EEVblog #719 - Sony Low Noise Audiophile SDXC Memory Card

[NiHaoMike]

From my experience there are some areas where a better NIC helps with ping times.

When doing a large number of connections between 2 computers connected directly via Ethernet, if you use a program such as ixchariot, At full saturation of a gigabit connection the intel server NIC's tend to have slightly better response times (in both the cheap stuff and the quality adapters, you are with ping times that are a tiny fraction of a millisecond, but the server NIC's tend to be a little better (e.g., sometimes up to 3% better. Though the main benefit is with the lower CPU usage, where the more common onboard NIC's will pull like 15-20% CPU usage while handling a simulated enterprise database load at full saturation, but the server NIC's will only be pulling like 5%

At low loads you can't really tell any difference (I tried and unless you are really close to saturating the gigabit connection, the high end and low end NIC's perform pretty much the same (the low end stuff just use more CPU usage while performing the same)

The main benefit of the "killer" NIC is simply the QOS software. it allows you to set up QOS rules so that your gaming traffic can have a higher priority, and thus have lower latency. The issue is the results are not as good as when you set up the QOS rules on your router (which then take into account the network traffic for your entire network (thus preventing a torrent download on another PC from hurting your gaming experience.

If you want something better than the killer NIC for less money, then go with the intel NIC's, you get the benefit of their hardware acceleration so when you fully saturate your gigabit connection, you can be sure that you will be getting slightly better response times as compared to if you were using the onboard realtek stuff.

You can enable kernel level QoS with any NIC.

BTW, "Killer" is just a rebranded Qualcomm NIC nowadays.

[SeanB]

English is my first language, and I still get caught out by regional differences. then you get US english, which is totally different. Same words, similar spelling but you sometimes need a translation to understand...... This having been done correctly however it is a very good language. It has a marked tendency to appropriate words from other languages with ease.

[jpenn]

I wonder if this has something to do with Japanese business culture. There are two rules.

1.   The boss is always correct
2.   In the event that the boss is not correct, rule one applies.

Maybe someone at the top got hold of an Audiophool magazine and got the bright idea to sell ultra ultra high end audio gear (aka snake-oil) . Of course the engineers had to comply.

I remember a story I read once about a technical writer who was working on a 35mm film camera instruction manual for a Japanese manufacturer.  When the president saw the finished manual he decided to put his two cents in and he rewrote some of it. If you are not familiar with a 35mmfilm camera the film is loaded into a can that gets spooled out when you wind it to take another picture. When the film reaches the end you have to rewind it back into the can before removing it from the camera. Well if you followed the instructions that came with this camera it would have you open the camera before rewinding the film! It seems no one would inform the boss of his mistake.

[mxmarek]

Hand bonded by nude virgins and only 5x the price?
I smell bullshti..

[zapta]

Seemed more like an eevBLAB.  Was surprised at how short it was!

Need to move fast. #741 is behind the corner.

[dadler]

Hey Dave, that SD card is just the tip of the iceberg. Try this: http://www.audioquest.com/ethernet/diamond
Ethernet cable; 5500$ for 8 meters.
Want a power cable for 7000$? This is for you. http://www.audioquest.com/power-cables/wel-signature

DIRECTIONALITY: All audio cables are directional. The correct direction is determined by listening to every batch of metal conductors used in every AudioQuest audio cable. Arrows are clearly marked on the connectors to ensure superior sound quality. For best results have the arrow pointing in the direction of the flow of music. For example, NAS to Router, Router to Network Player.

[FrankBuss]

As pointed out in previous threads, what the card is likely trying to solve is conducted noise that causes ripple in the supply rails, and interferes with the analog parts of the player.

If it has less conducted noise, why did they publish an EMC plot with radiated emissions (my Japanese is a bit rusty, but the y-axis label translates to "radiation intensity") ? And as Dave said, if the audio player has a problem with such low radiated emission levels, then the audio player needs to be fixed. Otherwise all kind of nearby devices could cause problems, if it is within the allowed EMC levels.

[nitro2k01]

As pointed out in previous threads, what the card is likely trying to solve is conducted noise that causes ripple in the supply rails, and interferes with the analog parts of the player.

If it has less conducted noise, why did they publish an EMC plot with radiated emissions (my Japanese is a bit rusty, but the y-axis label translates to "radiation intensity") ? And as Dave said, if the audio player has a problem with such low radiated emission levels, then the audio player needs to be fixed. Otherwise all kind of nearby devices could cause problems, if it is within the allowed EMC levels.

It was an educated guess, based on my own experience of SD cards. Otherwise, the card really is as useless (in theory and practice) as people insist it is.

[Excavatoree]

It took me a while to notice, but I believe Dave "Rick Rolled" us as well.

[EEVblog]

In the 1970's there was a very popular TV show called "Happy Days".  In one episode during a holiday trip in Hawaii (if I recall correctly) one of the characters in a daring feat on water-skis attempted to jump a shark swimming in a cage in the sea. It was an end of season two part cliff hanger and the show dropped in ratings and quality on the return season. Hence the show was said to "jump the shark" from one season to the next and continued to slide in popularity and quality.

Actually that's not true, Happy Days didn't drop in ratings after the infamous Shark Jump episode, they had their best season ever in fact. But the term Jump The Shark stuck anyway and that's what people remember it as.

[nowlan]

I had never heard of it either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark

[Wilksey]

Unbelievable, but funny as the f-bomb Dave dropped!

It's 100% correct in the fact that someone who has just paid 5x the amount for a memory card WILL hear the difference because they have told themselves that it is better, much like anything!

There are other companies that used to be innovative that are now about making money (Apple etc), but people still trust the original brand name and will buy it and believe the lies being told, some say it's wrong, some say fair play if you can get away with it, just be prepared to take the consequences when it comes, if, that is, they are at all bothered by them.

Short but funny rant!

[Fsck]

if only we could get insider knowledge on their sales predictions.. I'm quite curious about how many of these they expect to sell.

[0b01010011]

Just a thought - I'm sure this would depend on the player and the software, but wouldn't the device or s/w read the entire track into RAM before playing it? Surely then the micro SD card could be powered down between tracks?

If this was the case surely the audiophool wankery would be for nothing, or at best only a few milliseconds of caching time at the start of each track?

[Wytnucls]

It's 100% correct in the fact that someone who has just paid 5x the amount for a memory card WILL hear the difference because they have told themselves that it is better, much like anything!

There is something similar going on in the classical music world, where famous performers and music critics are convinced that old famous string instruments sound better than new ones. (A Guarneri or Stradivari violin sells for millions of dollars at auctions).
This was thoroughly debunked in double blind experiments, but the myth lives on.

[Corporate666]

Correct me if I'm wrong....

But I thought the whole point of digital encoding is that signals get rounded to either 0 or 1 (low or a high voltage) so that any "noise" produced in transmission on top of the actual signal never actually impacts the accurate reproduction/interpretation of what the bits should be?

As a quick example....if we are using a system where 0 V is "0" and 5 V is supposed to be a "1", the noise can ride on top to a huge degree because even then, a 0-2.5V signal will automatically be interpreted as a "0" bit, and signals in the range of 2.5-5.0V would be considered a high or "1" bit (in reality it wouldn't be that huge amount of noise anyways)?

And as far as hearing goes, wouldn't it be the DAC that needs to be low noise? Accurately converting the digital stream into actual analog voltages to drive speakers and not having inaccuracies introduced (aka "noise")? Is Sony trying to say that their "better low noise" SD CARD produces a cleaner signal to the DAC input (which wouldn't matter a heap of sh#t) or that it introduces less noise to the circuitry that would produce noise on the DAC output?

Maybe I'm overthinking this and it is a complete pile of sh#t as Dave says.

Oh... and their digital Walkman that costs $1200.... It supports lossless codecs like FLAC and others. How does it sound any better than any other device that can play lossless? The only way I see is that they have built a superior DAC, or they are supporting higher-bit encoded files per sample (like 24-bit) to increase the resolution over the 16-bit (and whether you could possibly even resolve this with your ear is another matter altogether).... Same argument goes for TV's these days that are trying to increase the color-depth as well. More Marketing Bullsh#t.

The "rounding" you are thinking of is quantization, but nothing in the design of the memory card has anything to do with quantization.  Selling this memory card for superior sound quality is like selling sheet music printed on canvas vs. regular paper, for superior playback by a violinist reading music.  It's actually much worse than that, because a violinist could miss a note - but a digital music player isn't missing 1's and 0's from a non-audiophile card.

As for higher bit encoded files, it is erroneous to call them "high resolution".  They do not have any more resolution or music information, they just have a lower noise floor.  That's another huge scam of the "audiophile" industry - selling against the ignorance of consumers who equate "high res" audio with "high res" video - or even calling audio "high definition".  It's total marketing wank.

[Corporate666]

Anybody who has worked in an anechoic chamber will know that silence is a myth. You hear the constant sound of the pumping and flow of your own blood. So really, this truly, is aimed at the brain dead.

Thanks for that.

A lot of folks assume that "no sound at all" is achievable, when that's not the case.  Whenever we talk about reducing noise, we need to keep in mind what the real noise floor is - which is never zero.  Reducing some component of the noise floor below that level is like making a picture so vivid that it actually contains IR/UV and X-Ray for superior color.

[99tito99]

NO NO IT IS TRUE:

There is digital noise.

See the file attached below:

The data on the left was recorded on a run-of-the-mill memory card
And, the data on the right was recorded on the Sony Low Noise Audiophool SDXC Memory Card

Cheers,
Mark
***************

[f1rmb]

:-D

[Barny]

Sony didn't invent the Walkman.

It was a German who invented it.
Sony's first Walkman prototype was nearly a one to one copy of the german design.

Sony lost the lawsuit after nearly 30 years.

[RupertGo]

Coincidentally, I've just read this long but really fascinating account http://www.head-fi.org/t/701900/schiit-happened-the-story-of-the-worlds-most-improbable-start-up of how the marvellously-named Schitt Audio came to be. Tons of stuff about marketing, production, engineering and... well, being a company that decided to call itself Schitt. (Its latest product is the Fulla Schitt, so they know exactly what they're doing.)

[Fungus]

Question: do you think 24 bit recording is pointless?

24-bit playback: Very probably pointless

24-bit recording: Useful because of all the editing and remixing that happens later. Sound is rarely recorded at the same levels as it's reproduced.

I thought this SONY card was claiming lower EMF emissions and more stable power consumption, not better quality bits output on the SPI bus. Both those things *might* have an influence if you have a really crappy mp3 player.

OTOH you'd be better off spending the money on a better mp3 player than that SD card.

[GK]

And yes, I can reliably ABX 24 bit audio. It really is not difficult, and my hearing isn't that good either.

A throwaway line. For one thing I really doubt that you have any idea exactly what is involved in setting up a proper double blind ABX test, let alone having actually participated in one.


Some relevant reading:

http://archimago.blogspot.com.au/2014_06_01_archive.html

[Dinsdale]

Well, my cat will enjoy the higher frequency response of this new card. Nothing's too good for my cat.

Question: do you think 24 bit recording is pointless?

Not if it's accompanied by 60fps recording speed.

[daqq]

Anyone want to buy one & send it to me for x-raying?

It'll be something like this probably.