Thanks Coen for your information, probably you are right and there is no solution. What I´m doing now with good results is disconnect the USB mouse and keyboard from the usb hub and turn off the monitor once the music start playing.

Best regards,
Juan

I´m not sure if this was already posted but just in case. Could be a good idea to put the Galleries in the same hdd where the OS/XX is but in other partition?. Now I have the OS and XXHighEnd in a Velociraptor, I made a 100Gb partition in this hdd that now is empty. This hdd is quite fast as is required for the Galleries, I tried it and I can´t tell differences in SQ than when I put the Galleries in an USB 3.0 stick. I don´t know however if there is any technical reason that could affect the SQ.
I imagine that the fewer devices connected to the mb the best for sound quality.

Juan

I wonder if anyone has tried a WD Caviar Black for Playback Drive?. It seems to be appropriate for it because it is quite fast: 7200 RPM, 64 MB cache, and SATA 6 Gb/s interface.

Among the defects that can be attributed to the WD Caviar Black is that it seems to be quite noisy.

Juan

Hi Praphan, that´s a good idea, I´ll try it.

Thanks so much!

Juan

Thanks, I was looking for that keyboard with a mouse pad and all the ones I´ve found have two PS2 cables. What I´d need is a kb/mouse pad with only one PS2 cable.

Could someone tell me how to install a PS2 mouse and keyboard in my mb that only has one PS2 connection for both?. I have a PS2 Y splitter cable where I connect the mouse and the kb but only the kb works. If I install only the mouse it works also, the problem is that both at the same time don´t work.

Juan

I´m looking for the "perfect" hdd for Playback Drive. So far I´m looking for an external hdd because I want to test different connections.

These are the minimal specifications the hdd must have in my opinion:

- USB 3.0
- External power supply

There are other specifications I´d like to investigate, to see the influence on SQ, like:

- rpm speed
- the size of the cache
- other connections besides USB 3.0, like eSata.

On this regard I think that the Freecom Quattro could be a good candidate, mostly because it is a very silent drive and with eSata and USB 3.0 (besides FireWire). The problem, if it is a problem, is that it has only 8Mb cache size and that the speed is 5.200rpm. It is an expensive drive but the 1tb size is cheaper and enough for Playback Drive: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freecom-2TB-Quattro-FireWire-External/dp/B004Z610M2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347991616&sr=8-2

I´d like to know some opinion about what could be the importance of the cache size in the Playback Drive. About the rpm speed I´m almost sure from my experience with other hdds that it is not the main issue.

Juan

These are the settings I´ve been lately playing with, once that I´ve fixed the other important settings.

- 4ms or 8ms USB Buffer Size in the Phasure NOS Control Panel.
4ms: more upfront but with a sense of "like the real sound".
8ms: smoother, more relaxed and deeper soundstage.

- 2,0 or 60 SFS.
2,0: cleaner, clearer, a little more dry
60: bigger, darker.

- 5ms or 15ms Clock Resolution
5ms: more dry, smaller
15: richer, more harmonics

- Monitor/keyboard/mouse connected or disconnected
It seems that with it disconnected the sound is smoother, but not sure.


If I had to choose some settings that I´d use to tune the sound depending on the album I´m listening they would be, above all, the USB Buffer Size and the SFS, and the values I´d choose would be one of the two mentioned in each section.

Regards,
Juan

Here in Spain that drive has 2 years warranty, maybe I´ll buy it to to see if your "madness" makes any sense. 

Best regards, Juan

Here in Spain I can only find the Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001, I really don´t know what´s the difference with your STBD3000100 model, do you?

ST3000DM001: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148844

Thanks, Juan

Could you tell me please what´s the brand name/model of your 3tb 7200rpm drive and the SATA III cable?. A link to the products (Amazon or any other place) will be appreciated.

Best regards,
Juan

[from "Playback Drive (for advanced PC usage !)]:

"The Playback drive is to be considered as a general playback source to which all goes - and ends up in the very same way.
BUT :
It will still be your Playback Drive itself which determines the sound."


As has been stated by some other ones here, the use of one or another medium as Playback Drive changes the sound, some of us use an old Sata II or a Sata III hdd (7.200rpm, 5.600rpm or 3.600rpm), USB flash drives or SSDs, etc. What makes me think that this is an important issue is the fact that it leaves out of control a very influential part of the sound system. On the other hand, what could we do?. The only solution I can imagine is to try different mediums as Playback Drive and put here our findings. We shouldn´t underestimate the importance of this feature, as Mani said. So, I urge to you all to share your experiences.

This is mine:

I used, so far, four Playback Drive mediums, all of them connected to an USB 3.0 motherboard port through an USB 3.0 powered hub:

- USB 3.0 flash drive: not bad SQ but the sound is in the cool side. I wouldn´t recommend it

- USB3 external hdd, usb powered. Better SQ than the usb flash drive, clear sound, but also a little in the cool side. Can be a good choice. Maybe if this hdd would be external powered the sound would be other...

- Internal WD Green, 5.200rpm. The sound seems darker than the other ones. I don´t like it.

- External powered USB2.0 hdd, 7.200rpm, buffer 8Mb (Seagate/LaCie Porsche). The best sound so far, very clear and big sound stage a little on the warm side.

Juan

 

Hey Praphan, I missed your Flight Simulator pictures, it is impressive!. Mine was much more simple. After playing with that simulator flying with the real Cessna will be a child´s game...and you still have some free time to use XXHighEnd?. Peter and you must have some secret to make days with more than 24 hours 

Best regards,
Juan

Hi Arvind,

Well, for me worked, and it looks that it also worked for stefanobilliani. I guess that it all depends on each one´s hardware/software.

You can always try 0.9z-7-2 that was specifically made to avoid those cracks.

Best regards,
Juan

Peter, how have you formatted the Galleries drive?, exFAT or NTFS, and what´s the cluster size?

Regards,
Juan