. Or will it? Somebody with an excessive amount of cash will purchase it. A idiot and his cash are quickly parted.
