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Music servers and other computer based digital audio technologies.

Acoustic noise is the problem... Not electrical...

Hi Abe. Thanks for all the pictures!

In all my measurements and listening over the years, I have always contended that the issue with "noise" is the **acoustic** noise that spinning hard drives and computer fans may have on the serenity of the listening room.

Sure, back in the old days, electrical RF/EMF noise could have been a problem but over the last 10 years huge improvements have occurred such that CPU's run with less power, hard drives have higher data density and use less power, and of course SSD's are silent.

IMO, the whole obsession around isolating ethernet, USB timing and electrical "noise" issues makes no sense and I do believe needs to be evaluated in an objective fashion and some evidence provided. Unless someone can show that this is an issue, it's just hype IMO. This is especially significant in the context of expensive DACs which I presume have been "over-engineered" to provide quality output... Otherwise why should we be paying many hundreds if not thousands if it can't even shield itself from a little bit of interference and provide clock stability!?

In this context, I think those computer servers are fine. I happily run a fanless HTPC in my listening room with SSD drive(s). Hard drives are a no-go for me though (especially that cheap 2TB WD Green!), but if it's essentially silent, no problem.

I personally would not spend the kind of money those "audiophile" server computers are "commanding" though from a value perspective...
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Archimago's Musings: A 'more objective' audiophile blog.


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