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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 jallan

jallan's avatar
jallan
339 posts
 

Sorry, but your test is not under identical conditions.

Two nights ago I did an extensive test between Quboz and Tidal MQA on a decent live recording in 44khz/16 bit (Phish at the Berkeley Greek Theater in 2010), interleaving the songs on my Aurender N100H playlist.

The Quboz versions had substantially better dynamics and punch than the Tidal MQA versions, which sounded smoothed over and dull. This has been consistent with other tests that I have made of same resolution recordings available on both Quboz and Tidal. My conclusion is that you can hear the lossiness of MQA, and you are doing just that in your own test.

 

 

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