2012 mac mini + oxford firewire enclosure + SSD or HDD?

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Jonathon Janusz

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I'm posting to the apple core rather than the discless circle because my specific setup involves a mac mini as a source.

As the title suggests, what is the general consensus as to sound quality between an SSD versus a HDD in an external enclosure, in my case connected via firewire through an oxford chipset enclosure?  I loaded my music library on an internal SSD (apple stock samsung OEM SSD drive) and found that the sound was better using my prior external firewire hard drive.  Now, before I take the time an hassle to rip apart the mini and gut one of the SSD drives, I'm wondering if anyone who has tried before me could suggest whether an SSD or HDD in an external enclosure sounded better or was there no noticeable change?  Currently, the mini has stock power supply and power cord.

Thanks for any thoughts!

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Re: 2012 mac mini + oxford firewire enclosure + SSD or HDD?
« Reply #1 on: 25 Mar 2017, 01:59 pm »
I would preface my experience by saying that in the end, we are all going to hear what sounds "good" with our own inherent biases. If you think your system sounds better via HDD than SSD, isn't that the most important set of ears you should be listening to?

In my case, I'm using a dedicated MacBookPro for my system which runs Amarra/iTunes and my music library is in a NAS Enclosure with a single Samsung 1TB 840EVO SSD. It's connected via Thunderbolt cable. In the past, I've had HDDs before getting an SSD, and I didn't really notice much difference - not enough to say with certainly that one way was better. I got the SSD because of price drop and speed and thought it would be a worthy upgrade and I have no regrets in sound.

Before coming to the system I have now, I read a bunch of reviews, forums and articles, took the consensus of what I found, and decided on the set-up so I wouldn't look back to say "why didn't I spring for this when I had the chance."

If you even think your system sounds better with the HDDs, I'd say you should revert back to them. But I also think it's easy to get started down that path of sound perfection, and it's a slippery slope. You could start blaming Firewire vs USB vs Thunderbolt, or cable quality/construction/price and on and on it goes.

Jonathon Janusz

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Re: 2012 mac mini + oxford firewire enclosure + SSD or HDD?
« Reply #2 on: 25 Mar 2017, 03:08 pm »
That last bit is exactly why I thought to pose the question, hoping to learn something from the experiments of others before me.  Your statement that there are multiple variables in play (drive type/brand/etc., interface, cables, power supplies in this case) is the basis for my asking.

My challenge is that I heard a difference between one setup and the other - the internal SSD sounded etched on the top end and more sibilant than the external HDD which smoothed it out and let more detail though.   I want to start somewhere in figuring out what variable caused it, and rather than start by spending a pile of money on various parts I might nor might not end up needing to try to even begin putting together a workable experiment, I thought maybe someone here might have already done a similar test to at least point me in a general direction. 

In this case, I think I would need someone who has used a single HDD and a single SSD, each one both inside and outside the mini, outside being on the firewire bus and using the same enclosure/power supply/cable setup, to suggest whether the HDD or SSD might be a good place to start in narrowing down my challenge.

Thanks for your thoughts on this so far; your experience suggests so far that the HDD vs. SSD might not be where my change is coming from, so either I could stick with the HDD without concern for it, or I could switch out to the SSD and not lose anything from where I'm at now but maybe pick up an improvement of a lower noise floor removing the spinning hard drive from the listening room (without having to add in a NAS outside the room and all of what that entails).

Thanks again, and to anyone else, please do continue adding ideas if you have them!

Larkston Zinaspic

Re: 2012 mac mini + oxford firewire enclosure + SSD or HDD?
« Reply #3 on: 25 Mar 2017, 07:47 pm »
I don't have much to add but I'm looking forward to your further impressions.

I have a 2012 Mini w/internal SSD, external HDD, but my firewire enclosure is from OWC. My digital converter is also firewire, so the components are a bit different.

I haven't done much 'critical' listening between the internal and external drives but I have been using an SD card with music files that are in regular rotation, since I'm more of an album oriented type of guy. Not sure if there is a legitimate or practical reason for doing this, other than the fact that the external HDD is not spinning and shut off.

There is an audible difference between the SD card and the external hard drive, but I hesitate to say which one sounds "better". It's possible that the HDD sounds slightly more "saturated", and whether or not I prefer that would probably depend on the source material. I'll have to listen to some playback from the SSD for further comparison.

The firewire cable swap was actually more dramatic in my case, but I won't even go there...

That said I'm very pleased with the i7 Mini in general.

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Re: 2012 mac mini + oxford firewire enclosure + SSD or HDD?
« Reply #4 on: 26 Mar 2017, 05:21 am »
Not trying to add any more wrenches into the works, but there's a really cool company called Clones Audio (based in Hong Kong) who make some really awesome components. Specific to this conversation, they have (or had) a Linear Power Supply that came with custom cabling for the inside of the Mac Mini. I have a friend who used this set-up and said it greatly improved the sound output compared before/after. Not sure if you have anything like this or have considered it.

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2015/09/clones-audios-power-station-a-linear-psu-for-the-mac-mini/

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