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Sony Offers a "Premium Sound" SD Card For a Premium Price

Posted by timothy on from the putting-hi-fi-jumpropes-to-shame dept.

nateman1352 (971364) writes "Don't you just hate all that noise your memory cards make? No? Then you probably aren't going to want to buy Sony's new $160 memory cards, which the company brags offers "Premium Sound" that generates less electrical noise when reading data." As long as it works well with my hi-fi ethernet cable.

10 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm, maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Of all the bullshit "high end" computer bits, this is one I might actually believe.

    I wouldn't buy it, but electrical noise is actually a real problem for audio work. It's the reason a lot of high end computer sound gear is external and shielded. Higher end internal cards protect against it, but nothing protects you more than having the thing physically away from the electrically noisy environment that is your computer.

    I can't think of any case I'd be using an SD card and would care about sound quality to that level, but that an SD card could generate noise and that it could interfere with some other audio source, I can see that.

    1. Re:Hmm, maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      but electrical noise is actually a real problem for audio work.

      Which should be dealt with at the analog end of the audio circuit.

      SD cards are in the digital side. Analog and digital sides don't mix in any sane circuit design. But then this is for people that buy those Monster HDMI, Ethernet and other digital signaling cables.

    2. Re:Hmm, maybe by bugnuts · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've heard lots of digital noise when mixing production sound, but it's usually from cellphones and HID lamps. On one production, I had to have everyone double check their phones were off, checked all the wiring, XLR cables, etc, and found the problem was the recorder was noisy out of spec. There's a small possibility it was actually a noisy connection on the card, although I've never heard of a noisy card itself.

      For those that have never done production sound, the equipment can absolutely produce noise, and you need to limit it as best as possible. Usually, the noise floor of the preamps, room, and poor mic placement will trump any beeping you might get from pro electronics, but I do not put the possibility of it in the Monster Cable category of bullshit. I believe it *could* happen, but is probably extremely rare and only in controlled ADC rooms.

    3. Re:Hmm, maybe by viperidaenz · · Score: 5, Informative

      In regard to SSD's, they usually have a capacitor based charge pump inside them to boost the voltage high enough to erase the flash.

      Same with SD cards... Nice and noisy on the power supply line.
      Not to mention the slew rate on the ground referenced single ended data lines of an SD card, which run up to 208MHz.

    4. Re:Hmm, maybe by umdesch4 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I know this to be true. I have a Fiio X3, and I notice that for a couple of the particularly cheap micro-SD cards I put in it, I can hear some weird noise that sounds a little like cell phone interference when I'm playing files off them. Of course, I have to have it cranked, and only notice it during the extremely quiet parts sections of my music. So there is something to this, as I can imagine it's hard to properly shield the output of the DAC properly on small hardware like this. Still, I'm not about to make a case for spending a lot of extra money, since most of my decent (ie. Sandisk and Kingston) micro-SD cards are fine.

    5. Re:Hmm, maybe by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Informative

      While I don't buy into the summary, I would caution against ever making an assumption that something isn't detectable due to its frequency.

      There have been many MANY cases where inter-modulation of various signals magically puts things within the audible range. If there's a second clock source somewhere, or there's an external frequency near the fundamental then you most definitely can suddenly generate signals within the audible range.

  2. Snake oil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    I am an actual analog circuit designer, so here is my take:

    First of all, let me start by saying I'm sure, just like everyone else, that these devices have no practical effect on the audio produced by pretty much any practical system. That said, people seem to be confused about the nature of noise in a system.

    As the story correctly notes, digital systems are inherently noise resistant, and often include error correction. There is no SD card or cable in the world that will help improve digital transmission if all the data is already being successfully transmitted. However, analog systems are susceptible to noise. In fact, a significant amount of analog design is dedicated to dealing with noise. In addition to random noise, which is introduced by thermal movement or other random processes in the devices, analog signals are also susceptible to interference, or other nearby signals which can corrupt the analog signal. Nearby electromagnetic fields can couple to analog traces on the board, degrading performance. A significant effort goes into carefully routing and shielding analog traces, as well as moving sources of interference further away.

    High speed digital systems are a large source of interference. The fact that digital systems involve several wires switching at "full swing" at high frequency means that it produces a comparatively large electromagnetic field in the immediate vicinity. Again, a significant effort goes into keeping digital and analog components apart from each other in high quality audio systems. If your analog trace goes next to a memory running at hundreds of MHz, it will effectively increase the noise floor of your audio.

    It is conceivably possible that Sony actually did design an SD card which generates less electromagnetic interference (EMI). This could conceivably lessen the amount of interference coupled into an audio signal somewhere. That said... it's not going to make any difference in reality. If the SD card noise was having a practical effect on your audio then the whole systems was crap to begin with. So, as I think everyone in this thread can agree, this is snake oil.

    1. Re:Snake oil by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Informative

      You're an analog designer.
      Imagine how much EMI comes from 5 single ended lines switching at 1.8V at 208MHz.

  3. Re:I have dark confession by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Gold is a bit overblown in advertising; but (aside from its real physical scarcity, and the unfortunate competition from finance assholes who want to carefully dig it up, refine it, and then have it sit in vaults), it is a genuinely nice ingredient for electrical applications. Adequate thermal and electrical conductivity, immune to most common causes of corrosion, not too difficult to electroplate, fairly easy to tailor from 'shockingly malleable and ductile' to 'adequately hard' just by adding or withholding a few % copper... Good stuff.

  4. This is NOT a scam by Karganeth · · Score: 2, Informative

    reddit comment explains why this is useful https://www.reddit.com/r/techn...