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750$ Intel NUC vs $6000 Aurender N200: I don't hear the difference

I finally plunged into the source is as important as the DAC belief that is quite prevalent here and decided to test out Aurender N200. And given I have a very highend DAC, thought if the N200 pans out I would go for the N20 or N30.

 

I was expecting the N200 to blow away my Intel NUC which is 10th gen, core i7, 8GB and running Roon Rock BUT I am switching back and forth between USB playing the Roon Rock, and Co-axial playing Aurender N200, and I don't hear much of a difference maybe a hair, or not even that.

 

A few caveats: 1) Roon Rock is playing Quboz, N200 is playing Tidal (I am unable to get Qobuz login to the N200 for reason I don't understand).

2) I am comparing Coaxial on N200, USB on Roon Rock.

Caveat #2 can be ignored because I don't hear a difference between Coaxial and USB output of N200.

 

So either this is an "Emperor has no clothes" moment or I am missing something big. Any thoughts on what I might be missing before I send this N200 back to the dealer on Monday.

 

Rest of my system: Nagra TUBE DAC -> Accuphase E-650 -> Devore O96 and all Acoustic Revive wiring. 

essrand

Showing 1 response by deer_creek_audio

deer_creek_audio's avatar
deer_creek_audio
70 posts
 

It doesn't surprise me at all that the $750 Intel NUC sounds close to the $6000 Aurender N200. While it’s not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, we had a similar situation recently with a customer who is replacing his Vivaldi Short Stack with a miniDSP SHD running Dirac Live. The surprising issue for him was that a $1,400 multifunction preamp/streamer/DAC/Dirac component could even compete sonically with an $80,000 digital system with DAC/Clock/Upsampler. 

The comment I always get a kick out of from high end audio customers is that their biggest concern with the miniDSP SHD is that it doesn’t cost very much money.

 

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