External HD VS Flash Drive Sound Quality Question

Geoff, he's not talking about playing CDs. The spinning disc he's referring to is the one in the hard drive mechanism. The data being read from the hard drive gets clocked, processed, and reclocked multiple times through all kinds of digital circuitry before it ends up being converted to analog. The jitter that matters is jitter in the timing of digital-to-analog conversion.

Regards,
-- Al

Hoping for folks who know the definitive answers; I have my own guesses, but that's all they are.

IMO the only folks who would know the definitive answers are those who have carefully compared a variety of recent generation drives from different manufacturers, some of which utilize wall wart power supplies and some of which utilize power from the USB bus, and have compared them using an Oppo BDP-95 or another similar Oppo player. In other words, just about nobody.

IF any of the alternatives you described make any difference, IMO it would be the result of coupling of electrical noise from the drive and/or its cable and/or its power supply to unrelated circuit points within the BDP-95, and possibly to points elsewhere in the system. And/or effects within the BDP-95 that may result from the fluctuating current drawn from it by the drive, in the case of a bus powered drive.

Noise effects don't have a great deal of predictability. And I see no reason to expect much if any consistency between experiences that may be reported with computer setups and what can be expected with your Oppo.

Personally, I'd just follow the advice RW offered in his last paragraph.

Regards,
-- Al

My spelling is pathetic!

Actually, jitter is produced by vibration of the CD, by slight wobbling of the CD that's caused by out-of-round condition of the disc (exacerbated when the transport is not absolutely level). We won't even get into the jitter produced by the background scattered laser light, especially the invisible light that cannot be influenced by colored pens or mats.

First of all, jitter is not caused by spinning discs, that is nonsense.

Secondly, I prefer USB drives that have their own power supply. You are not subject to the noisy environment that is prevalent in most PCs. Also, an outboard power supply is preferable to drawing current from the USB ports.

Finally, try not to get too caught up in the audio nervosa that seems to plague many folks on this forum. If it sounds good to you sit back and enjoy it, don't worry what others think...

-RW-