Laptop internal SSD

[thesnakes]

Laptop internal SSD drastically degrades audio quality on my centrance dacport hd . I have 3 laptops 2 windows laptops running with internal SSD for the OS . one is sata ssd samsung 850EVO, the other laptop uses nvme kingston SSD, and a macbook pro 13 2010 with a HDD . My Centrance sounds great on my macbook wich is running on Hard drive , but on the other 2 laptops this dac sounds really bad it just spits out garbage worst then the internal sound of those 2 laptops so I tried and put the 850 EVO wich is a sata SSD in my macbook and same thing happened here same terrible sound was coming out of my macbook pro .

Does anyone have any experince with this I want to upgrade from this old macbook pro but all new laptops now come with nvme ssd ,and this dac just spits garbage if the laptop is running on SSD I just don't get it why is this a thing . For now I can only use the centrance dac on this old macbook pro . So I look like an idiot carying two laptops one to work on and the macbook to listen to music

Asus vivobook 15 : dual core intel pentium, 12 gb ddr4 ram , SATA Samsung 850 evo 250 gb SSD - terrible sound unless I use a HDD for the OS
Asus vivobook 15: 4 core amd ryzen 5 3500u,8 gb ddr4 ram , NVME kingston 250 gb SSD - I want to use this laptop for work and music but the sound quality is terrible
Macbook pro 13 2010, intel core duo , 4gb ram ,500gb HDD - CEntrance on this laptop produces great sound quality , but if I put SSD instead all bets are off .
CEntrance DacPort HD
Sennheiser HD 558

 

[KSTR]

The only technical explaination for this is that your DAC is rather sensitive to noise on the USB power (from which it is supplied).
SSDs are known to pollute their supply voltage more than classic HDDs and this may feed through.

 

[Zek]

and this dac just spits garbage

What does this mean?
Which audio player do you use?
Did you install the appropriate dac driver?

 

[Apesbrain]

The only technical explaination for this is that your DAC is rather sensitive to noise on the USB power (from which it is supplied).

Or sensitive to power draw. You may need to add a powered hub to provide consistent, sufficient voltage to the DAC. That, or a different DAC.

 

[thesnakes]

What does this mean?
Which audio player do you use?
Did you install the appropriate dac driver?

- the sound becomes very distorted ,nasty and jittery to unlistenable level
- audirvana 3.5 , audirvana origin ,Jriver 29. mac os High sierra latest supported, the other 2 laptops windows 10
no driver required on windows 10

 

[BDWoody]

So I look like an idiot carying two laptops one to work on and the macbook to listen to music

Do either of your laptops have an optical connection available? Sometimes they are hidden in the same jack as the analog and need a mini-toslink adapter to access, similar to the way the CCA is set up.

If so, i'd suggest that you try that and see if whatever is polluting things from your USB connection gets eliminated.

 

[AnalogSteph]

The only technical explaination for this is that your DAC is rather sensitive to noise on the USB power (from which it is supplied).
SSDs are known to pollute their supply voltage more than classic HDDs and this may feed through.

That's about the only thing that somewhat makes sense on this headscratcher.

You may need to add a powered hub to provide consistent, sufficient voltage to the DAC. That, or a different DAC.

That's what I'd have suggested, too.

Maybe cross-check with the lowly onboard sound. I have zero issues running that into an external amp on my Dell Latitude E6330 with a Crucial MX500 1 TB, and the E6520 with an 850 Pro has the occasional crackle from excessive DPC latency related to the WiFi driver, but that's about it.

 

[thesnakes]

Or sensitive to power draw. You may need to add a powered hub to provide consistent, sufficient voltage to the DAC. That, or a different DAC.

I have and tried uptone iso regen + ultracp 1.2 0 diference , if pluging in directly to laptop sounds great, throuhh iso regen sounds the same ( great) if a direct connection to the laptop gives terrible sounds through iso regen sounds gives just as bad results

 

[thesnakes]

The only technical explaination for this is that your DAC is rather sensitive to noise on the USB power (from which it is supplied).
SSDs are known to pollute their supply voltage more than classic HDDs and this may feed through.

From Amir 's measurements this DAC is not sensitive to USB vagaries but also does not have the best SINAD wich is dominated by the dac's internal noise .

 

[thesnakes]

Do either of your laptops have an optical connection available? Sometimes they are hidden in the same jack as the analog and need a mini-toslink adapter to access, similar to the way the CCA is set up.

If so, i'd suggest that you try that and see if whatever is polluting things from your USB connection gets eliminated.

only macbook has optical out , but no matter i dont have an optical dac i do have iso regen + ultracap 1.2 wich makes no diference on centrance dac

 

[Deleted member 46664]

Before these guys get you running in circles .... try a different DAC ....
If the new one is consistent then you have your answer... it's that DAC.
If the same problem persists ... well, I don't envy you the job of tracking that down.

 

[sq225917]

I've run 17" 2010 mbp with original sata drive, 850 evo, and $80 1tb Chinese piece of shit ssd. None of them ever made noise over usb.

Get a dac thats not broken.

 

[Zek]

@thesnakes I changed the HDD in my Mac Mini to SSD and there are no problems with the USB connection to the Loxije D30 DAC.
I think changing the SSD has nothing to do with your problem.

 

[thesnakes]

@thesnakes I changed the HDD in my Mac Mini to SSD and there are no problems with the USB connection to the Loxije D30 DAC.
I think changing the SSD has nothing to do with your problem.

Thank you all for your responses ! perhaps I should contact Centrance .

 

[Katji]

Best solution is get another DAC, even an Apple dongle DAC.