The difference is between Mechanical and Electrical noise.
SSD is Mechanically quieter, but can, it seems, require a lot more electrical processes and associated noise to manage them, so they are electrically noisier than selected HDD samples was what I was told.
If I can’t hear the HDD - mine is a few feet away and it is quiet - and it sounds better to me then that is what mattered - to me. The HDD are suspended in a sturdy internal sub-chassis and selected for being quiet, so it seems to work.
I did ask about adding extra expansion drives and in particular some using commercial drives (HDD or SSD) into the Melco expansion port and wondered if the Melco effectively buffered this (electrical) noise - the facial expression was priceless and lets just say he (Melco Designer) was not impressed with doing that.
I swapped out my USB attached music store from standard HDD for an SSD on my roon core recently I did not notice any difference in SQ to me. I noticed more of a SQ difference when I swapped core machine to a fanless model.
if hdd are really more silent and even better sounding, it’s a good news. Because ssd are expensive. 4 TB of high quality ssd cost the price of the uniticore alone. ( approximately of course).
If the SSD were not only mechanically quiet but also had no associated electrical noise due to their management needs (memory is shuffled) then they seem the obvious choice, apart from expense.
I was surprised as I was geared-up to expect the SSD would be better, but found it was a mix with SSD good in places but not across the board - and in my system, but perhaps not another, I preferred the HDD version in this case and particular implementation.
We always have to contend with ‘better’ and ‘worse’ absolutes - I heard where each was better musically than the other - very easy to hear and not subtle - but I preferred the HDD.
I’d prefer the best of both sonic aspects demonstrated but that was not available so made a choice on what was important for me. I can easy understand someone evaluating it otherwise - especially in another system.
This is important as I don’t thing you can extrapolate and generalize.
I will not probably generalize, but if even Melco, a great specialist of high end nas, thinks today that hdd are finally better, it means something.
But better, as always, try by ourselves, in our system and with our ears.
I am happy that I never made the step to the SDD version. Now I can potentially consider the N10, while I am still not sure as you would need to have four small boxes to cover my current storage needs…
So wouldn’t the impact of SSD depend on the placement of the Melco in the the system? RFI/EMI will drop off with distance. Hifi circuit boards usually are designed to help with screening which is one possible reason why placing boxes above preamps is less preferred to below. Likewise left and right where power supplies and interconnects are concerned.
I’d have thought it’s more internal to the Melco - noise from the SSD operation affecting clock stability etc. Interesting comments from DB - I visited Alan last year when I had a small issue with my N1 that he sorted out and he mentioned at the time that about the Raid controller and its elimination from the next line of products. He also mentioned a mod that would be available to disable this on the older products but I haven’t pursued this avenue as mine has been moved to storage duties.
James, which clock/function would be most sensitive?
I’m using a Innuos Zenith Mk 2 while waiting the arrival of my ordered Mk3. No choice of disk type other than to buy the Zen. But Innuos claim the Zenith is better. The SSD is chosen/conditioned for audio performance - don’t know the science - is this possible.
Raid is not important to me as the music server needs to be backed up.
Just got a demo 552 from Naim. Seemed like new with packaged cables. Seems to come up to speed quickly and deliver a fuller and more exciting sound than the 252. So the sources seem not to be lacking. Even the vinyl with the humble Aria has benefitted.
Phil - I’m assuming as Melco takes a lot of trouble with the player port quality - they’ve designed the Ethernet interface around a very stable clock and have designed the player (lower processing power, PSU design) to have a low EMI footprint compared to your average NAS. SSD or HDD - depends on the server design and how the engineers have dealt with the design compromises. As is usual in this game, no one approach is the silver bullet so pick what works for you.
Talking to my dealer those people waiting for units in black rather than silver which may be some time awsy. Can buy the silver unit and then replace with black when available for about £100. I think i will wait, but its an option for those wanting one now…confirm with dealer before buying.
The electrical noise must be a function of accessing the SSD as it preserves data when not powered. If the Melco copied the music being played into Memory it would not be an issue.
For those with ND555 there must be some buffering unless Roon takes over the playback preventing the ND555 from using it buffer. Could get complicated in some configurations.
I’m sure @Simon-in-Suffolk has an idea about this, but so far as I know the ND555 buffers the data stream whether it’s from a UPnP server or from Roon.
I know that SSD electrical management and read-write is more complex in some ways so perhaps we are looking at a relative new technology compared to a very well developed one in HDD, that although is physically noisy is possibly less electrically so when the full subsystem to control it is considered. I don’t know and did not need to as I listen to things and decide on that basis.
I did hear where the SSD version of the Melco N1 was better - it had a nice seamless presentation in mid-band whereas the HDD version did not - but the HDD one just sounded more genuine with its presentation of the whole musical performance to me in that it could rock and had a visceral engagement quality associated with it that I preferred over the SSD version of the N1.
This thread is a bout the N10 which is meant to eclipse the N1 and probably fixed the reservations I had - I aim not to hear it until I want to be able to afford it!
The discussions on other threads about the difference different makes and types of Network Switches make and also where they are placed and the lengths of cables used to connect them partially vindicated why I liked the Melco removing the commercial network switch from the immediate process of talking to my ND555. I know the latter buffers the music and in way of looking at it there should be no difference what is used upstream on the ND555, but there still is unfortunately - or fortunately once you find the right things to use and realise even more performance is possible than you thought.
I know Innuos have a problem getting Roon to use their 4GB buffer. It was working until Roon changed their software recently. Much as I like the convenience of Roon it is only justified if you use TIDAL.
Will have to agree to disagree there it brings much more to the table than that. If you have multiple listening areas It’s multiroom features are worth the price of entry alone and handown beat other implementations I have tried.
My wife thinks I have taken over enough of the house. Multi room would be a route to a divorce for unreadable behaviour! I do like Roon. I have to think harder to find music with iPeng.
Ipengs not bad. Used to use it in my Squeezebox days (which InnuOS is based on) before I ditched Cuputinos walled garden then switched to OrangeSqueeze.
