On paper...yes.
But?
I dont pretend to know all the variables, but from having tried different combinations (actually, a fair bit...) its my experience it subjectivly makes a difference.
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HDD are a fair bit noisy compared to SSD. They are both electrical but HDD is also mechanical so this probably increases the electrical noise when the drive is operating.
Whether the DAC has a data buffer will go some way in mitigation of any difference in any storage types as the data is stored in memory and clocked out to the DACs D/A chip. There was some tests published in a review of Chords DAC 64 and a clear difference in performance was measured when the buffer was activated.
I think also noise passed on down the chain can make a difference, less noise = better performance. One thing I done was to cut the power wires in my USB cable so that the only connection was the differential data wires. This seemed to help quite a bit.
So what's your take on it then, Chris? Personally I've no doubt that 90% of the things people think matter in digital audio make no difference whatsoever. 'Jitter', 'Bit perfect', 'high resolution' and so on. The things that do matter, like the power supply regulation, no-one seems to be interested in.
quite.. it just proves every system is gonna be different. what works here might be worse elsewhere. then you have to take the environment and the listener into account.
all you can do is offer options; its up to people to try them and see i guess.
many folk saying a pc based system is crap, but ive found it to be fine.
horses for courses imo.:)