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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 sonic79

sonic79
80 posts
 

OP, do not be led to believe there is anything wrong with your hearing or impressions. You are not the first to report hearing zero difference between servers. I suspect many owners of high cost "audiophile" servers will denounce such a finding as nonsense.

I have long been skeptical of high-end servers. Some claim to use custom motherboards, but most use off-the-shelf processors from AMD and Intel. Their proprietary operating systems are touted, but most are based off Linux. I also see a lack of accommodation for upsampling, which requires a lot of processing power. Most servers are simply not powerful enough to do upsampling, at least beyond DSD128. Support for software like HQPlayer is also lacking.

If one is willing to do DIY approach, a SOTA server can be built for fractions of the cost. Take a Mac Mini or Intel NUC, boot it from Audiolinux (which has native support for Roon and HQPlayer), add a LPS, and connect it to your network with ethernet.

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