Or, Directional Audio Cable and £1,000 Kettle Lead Of The Day:

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/hificritic/vol5_no3/listening_to_storage.htm

Anecdotal murmurings and some limited first-hand experience suggested that digital music ?les can sound different when played from different computer media sources. Take the simple playback of a stereo audio ?le, such as FLAC, Apple Lossless or uncompressed WAV, for example. Such a music ?le is typically played from either a computer’s internal hard-disk drive, the network-attached storage (NAS) on the local home network (LAN), or maybe a USB thumbdrive. Is it really possible that the sound quality of bit-identical audio ?les’ is influenced by their storage medium before being delivered to the hi-? system’s DAC?

Fellow computer audio enthusiast (and Naim PR person) Stephen Harris and I launched into some preliminary listening tests…

the sound quality of bit-identical audio ?les’ is influenced by their storage medium

*sniggers*

Music industry running out of snakeoil? Need to invent new ones – supressed, directional, tonally pure SSD, anyone? 🙄

The simple answer to that is to boycott Naim for spouting such obvious bollocks.

Fellow computer audio enthusiast (and Naim PR person)

says it all really!

Some edgy grain exaggerated the sampled horns

Sounds woody

Next week:

“Does an optical fibre or twisted copper pair local loop to the exchange make any difference to how a download sounds?”

Is it really possible that the sound quality of bit-identical audio ?les’ is influenced by their storage medium before being delivered to the hi-? system’s DAC?

In a word, No.

Forgetting the authors complete lack of understanding of how this technology works, it really is completely pointless doing these kind of subjective tests when comparing supposedly identical audio.

Post your ABX logs or don’t bother.

wwaswas – Member

Next week:

“Does an optical fibre or twisted copper pair local loop to the exchange make any difference to how a download sounds?”

😆

What the actual f… please tell me this is a spoof?

Back in the day when I bought vinyl LPs it made all the difference which warehouse it was delivered from. If the delivery truck had quality tyres the sound was crisper too….

Not really surprised. This is from the industry that happily sell the advantages of gold-plated optical connectors.

says it all really!

There is a Naim employee on here (and a couple of acolytes – Woppit, I think).

But what I really want to know is: does this storage come with an upgrade path through several power supplies (costing from the price of a decent holiday to a new car) to really make you tap your foot hard bring the music alive?

What the actual f… please tell me this is a spoof?

No, standard practice in the ley-line crystal voodoo hoodoo ‘hifi’ business.

Claim problem exists (preferably using sciencey sounding words to fool fools).
Tout expensive solution.
Collect loot.

From the article:
“Maybe we can solicit logical explanations from engineers who understand the low-level mechanics and operation of computer ?le and storage technologies, and can suggest specific avenues to explore.”

Good idea. Let’s start in the most obvious avenue:

Hmmm.. sounds very muffled yet tonally warm…

Standard practice in many industries, n’est-ce pas?

Claim problem exists

– 29″ wheels too big, 26″ too small

Tout expensive solution

– buy a brand new 650b bike

I remember experimenting with an “Audio enhancer” from Argos once. It cost £20 and was just a pass-through box: interconnects in one end and out the other with an “Active” button on it. No power. Even to my untrained ears there was a very noticeable difference in the sound coming out the other end. Not better, not worse, but different. Not *quite* relevant to OP but thought I’d share.

Naim worship offers all the disadvantages of traditional religions without any of the traditional ‘eternal bliss’ type advantages.

And always seems to appeal to the type of person who decares themselves a rationalist in every other facet of their lives.
They provide a Scientology type ‘pay to pray’ model for those convinced they are above such things.

In a word, No.

The fundamental problem (other than a propensity to talk bollocks) is they’re looking at it from a digital audio perspective. It’s not digital audio at this level, it’s data, and it’s either valid or corrupt. The whole discussion is akin to loading up Microsoft Word and claiming you’ve observed that its title bar is green instead of blue because you’re using Seagate hard drives.

I particularly enjoyed this,

Maybe we can solicit logical explanations from engineers who understand the low-level mechanics and operation of computer ?le and storage technologies, and can suggest specific avenues to explore.

Double-blind testing and confirmation bias might be good places to start.

Back in the day when I bought vinyl LPs it made all the difference which warehouse it was delivered from. If the delivery truck had quality tyres the sound was crisper too….

That is well documented actually. Improper storage/transportation combined with excess vibration causes micro-fractures in the grooves which become apparent when played on decent equipment/expensive cables.

That is well documented actually. Improper storage/transportation combined with excess vibration causes micro-fractures in the grooves which become apparent when played on decent equipment/expensive cables.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law

phillips must kicking themselves they didn’t produce CD+ with directional data storage

so which storage gives better picture quality in a media server ? 😕

Wav sounding better than Flac is also quite commonly reported.

apparent when played on decent equipment/expensive cables.

If it really made a difference my ‘Amstrad Linear Drive Vertical Plays Both Sides’ deck would have revealed it. Therefore I declare your ‘invisible to the emperors eye’ micro cracks a scam 🙂

Is it just me who finds the name of the website totally bloody ironic!!

“enjoythemusic.com” HA! That’s the last thing head-up-the-arse hifi nerds do!

I was wondering about that for the article – is impossible to tell whether it’s an extreme spoof and they’re trying to come up with the most ridiculous thing they can think of to see if the disciples will swallow it, or they genuinely believe it.

It’s not digital audio at this level, it’s data, and it’s either valid or corrupt

Bit fatigue is a well known phenomena, hence the need for Bit Recycling

Inside your computer are millions of little bits. Each one of those bits can be a one or a zero and as your computer runs programs each one of these bits changes its state, often thousands of times every second.
Understandably, this puts a lot of pressure on your bits and, after a period of time, some of your bits may start to wear out. At first your bits become a little bit cranky and don’t change quite as quickly and after much use they may become worn out on the edges.
The Bit Recycler is designed to reconstitute your bits, making sure that your bits are always in top shape.

Bit fatigue is a well known phenomena, hence the need for Bit Recycling

Oh, that is fantastic.

I was wondering about that for the article – is impossible to tell whether it’s an extreme spoof…

Me too – but the article title certainly appears on the cover of the HiFiCritic eMag and is discussed in the HiFiCritic forum and the Naim forum.

So apparently it is legit. (Though it raised a few eyebrows even in those devoted places).

Not really surprised. This is from the industry that happily sell the advantages of gold-plated optical connectors.

As opposed to one that sells the perfect trade off of vertical compliance and lateral rigidity…

Cyclists believe as much (well, nearly as much) pseudo-scientific BS as hi-fi enthusiasts.

Cyclists believe as much (well, nearly as much) pseudo-scientific BS as hi-fi enthusiasts.

Er, no. No we don’t.

we had no idea if we were hearing differences in the processor architecture or between the hard-disk (or solid state) drives

Processor architecture FFS?!!

one that sells the perfect trade off of vertical compliance and lateral rigidity

Although is something physical that is real and can be observed/measured. If it makes any real difference to your enjoyment is another matter….

Dumb Cyclists believe as much (well, nearly as much) pseudo-scientific BS as Dumb hi-fi enthusiasts.

🙂

I wonder if NAIM will ever introduce a device that gives the average Hi Fi buff’s ears the sensitivity and range of, say, a 16 year old virtuoso violinist.

Perhaps a matrix style socket (gold plated naturally) in the back of the head that bypasses the ears and connects directly with the audio centers in your brain.

Its bound to be worth a try.

So is someone going to release a carbon hifi that runs on 264V AC to help smooth the bumps in the sound out, then someone will release a carbon/ally one that runs on 252V AC to help bring the sound back to life before realising that the sound was perfectly ok and more lively being listened to via a steel hifi that runs on 240v AC? 😆

From that HiFiCritic forum linked above (post #72:

Malcolm Steward has offered to teach how to build a good sounding NAS drive. to be published in the next issue ………

And so we get to the point.

I’ve noticed that ‘1’s sound subtly better than ‘0’s on my audio playback rig, though others have noticed the opposite.
I’m developing Bit Bias Technology to change the proportion of ‘1’s to ‘0’s in the output data stream, but I’m having trouble with funding. Would kickstarter be worth considering?

I went for an interview for a production manager at Naim, fantastic sounding system set up in the reception area. I was being walked through the build process and was somewhat skeptical about the fact that certain wires had to bent in a particular fashion in order to preserve the Naim sound.

Do you think they realise that they’re talking BS or are they just so evangelically up their own backsides that they’re unaware?

From that HiFiCritic forum linked above (post #72:

Malcolm Steward has offered to teach how to build a good sounding NAS drive. to be published in the next issue ………

And so we get to the point.

Mmm, yes, I wonder how ‘close’ it gets to NAIMs UnitiServe NAS/Ripper at a bargainous £2200