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My deep dive into media storage interfaces: Musical differences heard between chipsets, Firewire 400/800, USB, SATA, flash drives, SD cards, and network shares (Warning: may cause seizures in the DBT crowd and flat earth naysayers)


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PS/Alex (sandyk): I read the reports about this in the XXHighEnd forum, but must of their users are under Windows, with some different HD structure than Mac?

 

Hi Roch

Most of their users will be using Windows ,because XXHE was designed as Windows playback software. I doubt that a Mac will be too much different in this respect, as I believe that it comes down to PSU demands from the OS HDD/SSD being reflected back into the system.

Yesterday I fitted a C-L-C filter in line with my C drives power supply, in addition to the Optical device being powered via a low noise JLH PSU add-on, and I am certain that there has been a further minor improvement in SQ of new rips of the same material.

Let's face it, many people are now opting for Linear PSUs , despite their high cost, for use with their media servers.

Are they all wrong, and imagining things too ?

BTW, Cookie Marenco has been effectively saying the same as me, and possibly for even longer. The only difference is that she hasn't specifically mentioned the words "check sums"

Kind Regards

Alex

 

 

 

 

"If you can't hear the difference between an original CD and a copy of your CD, you might as well give up your career as a tester.

The difference between a reconstituted FLAC and full size WAV is much less than that, but it does exist."-Cookie Marenco

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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Well, I still have an open mind, and Alex K. did send me another pair of files the other night. Certainly my system has advanced since the last round I tried with his files. (Last time it was also very frustrating for us both because most of the tracks he sent were either very electronic or oddly recorded; I may need to send him a CD of something I use and know intimately.)

 

The core aspect of what SandyK is presenting I can almost wrap my head around: that the rips from a very optimized and clean-powered optical drive can sound better than from a lesser unit. What I can't quite fathom is the sensitivity of the data afterwards. Alex puts them in zip files (sends them over the web) and says one must be very careful to unzip them in place on the media that you will play back from, and that they should not be copied back and forth or the differences will be diminished or destroyed.

I took a track of mine that I know very well and copied it (uncompressed) up to the cloud and back and then from drive to drive on my LAN. Then I compared it by ear to the original and could hear no difference at all.

 

So again: better rips I can believe. Checksum-identical files sounding different when played back from the same interface? I'm not there yet. But I'll try again with a VERY open ear/mind.

 

I think my report is less controversial in that I am claiming that the electronic activity--which goes on in and between both the computer and the storage medium--has an audible effect and the methods sound different. That is very different than what Alex K. is proposing. Funny thing is, I very much thought of him--and of his USB sticks and retrying his experiments--while I was doing my interface research. I would think that what I found would be of great interest to his cause.

 

Cheers,

Alex C.

 

Hi Alex,

 

My point here is that you wrote that you do not believe these differences to exist. That is quite different from acknowledging these differences to exist based on the fact that others hear these differences, but you not being able to discern them yourself. The fact that your equipment might not be resolving enough to hear the difference is moot as the only arbiter you seem to accept is you own hearing and processing of this information. In other words, it only becomes true if you can hear it.

 

If you can point out the difference between what you do and what an "objectivist" does (apart from relying on measurements instead of just our ears), please let me know.

 

And yes, it is possible for me to measure things that I can not (or no longer) hear.

 

Kind regards,

Peter

“We are the Audiodrones. Lower your skepticism and surrender your wallets. We will add your cash and savings to our own. Your mindset will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.” - (Quote from Star Trek: The Audiophile Generation)

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Hi Alex,

 

I have similar experiences when I play some music from my internal SSD OS hard disk.

 

I don't have too much room to store more, but the music I store there is for testing some things, like A+ versions, OS X versions, etc.

 

BTW, do you know the brand name & model of the lesser noise new SSD?

 

Good evening Roch:

I was researching something else when I read a bit about the advancements in SSD cards. So no, I have not yet taught myself enough about generations of SSD other than read the Wikipedia page and a bit on the SSDReview site (The SSD Review | The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource |). I think that the SLC type cell drives and current NAND-based flash memory may be the electrically "quietest" combination--but that's an extremely casual, uneducated guess by me at this point.

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Did you consider a "bus" powered SDD on firewire? Wondering what sonic signature this would have in comparison.

Is the method to use A+ in non-integrated mode and drag a playlist to the card?

 

Hi Warren: Glad you enjoyed the report. I really had no idea it was going to be so long, other that when I looked up at the clock over 6 hours had passed!

 

Yes, after my experiments I got to wondering how a bus powered Firewire drive might sound, given that it would allow the removal of a SMPS from the wall. Of course it would be drawing power out of the computer (which is also the stock switcher--until early next month when I yank it and put in the proto-board for the remote-sensing linear PS that Swenson and I have been working on).

I might pick up a little very low power 2.5" bus-powered drive. But I am not immediately seeing any FW400 enclosures--everybody offers USB or FW800/USB combos.

 

In a couple of days I will have the FW400>800 6pin>9pin cable that I ordered made with the power lines cut. It will be interesting for me to be able to compare that (with my best-sounding FW400 drive) versus the present powered cable w/adapter.

 

It still sort of baffles me that the big (but not super-clean) 12V/10A Astron linear that I hooked up to the Firewire drive made a difference in the bass, similar to, but of a lesser magnitude to what I have experienced putting Mac mini's on linear supplies in the past (I did that with my old 2009 and ancient G4 tall minis and it's a huge deal). But for the tiny circuits of the SATA>FW bridge and the drive mechanism? Just for getting the data down the line? It's a head-scratcher. I'd say it was from getting the SMPS out of the wall and reducing contamination, but not only is it plugged into a different circuit, it is not even on the same sub-panel of my audio system. The rest of the junk in my house stands the same chance of grunging up the line. So for the SMPS to be a grunge issue it has to be because it is feeding the drive. But the improvement I heard with the linear was in the bass. Go figure…

 

 

Oh, your other question about usage. In Finder, first drag the tracks from the actual file storage location (in your iTunes Music folder and from the artist>album folders within) to the SD card and wait for them to copy; Then open a new Playlist window in A+ (or delete the stuff in the Playlist that launches--I hate A+'s playlist system) and drag the tracks from the SD card's Finder wind into the A+ Playlist. That is how A+ knows to play them from your SD card. The do a "Save As" and call the list something like "SD card Test."

 

(I have not launched iTunes all week, mainly because I have not had the media drive for my big library mounted during my tests. So I remember now that you can copy files to the SD card just by dragging the songs out of iTunes directly to your SD card--or any drive for that matter. You still have to do the second step of dragging them from the drive to an A+ Playlist. But it beats hunting down tracks in nested folders. Safer too.)

 

For quick switching comparisons, all I have to do in A+ is go up to File>"Load Playlist", and choose from "Internal Drive Test", SD Card Test", "FW Drive Test", etc. I keep the playlists in the same folder, so switching is quick. Just be sure that the drive for which you a loading a playlist is mounted. This way I even keep the Finder "Quit" when switching.

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I am not the most knowledgeable when it comes to the nuts and bolts of this stuff so I have a question about the use of FireWire 400. I like you have a 2010 Mac Mini which of course does not have a FireWire 400 port. My Lacie Quadra2 HDDs do have a FireWire 400 port. Would you suggest usage of the FireWire 400 ports on my HDDs daisy chained to the Mac Mini with a 6-pin to 9-pin adapter to the FireWire 800 port on the Mac Mini? Are you saying in your experience that this is a preferential connection to a straight FireWire 800 connection? I am asking for two reasons. First I would be interested in the potential for any audio improvement. Second I have had a couple of ongoing challenges with one of my Lacie HDD and have suspected a potential problem with its FireWire 800 port.

"A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open."
Frank Zappa
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PeterSt has a lengthy post at his forum about RAMdisks. That's what I use on my Win desktop machine with 16 GB of RAM. But 8 GB on my Mac laptop is not enough.

 

I've asked both Damien and PeterSt about internal SSDs, and both say they aren't the same as playing from RAM.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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Would you suggest usage of the FireWire 400 ports on my HDDs daisy chained to the Mac Mini with a 6-pin to 9-pin adapter to the FireWire 800 port on the Mac Mini? Are you saying in your experience that this is a preferential connection to a straight FireWire 800 connection? I am asking for two reasons. First I would be interested in the potential for any audio improvement. Second I have had a couple of ongoing challenges with one of my Lacie HDD and have suspected a potential problem with its FireWire 800 port.

 

Yes, that is exactly what a mercifully shorter version of my report would have said. Try the FW400 ports even on drives that have 800 and even to a computer that is 800 only. And--at least with the half-dozen similar units I have--the drives that have fewer port options sounded better.

 

Can't help you on the Lacie problem. I have a couple of drives that are fussy about mounting--I have to turn them on and off a couple of times. Not sure if it is the drive mechanism or the SATA>FW bridge in the enclosure.

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PeterSt has a lengthy post at his forum about RAMdisks. That's what I use on my Win desktop machine with 16 GB of RAM. But 8 GB on my Mac laptop is not enough.

 

I've asked both Damien and PeterSt about internal SSDs, and both say they aren't the same as playing from RAM.

 

RAMdisks? - can my ignorance be lifted on this please ...

macmini M1>ethernet / elgar iso tran(2.5kVa, .0005pfd)>consonance pw-3 boards>ghent ethernet(et linkway cat8 jssg360)>etherRegen(js-2)>ghent ethernet(et linkway cat8 jssg360) >ultraRendu (clones lpsu>lps1.2)>curious regen link>rme adi-2 dac(js-2)>cawsey cables>naquadria sp2 passive pre> 1.naquadria lucien mkII.5 power>elac fs249be + elac 4pi plus.2> 2.perreaux9000b(mods)>2x naquadria 12” passive subs.

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PeterSt has a lengthy post at his forum about RAMdisks. That's what I use on my Win desktop machine with 16 GB of RAM. But 8 GB on my Mac laptop is not enough.

 

I've asked both Damien and PeterSt about internal SSDs, and both say they aren't the same as playing from RAM.

 

Oh boy! Why didn't I think of THAT sooner? I just tried it this afternoon--with just a 1GB RAM disk loaded three-quarters full--and it was a revelation! A very noticeable smidgen better than my non-USB-bus SD card slot. Best playback I have ever had. Can hear things inside Paul Desmond's alto sax that I have never heard before, and the harmonics (and subsonics!) on the Louis Armstrong "St. James Infirmary" are just amazing. Intonation of pianos is lovely, and the cymbals I get (with both the SD and the RAMdisk) as radically different than what I have ever heard here or any place else.

 

I like giving A+ and OS X plenty of memory to work with (especially since I use iZotope to upsample to 176.4--and next month to 352.8--and pre-loads the inflated up sampled file), so I guess I'll want to bump my machine up to 16GB if I intend to copy more than a handful of tracks to it.

 

The cool thing is, anybody here who has a machine with a decent amount of memory can try this out for free. Just remember, everything you copy to a RAM disk vanishes the moment you eject it. There are a bunch of GUI front ends for making a RAM disk (since it is otherwise just a single command line in Terminal), so I just used the first one I found that looked like it was not ancient:

OS X: How to create a RAM disk – the easy way » bogner.sh

 

Have fun everyone!

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Hi Alex,

 

I use XXHighEnd and a script that automatically creates two RAMdisks at windows login. One ramdisk is for the XXHE software to run from, the other ramdisk is used as the playback drive where the files are upsampled and converted to WAV before sending to my dac (Phasure NOS1 USB). Of the 16GB of ram approximately 8GB is consumed by the ramdisks with the remainder used by the o/s.

 

The sound improvement due to the ramdisks is astounding with XXHE (it is a true memory player - not all playback software is created equal). I am glad you have been able to get good results with a mac.

 

Cheers,

 

Anthony

 

EDIT: Oh, and by the way, thanks for posting your thoughts in this thread...much appreciated!

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The sound improvement due to the ramdisks is astounding with XXHE (it is a true memory player - not all playback software is created equal). I am glad you have been able to get good results with a mac.

 

And I didn't even have to brave the waters of XXHE and Peter's shocking web pages! (Though I have made several attempts in the past.)

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There are a couple of things to experiment with regarding a ramdisk...try changing the size of the allocation units and see if you can hear a difference. With big files such as music files a larger allocation unit size is supposedly more efficient at retrieving that file (fewer actions). Do fewer actions equal less noise and better sound? That is up to you.

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PeterSt has a lengthy post at his forum about RAMdisks. That's what I use on my Win desktop machine with 16 GB of RAM. But 8 GB on my Mac laptop is not enough.

 

I've asked both Damien and PeterSt about internal SSDs, and both say they aren't the same as playing from RAM.

 

SSDs can deliver up to about 654MB/s while 1333MHz, DDR3 in dual-channel mode can deliver up to 21.3GB/s. Then this is very clear to me.

 

But in memory players like A+ & XXHighEnd running from loaded music from a Ram Disk (stored in Ram) to player memory (stored in Ram again)...?

 

Both methods (Alex & Jud) could brings (or brings) better SQ, but looks a little unpractical, but very nice solutions in the persecution of the Holly Grail!

 

Roch

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There are a couple of things to experiment with regarding a ramdisk...try changing the size of the allocation units and see if you can hear a difference. With big files such as music files a larger allocation unit size is supposedly more efficient at retrieving that file (fewer actions). Do fewer actions equal less noise and better sound? That is up to you.

 

Okay, now I have to try to find a RAMdisk utility (or the Terminal command line arguments) to allow me to adjust block size (isn't that another term, used with drives, for "allocation units?"). I hope there is one for OS X.

Still it think (hope) it more about not using other interfaces than about the speed or efficiency of the RAM disk. Yet it is too early in my experiments to conclude such. I remain open.

One thing is for certain: The differences I hear with the RAM disk (and SD card) are very real. My wife even remarked that everything was sounding almost "creepy real" as she put it.

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SSDs can deliver up to about 654MB/s while 1333MHz, DDR3 in dual-channel mode can deliver up to 21.3GB/s. Then this is very clear to me.

 

But in memory players like A+ & XXHighEnd running from loaded music from a Ram Disk (stored in Ram) to player memory (stored in Ram again)...?

 

Both methods (Alex & Jud) could brings (or brings) better SQ, but looks a little unpractical, but very nice solutions in the persecution of the Holly Grail!

 

Roch

 

Hi Roch:

I agree that RAM disk is not terribly practical or convenient, but it's really only one extra step and for critical listening it is worthwhile.

 

As for the speed issue: Certainly I see that, but based on all I went through this past week, with the SLOWER interfaces sounding better (and my SD card is pretty slow too), I really think this is more about noise and processor activity than it is about speed.

 

No doubt I have more to learn, and maybe this all will eventually lead me to a player system like XXHighEnd. (Ugh, I hate Windows and the interface of XXHighEnd is even worse.) In some ways I think the Mac mini (2010 especially) is an outlier in that it so low power, simple, and quiet. The minimalism of the unit, combined with A+ driving the USB so directly, makes it pretty close to an "audiophile" computer. Now I just need to yank the SMPS from inside the mini and hook up the nice linear we are working on!

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Okay, now I have to try to find a RAMdisk utility (or the Terminal command line arguments) to allow me to adjust block size (isn't that another term, used with drives, for "allocation units?"). I hope there is one for OS X.

Still it think (hope) it more about not using other interfaces than about the speed or efficiency of the RAM disk. Yet it is too early in my experiments to conclude such. I remain open.

One thing is for certain: The differences I hear with the RAM disk (and SD card) are very real. My wife even remarked that everything was sounding almost "creepy real" as she put it.

 

I've measured power draw of every single rail in my pc (SSD, USB card, cpu, 12v/5v/3.3v into the P24 motherboard socket) which has given me some good insight into how XXHE manages the computer power. Yes, XXHE is designed so that we are able to 'smooth' out system demands and therefore power use during playback. With the two ramdisks, some cpu underclocking and o/s tweaks within the XXHE software the power draw on the important cpu 12v rail and the o/s SSD becomes a simple, rhythmical event. XXHE is a true memory player in that it upsamples and converts to WAV the entire playlist before playback commences and stores these files on the Playback Drive (in my case a 5GB ramdisk) and then all that needs to happen is to break up these files and send them to the dac as is required. You can even use XXHE to specifiy how large these file segments are which in turn affects the frequency of the rhythm I mentioned before...large segment = low frequency...small segments = high frequency. As I said earlier, I could measure the effects of changes in the XXHE software on the behaviour of power draw on a number of rails, and the sound that I liked most corresponded with the lowest and flattest/smoothest draws from those rails.

 

Now, how does A+ handle the memory play? I don't honestly know, but when I purchased a Mac Mini and optimised it earlier this year Amarra was the one that struck me as the most likely mac candidate for a true memory player, and was the player that I liked the sound of most. According to my experience, the best sound comes when the computer power usage is regular and relatively low, so a ramdisk should help in a lot of situations because it can be used to eliminate other sources of noise within the computer and to regulate cpu activity during playback.

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Hi Roch:

I agree that RAM disk is not terribly practical or convenient, but it's really only one extra step and for critical listening it is worthwhile.

 

As for the speed issue: Certainly I see that, but based on all I went through this past week, with the SLOWER interfaces sounding better (and my SD card is pretty slow too), I really think this is more about noise and processor activity than it is about speed.

 

Now I just need to yank the SMPS from inside the mini and hook up the nice linear we are working on!

 

You should be able to setup a batch file or script file to run when the mini powers on...this is what I did (with the help of others) in windows...I turn on the pc, it boots, the ramdisks are created, the relevant files are copied to one of the ramdisk, XXHE is started from that ramdisk and all I have left to do is to select or create a playlist and hit the play button. Not inconvenient or painful in the least. Not sure how you do that in os x, but someone with more mac experience than me should be able to help you out.

 

Anthony

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Oh boy! Why didn't I think of THAT sooner? I just tried it this afternoon--with just a 1GB RAM disk loaded three-quarters full--and it was a revelation! A very noticeable smidgen better than my non-USB-bus SD card slot. Best playback I have ever had. Can hear things inside Paul Desmond's alto sax that I have never heard before, and the harmonics (and subsonics!) on the Louis Armstrong "St. James Infirmary" are just amazing. Intonation of pianos is lovely, and the cymbals I get (with both the SD and the RAMdisk) as radically different than what I have ever heard here or any place else.

 

I like giving A+ and OS X plenty of memory to work with (especially since I use iZotope to upsample to 176.4--and next month to 352.8--and pre-loads the inflated up sampled file), so I guess I'll want to bump my machine up to 16GB if I intend to copy more than a handful of tracks to it.

 

The cool thing is, anybody here who has a machine with a decent amount of memory can try this out for free. Just remember, everything you copy to a RAM disk vanishes the moment you eject it. There are a bunch of GUI front ends for making a RAM disk (since it is otherwise just a single command line in Terminal), so I just used the first one I found that looked like it was not ancient:

OS X: How to create a RAM disk – the easy way » bogner.sh

 

Have fun everyone!

 

NOT picking a fight, but a true and honest inquiry......IF one is buffering during playback! isn't the file being played back from RAM?......with the only difference being the entire file buffered at once with the RAMdisk and chunks at a time with buffering.

 

That being said, Microcenter has a RAM sale so I'm gonna pickup a pair of 4's and upgrade my RAM to 16 and give it a listen. I have 2 identical build machines to AB with so it will be interesting if I can pick up on any differences. I'll report back in a few days with my findings.

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NOT picking a fight, but a true and honest inquiry......IF one is buffering during playback! isn't the file being played back from RAM?......with the only difference being the entire file buffered at once with the RAMdisk and chunks at a time with buffering.

 

That being said, Microcenter has a RAM sale so I'm gonna pickup a pair of 4's and upgrade my RAM to 16 and give it a listen. I have 2 identical build machines to AB with so it will be interesting if I can pick up on any differences. I'll report back in a few days with my findings.

 

Ramdisk just sounds lots sexier than buffering in ram.

 

It is a very good question though.

 

Seems to me if this approach helps one would ultimately arrange to load the entire OS and music files to a ramdisk so absolutely nothing gets done outside the ram.

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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Ramdisk just sounds lots sexier than buffering in ram.

 

Seems to me if this approach helps one would ultimately arrange to load the entire OS and music files to a ramdisk so absolutely nothing gets done outside the ram.

 

I don't think this is possible...at least not yet. The ramdisk is created only after the o/s is loaded and disappears as soon as the computer shuts down...so it is not possible to boot from a ramdisk because it is basically volatile memory. Nice thought though.

 

EDIT: I should add that running your o/s from a lower noise source such as a CF card (or SD card - not sure if it is possible on this medium) may also provide some benefit above and beyond the SATA slot inside the computer. I've never tried a CF card, but some swear by them.

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The ramdisk is created only after the o/s is loaded and disappears as soon as the computer shuts down...

 

Not necessarily. Check the link I posted earlier.

Alex

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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acg

Are you seeing this part I am quoting from the posted link ? (just tried it)

Alex

 

How to Supercharge Your PC With a RAM Disk

 

 

 

By Brad Chacos, PCWorld

Aug 19, 2012 6:00 PM

print

Single

Page

 

Formatting the RAM Disk

 

Here's where things diverge a bit. For some users, the new drive instantly appears in Windows Explorer (alongside the C: drive), and formatting it is as easy as right-clicking the RAM-disk drive and selecting Format to bring up a box of options. Leave the allocation capacity as is, change the file system to NTFS, check the Quick Format option, name the volume whatever you like, and click Start.

 

Unfortunately, things aren't always so simple. Sometimes, the drive won't appear in Windows Explorer automatically, and you'll have to allocate the space and start the formatting process manually.

 

If that happens to you, open the Start menu, right-click Computer, and select Manage. The Computer Management window will open. In the left pane, click Disk Management in the Storage options. Now, look for the 'Unknown' disk at the bottom of the central window; it should have a black bar next to it, with the size of the RAM disk and the word 'Unallocated' underneath the bar.

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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