Tom's hardware tells the truth

[gene_stl]

$2,500 Ethernet Switch Effectively Isolates Audiophiles From Cash

Faraday Rage

www.tomshardware.com

 

[Jmudrick]

I think they could have been a lot more straightforward than dodging with "we'd wait to hear more opinions before we declare that Synergistic Research has hit a bulls-eye. "

 

[anmpr1]

I think they could have been a lot more straightforward than dodging with "we'd wait to hear more opinions before we declare that Synergistic Research has hit a bulls-eye. "

I think they were being facetious. If most hi-fi sites tested and editorialized like Tom's, it would be a better world.

 

[dwkdnvr]

It seems like it's not even an AVB switch or something that has at least a slim basis for supporting the claims.

 

[pkane]

$2,500 Ethernet Switch Effectively Isolates Audiophiles From Cash

Faraday Rage

www.tomshardware.com

I like the title "$2,500 Ethernet Switch Effectively Isolates Audiophiles From Cash"

 

[anmpr1]

I like the title "$2,500 Ethernet Switch Effectively Isolates Audiophiles From Cash"

You know it's bad, out there in audiofool land, when an Ethernet switch costs more than a scalped RTX-3080. Good grief!

 

[pkane]

You know it's bad, out there in audiofool land, when an Ethernet switch costs more than a scalped RTX-3080. Good grief!

Comparing an ethernet switch to an RTX-3080 is like comparing a horse buggy to a spaceship. And yet, people buy this BS

 

[anmpr1]

Comparing an ethernet switch to an RTX-3080 is like comparing a horse buggy to a spaceship. And yet, people buy this BS

The difference is, you can actually buy a horse buggy. Or maybe even a ride on Jeff's spaceship, before you will be able to find a deal on an RTX!

FWIW: I bought a GTX-1070 for my rig, about four years ago. Back then, higher-end cards were becoming scarcer, but you could usually find one at list, if you shopped around. Today, good luck with that. I can pull my card out and probably sell it on the second hand market for more than I paid for it. But what would I replace it with? Thank crypto for that.

 

[pkane]

The difference is, you can actually buy a horse buggy. Or maybe even a ride on Jeff's spaceship, before you will be able to find a deal on an RTX!

FWIW: I bought a GTX-1070 for my rig, about four years ago. Back then, higher-end cards were becoming scarcer, but you could usually find one at list, if you shopped around. Today, good luck with that. I can pull my card out and probably sell it on the second hand market for more than I paid for it. But what would I replace it with? Thank crypto for that.

I guess that's why one might go for an ethernet switch, instead

 

[Crane]

Round two

Solid Snake-Oil Storage: This SSD Is Aimed at Audiophiles

This SSD purportedly makes your audio sound better.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[Count Arthur]

Round two

Solid Snake-Oil Storage: This SSD Is Aimed at Audiophiles

This SSD purportedly makes your audio sound better.

www.tomshardware.com

But it has gold caps and everything!

Meanwhile, I had to shelve my plans to store my music on punched cards. This is roughly 5MB:

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

The knuckleheads over on Audiophile Style are eagerly lapping up the snake oil.

 

[AnalogSteph]

But it has gold caps and everything!

Conventional electrolytics with a gold-colored jacket, anyway. A literal Gold-Cap[tm] would be a double-layer / supercapacitor.

Generally I don't even mind the idea of running 3D TLC NAND in pSLC mode, so basically as all SLC cache... it certainly wouldn't be hurting the speed or write endurance. This approach seems to be semi-common in the industrial / embedded world. You can order a Swissbit X-76m2 series M.2 SSD with 320 GB (using 1 TB of TLC NAND) for about 490€ a pop (or ~400 in 5+ quantities), for example... while a plain ol' SATA interface job only, minimum endurance is given as between 2070 TBW (enterprise workload) to 10520 TBW (sequential workload). For comparison, it would take a 2 TB Samsung 860 Pro or a 4 TB 870 EVO to be spec'd at 2400 TBW, neither of which you can even get in M.2 formfactor (2.5" only) and both of which cost somewhere around 400€ as well.

This SSD apparently sells or at least used to sell for 800 USD while sporting 8-layer mil-spec PCB and other fancy parts goodness (and it's actually PCIe), so at least it's not outrageously overpriced compared to other similar options. It's still a boutique product with little in terms of proven track record, of course.

Now do you actually need such a beast for audio playback? Hell no. Audio files tend to get written to very infrequently and a larger collection is likely to outgrow a 320 / 333 GB SSD, so like most ordinary users, you should be favoring a different size / endurance tradeoff. Just get a nice 1 TB or so M.2 from one of the big guns like Samsung or Crucial or whatever. The plain Samsung SSD 980 has the same spec'd write endurance as the 980 Pro, has a less fast interface which has little practical relevance and only costs half as much. Crucial P5 is similar and also comes in a 2 TB version (1200 TBW), which can be had for ~200€ right now. As a bit of a wildcard option, there's the Transcend MTE220S 1 TB M.2 PCIe 3.0 drive which claims 2200 TBW (~130€) and twice that at 2 TB (~235€), or its PCIe 4.0 cousin MTE240S 1 TB at 1700 TBW (~160€). (I would not take bets on the comparability of endurance specs between manufacturers.)

If 2.5" is fine (unless you are literally copying large files between drives, you'd basically never notice the difference between NVMe and SATA in everyday life), there is little wrong with a 1 TB 860 Pro or 2 TB 870 EVO or Crucial MX500 either. (WD Blue / Sandisk Ultra 3D seem to have a bit of penchant for the controllers dying at 1 TB size and up, which may be down to insufficient heatsinking in the plastic case. I like using the 250 GB version in office machines, as the smaller size MX500s get progressively slower.)
I would not stoop so low as to be considering bargain basement drives like the BX500 (cacheless + QLC, ugh), and even the 870 QVO is more geared towards capacity than one really needs for music (you want at least the 2 TB version of this model for somewhat non-pathetic write speeds outside the SLC cache).

 

[Longshan]

Τhe next time someone implies that being rich = being smart, I'm going to shove that internet article down their throat, lol.

 

[anmpr1]

I really don't think this sort of foolishness will gain much traction among the PC hobby crowd. Folks who interact with their PC are looking for frame rates, and how fast they can load their software, and how long it takes to complete a task. Measurable stuff. And cost is always pretty much a priority.

Audio-heads are probably the worst of any hobby. But these goofy 'tweaks' infect musicians, too. Especially those of the rock 'n roll variety. Want to give your pedal that 'vintage' tone? Obviously you need a 'new' vintage battery.

 

[anmpr1]

This SSD apparently... while sporting 8-layer mil-spec PCB and other fancy parts goodness (and it's actually PCIe), so at least it's not outrageously overpriced compared to other similar options.

It's still a boutique product with little in terms of proven track record, of course.

The thing is, no one wants (or wants to pay for) a PC built like a McIntosh amp. At least at the consumer level. Practically, folks want something that will last about five (to at most) ten years, and then it's time to upgrade. Why spend dollars for longevity when progress advances rapidly?

On the other hand, one could make an argument that for most consumer-oriented tasks, PCs have reached a point where there's not any compelling reason to upgrade. Ever. It's not as if what you will be buying is going to be much better than what came before. Not like it used to be. For example, going from a US Robotics telephone modem to an Ethernet connection--that upgrade made a world of difference. So, from that standpoint, longevity is an argument.

As far as a 'track record'? I don't even know what that could even mean in the context of serving digits from an SSD. It either works or it doesn't. I have lately, however, been reading about the impermanence of SSD devices. That is, how long they will last before they start failing? But with spinning disk drives, failure has always been something one had to occasionally contend with. So I don't know the answer to that question. Whether it's better to spend more for a 'better built' SSD, and how much more one should spend? If there is an answer to that question, it doesn't have anything to do with storing and retrieving music files, but rather the integrity of one's entire data set.

However it is, an audiophile switch or SSD is simply an opportunity to scam neurotic audiophiles. I'm to the point in this hobby that I think anyone considering buying this stuff deserves to be scammed. I mean, how incredibly idiotic and stupid can a person be? I guess we know the answer to that question!

 

[rockphotog]

Why stop with an SSD? Now you can get an audiophile motherboard!