Does hard drive noise in your PC color affect SQ?


I've had my system set up with a laptop running jRiver pulling my music from my server. But recently the hard drive on my laptop crashed. Because I didn't want to be without tunes I brought my server into my music room installed jRiver and started playing music. I was amazed that the former server PC sounded much better than the laptop server combo. I mean much better!!

I've looked at the Zuma design and others and I know most people think that keeping the hard drives out of the listening room a high priority.

So I've been doing some research and it is possible to buy fanless power supplies by Seasonic, fanless CPU coolers, and there are several ways to keep the hard drives from vibrating by using screws with silicone grommets, etc. I will be adding super quiet fans that will be set to only cone on if there is a temperature problem. Right now I have fans on the server power supply and they never come on. I do use a fanless CPU cooler as well. I really gave to put my ears right next to the PC to hear anything at all.

SOTM makes filters for hard drives and fans which I plan to use when I build a new PC.

In a PC system like the Zuma which has no drives, is it electrical noise one is worried about or is it the possible noise of the drives and fans themselves?

I really believe that having the drives, CPU, PSU all in one system can really be almost silent, with careful choices of hardware. I have some evidence that your PC might sound better this way then retrieving the music files from a NAS.

Has anyone else experimented and found the same results?

Thanks for reading and responding,

Steven.
128x128sgr
First, based on reports from a friend of mine with decades of high end experience at the reference level, the sotm sata filters do provide a nice improvement for the money.

Based on personal experience, a SSD for the operating system is preferable and provides a marginal improvement. Why I cannot say.

I use a bank of power conditioning devices called PS Audio Noise Harvesters. These gadgets have lights on them that blink when noise from the AC is being conerted into light. There are only two things I know that consistently trigger them. The first is dimmer switches. The second is any computer, laptop or otherwise, even when connected to room on a different circuit. The noise from the PC apparently gets back into the system at the circuit breaker. My point is, even if you isolate components in the computer, it isn't just noise riding on your connection from PC to stereo that is an issue. Computers pollute all your AC power. Power conditioning seems to mitigate it. Laptop, desktop, it doesn't matter. It could be the PSU, fans or video card. I got really good audible results with the Harvesters.
Blackstonejd I second that...I highly recommend the Alan Maher design AC treatment products spread out throughout the home. IME they are superior to the Harvesters. Alan M has been offering these type of products for many years and they are very effective and affordable.

I plan on going back to a Wifi Network playback system. I have never been a fan of USB technology and even more against it for Hi Res files being piped thru it.