Re: SATA cables improve sound?
Reply #33 – 2017-03-13 19:04:16
... ... ... Most people vastly overestimate how complex audio decoding is, and just how low the requirements for "real-time" operation are, particularly when talking about things like audio where "real-time" actually means "plus or minus a couple seconds worth of buffer". They have to overestimate it: that justifies their audiophilia, and their inflation of ego from having made the machine, which had no problem in the first place, do something it could do anyway. Playing music has to be difficult! That is the foundation stone of audiophoolery.So, I'm going to try to be more tolerant of people who are making these claims. Not that the sound is necessarily "better", but that there is a real possibility that it is "different" in a way which they may perceive as "better". It doesn't pertain to me as my client/server configuration would seem to avoid these issues, but if someone has a computer in their audio rack I can see the possibility that it could interfere with the overall performance of their system. Swapping out various internal components could lessen or change the character of that interference. Of course, the simpler solution may be to get the computer out of the room but that's another matter altogether. Tolerance for such people is just pandering to their lunacy. There is zero "real possibility" that these things can make a difference, better or worse, unless they are broken --- in which case there will be more problems with the machine than playing music. No, timing is not an issue. The only timing requirement is that the [music] data arrives in the right place (buffers have been explained above) in time. If it does not: snap crackle and pop. Or moments of silence. Ask those of us who have sufferred the DPC latency thing! If your system decides to stop processing the audio stuff because it has something else it considers more important, and that something else takes too long... Then you have a timing problem, with very audible results. The amount of time it takes to read data from a disk? Ha Ha... your computer can play music from a CD drive. Noise radiating inside the case? Nope. If it could change your music data it could change other data too. Machine would be horrible and very unreliable. Guess where PC components are designed to operate? And that includes internal sound cards! Stuff inside the computer could affect stuff outside the computer? OK, maybe, I don't know. There are some electronic devices that need some space between them. That, if it is the case, just requires a little common sense, not audiophoolery. So, please... no tolerance. For the sake of your own sanity.