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USB hard drive music storage
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RichW View Drop Down
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    Posted: 22 Oct 2013 at 1:57pm
Hi,
I'd like to get going with PC audio, probably with a Bitzie, & wonder if anyone could advise
on music file storage.
Read somewhere that it's not a good idea to use the USB bus to simultaneously read files from a storage device & send it to a USB DAC - to avoid 'synchronous conflict'.Ermm
Is this really a problem in practice or is it best to play music direct from the computer's hard drive
& just use an external USB drive for backup.
Apologies if this has been covered before.
Any advice appreciated.
Cheers.
 
 
Majestic/Enigma, Accession MM & MC.
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Humboldt View Drop Down
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Points: 251 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Humboldt Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Oct 2013 at 7:17pm
Hi! There is a lot of writings on the internet about how more or less everything you do on a computer while playing your music, or anything the computer do in the background, will degrade audio quality. My conclusion is this. Either am I on my way going deaf, or are my different computers I have used over the years of outstanding quality, or is this talk about sound degradation just rubbish. I have never heard any difference due to what ever the computer have been doing besides playing music. When I am traveling, I store my music on an USB hard drive, and plug it into my laptop, and it is sounding just the same as when I play music over the network from my home server. However, since I have found it a little unpractical with the USB harddisc, i have recently started to store music on small SD-cards instead. I do not store the music on my laptops internal harddisc due to the great amount of music I own.
If you are concerned anyway, try the latest version of JRiver. Imt now has a function where it first decode the files, and then store it in RAM. That way there is no data transfer between harddisc and computer at all during playback.
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discrete badger View Drop Down
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This matches my experience. The only difference I can hear as the computer gets busy is the fan noise!
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RichW View Drop Down
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Points: 1471 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote RichW Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Oct 2013 at 8:39am
The USB conflict warning appears to be misinformation then.
Will investigate the SD card option.
Thanks.Thumbs Up
 
 
 
 
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tg [RIP] View Drop Down
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Points: 1866 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote tg [RIP] Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Oct 2013 at 10:58am

IMV it not so much a misinformation as a potential issue that does not often manifest.

Rather than a degradation in perceived SQ the effect could be dropouts or glitches in replay.

Should that be a problem, there are, as Humboldt notes, many ways of eliminating that issue.

Sometimes just using a different USB port for one of the devices will do the trick, eg on a newer machine put the drive on a USB3 port and the DAC on a USB2 port.

An SD card is a good option for taking some of your collection when away from home with the added bonus, if your phone is compatible, of using it with that as well.
Tony G
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RichW View Drop Down
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Points: 1471 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote RichW Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Oct 2013 at 2:21pm
That's useful info - thanks.
So the specs to look for in a PC for hifi are USB 3.0 & 2.0 ports & preferably an integrated
SD card reader.
Is the processor type & speed important & the amount of RAM installed?
Thanks.
 
 
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tg [RIP] View Drop Down
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Points: 1866 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote tg [RIP] Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Oct 2013 at 3:39pm

Rich,

I really think you should be fine with any recent machine.

If you want a more complete answer I can dig out an 11 year old laptop and run some tests.

But, TBPH, if the Bitzie runs fine from a Samsung S3 phone as users have found, I think you may be making it more complex for yourself than you need.

There is a list of tested hardware and Operating systems on the Bitzie info pages, some of those systems and hardware are hardly SOTA and have not been for 15 years.

Why not just PM Jon (Fatmangolf) and arrange a loan of a Bitzie for yourself and try it with what you already have.
Tony G
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