SteveCorbett

@J.Gordon Once again I'm afraid you are not taking into account all the in-between buffers, it doesn't matter how wide or narrow or blocked your 'lanes' are, either the data chunks make it in time or there is an audible gap or extremely obvious clicks. Those bits ultimately arrive in chunks to the soundcards internal buffer and the quality of the clock, the convertor chip and the analogue components around it determine how good it sounds. Whether its SSD or spinning hard disk has zero impact here. Sure it'll make programs load faster, but won't magically make music sound better, sorry. Remember we're talking a single stream of audio, which for an uncompressed single stereo wav file is incredibly easy for a hard drive to handle. Indeed, think about studios that use 7200RPM hard drives for projects. You can have 30,40, 50 24/32bit stereo audio tracks all running simultaneously in the DAW without any impact on sound quality. The hard drives barely breaking a sweat. I know this because I'm a music producer myself. Is anyone seriously trying to suggest playback of a single track of audio the sound quality is being affected?. It is I'm afraid nonsense.

I wouldn't describe ATC's as fatuiging, just very crystal pinpoint sharp in their revealing of detail. To my ears metal based tweeters like those used in the Focals are far more fatuiging than the lovely soft-dome tweeters of an ATC. But I would certainly recommend both ATC and Barefoot. They're right at the top of the active monitors world. ATC is like a precise looking-glass into the mix, the Barefoots have immense power and a very inviting warm sound, but without losing any critical detail in the process. Audition both if you can.

Hi Chris, Wise sentiments that I agree with and if for some reason I came across too strong then I apologise. However I would also appreciate if you didn't twist my words as well. Nowhere did I accuse anyone of being 'nuts'. I suggested that they're imagining a difference and this happens naturally all the time. This does not make a listener crazy. Our sense of hearing can be easily fooled. Ask any producer who's tweaked an eq for ages, hearing a difference, only to realise it was set on bypass the entire time. I belive I did state both my reasons and why I think some people appear to hear a difference when there is none. I hope this forum remains an open arena to all opinions, both for and against products.

@Rick I'm comfortable in the knowledge that people out there spend $1000 on a silver power cable thinking it makes a difference and to their ears they hear a difference, but its still all in their head. If people are willing to waste money on something that offers no improvement because it makes them feel more comfortable inside, hell go for it. But it still doesn't mean there is an actual difference present. I do get the point regarding seek head noise, spinning rumble etc. Though todays traditional hard drives are much much quieter. Mine reside in their own sealed enclosures which reduce noise to the point its quieter than the ultra quiet 120mm fans on my case, so that becomes a non-issue. Just a little understanding of how data is transferred in a computer and yes, then you'll realise why the SSD offers no audible improvement. It can't do, its utterly impossible because its not sent as a single stream, it IS sent as chunks of data and there are far too many buffers in between the source and the output. Bottom line, if you like to store a lot of music, especially in uncompressed .wav/.aiff format, Save your pennies cause SSD is simply not worth it yet.

Why oh why do people believe in this nonsense. No SSD drives won't make an mp3 or a .wav sound better, period, end of. Why do people still equate streaming music on a computer to a 1980's CD player reading the CD realtime at 1x speed. That's not how it works. When you play an mp3 or .wav on your computer it reads the data in chunks in advance of playback. These chunks get buffered at every level, from the memory cache in the spinning hard drive, to the computers memory cache, software cache and finally the buffer in the soundcard. It's not like some straight line freeway with little 1's and 0's all marching at one speed and that is what defines the jitter. Good grief, how good the clock in your D/A in the audio interface is what defines that. Anyone who believes listening off an SSD sounds better is imagining it, expectation bias, nothing more.