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

Do people realize that whether a computer use 10 watts or 500 watts, it still must pass the same radiated and emitted radiation standards? There is no guarantee the lower power one is less noisy either, though it is often easier to shield, but that does not mean that it is.

RF fields from unintentional emitters (computers, etc.) are fairly small, even on cables assuming you are using something that has met FCCICESIEC standards for consumer/residential. You don't have to move very far away from them until the fields are low, probably lower than a nearby radio or TV station. Those cheap meters pick up stuff, but you have to be quite close to pick it up.   And even if there, there is no guarantee it will get into the end equipment and most of you are just guessing that it does.

I again spoke to the dealer. Asked him if he was sure if the unit was burned in. He got back to me yesterday saying it has only 60 hours on it.

Aurender says the N200 needs 150 hours to sound its best. Maybe that is the issue.

The unit is going back and I might demo it again in a few weeks after its 100% fully burnt in.

It is not the issue. Burn in on a server , 150 hours.... come on. That is stretching the realm of believability beyond the usual in this hobby. Swamp land in Florida anyone?

@Cindyment

Thanks, and yes, either could impact sound, and neither is completely easy to 100% eliminate.  All the power supplies and isolation i refer to are custom designed and built by me - as are some of the interfaces and clocks.  So with luck, that's not the issue. I do believe i mentioned that isolation quality varies and I strongly prefer good transformers.

But what i experience is really not the issue. I am hoping to point to issues that many may experience, and why "cut and dry" technical answers give me pause.  I have spent my career helping giant tech companies overcome technical sclerosis that is bred by engineers becoming comfortable with one paradigm or another - things they are invested and expert in.

I suspect that we have a difference in perspective. You seem very comfortable with what you can measure.  I find Audio just full of the "unknown unknowns", things I can hear, but have difficulty measuring.  This is nothing new - once (40 years ago) clocking and jitter was totally swept under the rug.  My objective is to slowly learn what to measure, or at least what design concept correlate with good sound.

“if it measures good, and sounds bad, it is bad. If it sounds good, and measures bad, you’ve measured the wrong thing.” – Daniel Von Ricklinghausen, HH Scott to the Boston Audio Society, 1954

@cindyment

Thanks, and yes, either could impact sound, and neither is completely easy to 100% eliminate.  All the power supplies and isolation i refer to are custom designed and built by me - as are some of the interfaces and clocks.  So with luck, that's not the issue. I do believe i mentioned that isolation quality varies and I strongly prefer good transformers.

But what i experience is really not the issue. I wish i could say "do this, the rest makes no difference. But it does not appear to be that clear.  I am hoping to point to issues that others may experience, and why "cut and dry" technical answers give me pause.  I have spent my career helping giant tech companies overcome technical sclerosis that is bred by engineers becoming comfortable with one paradigm or another - things they are invested and expert in.

I suspect that we have a difference in perspective. You seem very comfortable with what you can measure.  I find Audio just full of the "unknown unknowns", things I can hear, but have difficulty measuring.  This is nothing new - once (40 years ago) clocking and jitter was totally swept under the rug.  We had the same problems in the 80s and 90s when we applied compression to both video and audio, often with studio processing as the consumer. They are not forgiving, nor are blue screens.  And traditional measurements either misled or indicated "it wont work" when in fact, it did.  My objective is to slowly learn what to measure, or at least what design concept correlate with good sound.

“if it measures good, and sounds bad, it is bad. If it sounds good, and measures bad, you’ve measured the wrong thing.” – Daniel Von Ricklinghausen, HH Scott to the Boston Audio Society, 1954

It comes from experience. I have never experienced anything in audio that could be 1) Verified , and 2) Not measured.  Usually #1 eliminates almost everything, and when it does not, #2 takes care of the rest. Every single time where I have heard, or experienced a verifiable sonic difference, there was also a measurable difference. Not just measurable, but above what are accepted limits to hearing sensitivity/discrimination, and significantly different.

I am not talking single point, THD either, but full scans, i.e. THD across frequency and output power, IMD with 2-3 points, and multi-point at multiple powers. Then again, just taking two time correlated streams (digital source only of course) can be highly revealing.

I think we both have respect for isolation, at least for the analog. I do believe a lot of the claims of "noise, RF, pick your poison" getting into the DAC clocking is for the most part suspect. If you know RF, you know that there is more RF coming off that trace 1/2" away then you are going to pick up externally. If the people who made those claims knew depth of D/A design, they would be far more worried about the D/A analog reference :-) ... but also not difficult to regulate for audio frequencies and eliminate noise.

I have convinced myself of things I heard that I later proved were not there. You are so hyper focused that something must be there that you convince yourself there is.

OP could be experiencing sin of omission deal, nuc vs. sin of commission, Aurender. Now is that sin of commission due to Aurrender or some other part of system?

One often doesn't perceive omission as a sin, and it may be preferable in some cases, perhaps in a lot of cases.

In terms of your problem logging in to Qobuz, your firewall may be blocking their site. I’ve had this problem and had to have Netgear tech support unblock it in my Nighthawk Wifi 6 router. My thoughts are that with a tube based DAC you probably won’t hear the difference between the lower noise floor of the N200 over your NUC, especially while using ROON because the tube noise is above the noise floor of the least capable source, namely the Intel NUC. I recently moved from a similar setup, got rid of ROON which has it’s own SQ issues and am now using a high quality streamer/server made by NOVATRON that has built in storage and runs on a linux custom processor and has exceptionally low noise characteristics, a highly accurate clock plus exceptional physical build quality with much attention to detail, yet only costs about $2K . This allows my (slightly) below premium grade Gustard X16 SS DAC (connected by USB)  to really strut it’s stuff. One would not have guessed a streamer/server could make that much difference but it really does. 

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.

I took my Intel NUC, which has a custom analog power supply to RMAF one year. The Aurender was used at the show, but the system was set up using my NUC. Aurender lost big time, but it really had no chance. I use my NUC in an engineering and a recording system besides using it as a streamer for my personal stereo.

So, the real answer to what is better lies in the answer to the question "what software are you using". My answer, "the good stuff". This includes the driver for streaming ie USB driver software. I do not use the "free stuff". What's the difference, the clocking and the data stream accuracy.

I put these software packages on my engineering laptop, gamers would like it. It performs almost as good as my NUC as a streamer and will definite give commercial streamers a run for the money.

I have been using computers in my engineering, recording, and playback systems for years (Kleinbeck Engineering), 40 years to be exact. That was before IBM sold their first "PC's" and Sony made the first CD player. It makes analysis of the results much easier and much more reliable because I calibrate my systems to a known standards.

However, simplicity does have its rewards. Not a computer nerd, maybe commercial streamer is a better choice for you.

@jrapp Qobuz works with my NUC running Roon but not Aurender, so it's a Aurender problem.

The basic conclusion I am taking from all of this is that there isn't a very big difference between an Intel NUC and a dedicated music server. It is approximately equal to upgrading an USB cable, if that.

Better to spend money on upgrading cables, DACs, Amps, etc etc, than spending 1000s on a music server.

There was a review on Computer Audiophile on the Grimm Music server MU1 where the reviewer (THE reviewer) says he heard no difference in USB outputs of the 10000 euro Grimm server and his NUC.

So while I agree, better USB/clock etc in a dedicated server might make a difference, it is not a lot and certainly the price/performance upgrade ratio seems low. 

Crux of the story: I bought a lifetime licence of Roon and sticking to Intel NUC for the time being and keeping the $12000 (price of Aurender N20) for future upgrade on cables or a Shindo preamp :)

I currently use an INTEL NUC. When I first introduced it into my system I also had a Innuos ZEN III. MY NUC, has a decent dedicated LPS (KECES P8) and I used Windows 10 (didn’t go the Linux route due to set up issues). My NUC with Windows 10 wasn’t even optimised (no Fidelizer, etc.), other than there are no other programs being used( other than what’s preloaded in Windows) except for ROON CORE. I did however, have the physical isolation of my NUC somewhat optimsed ( it sat on a SHAKTI ELECTROMAGNETIC platform, which sat on some Stillpoints. I also placed two WALKER lead pucks on top of the NUC). After several weeks of back and forth I can’t say that the INNUOS offered any real sonic benefit. In fact if anything I “ Slightly “ preferred the NUC.

YMMV

CHEERS.....

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.

@essrand

Hi,

Do you have the link for the Grimm mu1 review you mention, equating the Grimm and the Nucleus? I think you are referring to Chris Connaker of Audiophile Style (formerly Computer Audiophile)?

Thanks,

Rick

A nuc was never designed as a low noise music oriented device. 

the high end servers were all designed from the ground up for music

we have tested many different servers to date the high end Roon core endpoints 

innous and 432EVO servers have sounded the best

Dave and Troy

Audio intellect NJ

It totally feasible that putting an alternative Device into a particular system has the capability to improves on the device it is replacing. It is also possible that the device that has shown an improvement in one particular system may have the capability of reciprocating the impression it has been able to make if used within further systems, or maybe not.

Here is the conundrum and in keeping with this thread, the actual margin of improvement and the assessment of the impression the perceived improvement is offering are subjective and the assessment is unique to the reporter of their findings. I have no problem with this, I do it myself, but I don't expect the information to be taken as factual for all situations, it is merely a assessment of a experience that I have encountered.

@ deer_creek_audio is offering a description of a subjective assessment from a customer, where there was a cause for bemusement, when trying to fathom out how two vastly different priced devices had very noticeable similarities in their sonic performances.  This is very little in difference to the subjective assessment and description on offer from the OP @essrand .

If the Purchase Price of a device is to be judged in conjunction with a devices Sonic Capabilities, there is plenty on offer within this thread to encourage an individual who is considering spending monies to further their investigations into how they can achieve their next acquisition. 

It might only be limited to myself, but the effect of the information offered within this thread, has encouraged myself to extend my thoughts on my planning to produce a streaming Source within my system.      

Usb taken off motherboard is terrible way to stream, better is optimized usb out, this means separate card and power supply such as Jcat. Best is ethernet out, many high end servers don't have. Ethernet out allows post server fiber conversion and separate streamer, both are critical to optimal streaming. Personally, I'd never purchase any server without two ethernet connections.

@essrand @ricky64 

For clarity on the Grimm MU1 via USB -- that was the Part Time Audiophile review. The reviewer's point  is that ONLY the AES (and at some point the S/PDIF, maybe they've around done that) is an optimized output on the Grimm, i.e. the output is re-clocked and re-sampled. The USB on the Grimm is ordinary and sounds exactly the same as the USB out of a NUC/Nucleus. Grimm is very explicit about what their server does and doesn't do. Do not buy their product if you'd only use it for USB.

You know what? You save me a $6000, I will buy a mini desktop HP and upgrade memory, ssd instead throw $6000 over a door. Thank you so much friend

@metaldetektor That is correct. But I need USB output for DSD in my DAC. So what's a guy got to do. 

If your server retails at 10K$ or whereabouts, can't you optimise USB as well? Is that too much to ask, many DACs NEED USB for DSD streaming.

Another point, if only the AES/SPDIF is reclocked and resampled, but USB isn't, does that mean it's the reclocking/resampling that's providing the magic? What's the rest of the optmization of hard drives/CPU/motherboard/power suppy etc etc etc that is touted with Audiophile servers DOING?

@essrand Got it, understood. I’ll be trying the Grimm soon at home, I’m looking forward to it. If the improvement is minimal or subtle, I’ll stick with my simple NUC equivalent (small green computer).

The Grimm appealed to me because it’s brains over brawn. No massive power supply or 100 lb chassis, the claimed magic is all in the clock and FGPA, and it’s modular and upgradable over time (including via internet software updates), unlike so many other brands. They claim that their clock/software eliminates the sound difference between PCM and DSD (but not via USB). I haven’t verified that but it’s an interesting claim.

+1 @metaldetektor   I'll add that they have also 'optimized' their SMPS and it's application (and a reason for the low weight factor).

 "the claimed magic is all in the clock and FGPA"

Looking forward to your impressions with the MU1. 

@david_ten excellent point, and will do (may take me a few weeks). Switching power supplies can be controversial, but I’ve heard some excellent digital products that rely on them, like the Weiss and Meitner DACs (Mola Mola also uses a switching supply). So I’ll be going in with an open mind/ears.

metaldetetektor

the grimm was just tested in europe vs our 432 EVO master

nprecedented realism

Because at the same time, a phenomenom happens which I can best describe as “de-hasting”. The Grimm also masters this, With “de-hasting” I mean the feeling that you get as listener with music, to even process very complex passages. With some, and mainly less performing products, the music can become overly blobut the 432 EVO Master even goes a little bit further. ated and prominent in certain areas, and the music is almost forced onto you. None of that with this Belgian music server who continues to act like a gallant gentlemen.

There are also differences in the bass and even though it does not fully reach the authority of the Grimm MU1, Brinkmann Nyquist, Naim ND555 and some other very expensive top products, it has other charms at reference level. A nice track to demonstrate this, is A Trace Of Grace from the album Monteverdi: A Trace Of Grace. Here bass player Steve Swallow plays exactly the kind of bass which I mean, and that in the right setting can come across as very tangible and realistic. For sure the EVO Master is catching up at this aspect, and now is at the same level with other top streamers. Also the super beautilfully captured 3D sound field from this album comes to the fore in a very tangible and believable way. It is completely separate from the music in a beautiful way, but still manages to continuously connect with it. Properties that guarantee profound enjoyment.

ven though the price is downright hefty, and a small minus is the fact that it only support USB connections towards a DAC, what we have here is a very special music server which within it’s price class, is among the best challengers today. Even though a top class CD transport still sounds substantially different in it’s own way and still is hard to beat on it’s own strong aspects, there is indeed a far-reaching analog sound. This makes the rendering smooth, airy, spacious and naturally realistic and moreover, also has exactly that right outlined and catchy character that is so typical of a good analog source. Nice work Frederic!

the nice thing with the 432EVO is you can start with the $3500.00 standard an that same unit can be upgraded all the way to the Master

Dave and Troy

Audio intellect NJ

US importer 432EVO music servers

Cool. Looking forward to your impressions @metaldetektor 

@metaldetektor @essrand If you want a USB DAC the Musetec MH-DA005 uses an Amenero board for the USB. As a long time advocate of AES/EBU I’ve been literally blown away using this DAC with the USB input fed from my Aurender N20, which also has a 10Mhz Master Clock input. It’s so good I just ordered a new USB cable!

I was disappointed at first because I found the Musetec only offered DOP over AES &SPDIF but after a few days I realised why.

I will let you be the judge against the Grimm streamer but I did compare it to the N20 and I bought the N20.

Grimm does not offer DSD re-clocking in any of it’s products AFAIK.

The Aurender also unfolds .ISO files internally which sound better than just copying .DSF files.

The Aurender N20 plus the Musetec is an end game system for me, at least for several years I imagine.

On a last note the Musetec beats many more expensive DACs, I’ve even heard it best a $30k DAC.

Hong Kong prices for high priced DACs are falling through the floor, the Musetec is a game changer.

N.B. I don't stream because of the incredible sound I get from the internal SSDs on my N20. Although the N20 is a very capable streamer, I want maximum resolution and I have a sizable ripped music collection.

@lordmelton you make a great point, which is that you need to consider the server and your preferred DAC in tandem. The best input on my preferred DAC is AES and the best output on the Grimm is AES so that should be a good fit. Whereas it sounds like you prefer a DAC whose best input is USB, so the Aurender makes sense. I have an ok sized file collection but would strongly prefer to stream, to the extent the gap between streaming and pulling from local storage isn’t significantly. No doubt the local file sounds better in a direct A/B, but I’m interested in how good streaming can sound on its own terms.

@audiotroy thanks perhaps you might seek out Christiaan Punter to review the EVO again. He last reviewed it in 2015. He’s reviewed the Grimm, Antipodes and Aqua Linq relatively recently. So he’s got the requisite experience (it seems like some of these server reviewers don’t know what they’re doing!) and I happen to think he’s generally quite accurate in his assessments of products.

@metaldetektor Hi the USB for DSD is absolutely wonderful there is a very small difference between AES/EBU and USB for PCM and I will not be able to make my final conclusions until maybe another 2-3 weeks from now when the Musetec should be fully burned in.

AFAIK I can't re-clock the USB because there's nothing that I know of that has a USB input and output, so I may try re-clocking the AES/EBU with a Mutec and see if it makes a difference. I've tried the Grimm re-clockers and compared to the Mutec they sound exaggerated. YMMV.

As far as streaming is concerned I've listened to the Aurender N20 and N30 in hi-end systems and they both are very,very capable but since I know my music collection mostly off by heart I prefer to listen to ripped.

I built my own streamer using Clocking Cards slaved to the onboard Clocks found inside the Motherboard, I used linux OS for the Audio.

It outclassed almost all Streamers I put it against in my room except one, which was the Playback Design Dream Series Server installed in the Transport. This was using a proprietary connectionFibre Optic and it was superior to USB.

If your budget it small, stick to building your own server and get a proper Audio OS System.

Agreed. I think people putting 10K into Music servers should put that into upgrading their DACs. Until they reach the point of diminishing returns with DAC, say around 20-30K (Bricasti M21, Lampizator Pacific, Nagra Tube DAC, Brinkmann Nyquist, DCS Rossini, EMM DV2). Then perhaps spend the big bucks on a server.

It’s sad to see $10000 servers with $10000 DACs, perhaps a $20000 DAC would be a far better musical upgrade.

I have only a sample size of 1, I might get the N20 in sometime, let’s see if that changes my mind, but for now I think that the source is as important as the DAC is bunk. Get a better DAC.

I get a warm fuzzy schadenfreude feeling when I hear that people have spent $10-$30 grand or more on DACs without doing proper research.

Fool and his money?

GoldenSound has compared the DCS Bartok to his Holo May KTE and found the May superior for a third of the price. Members here have found the May also as good or better than the Mola Mola Tambuqui. Again at a much lower price point.

Now here's the interesting thing the Musetec 005 has been favorably compared to the May and found to be at least equal if not slightly better depending on your taste for $2k less. May is R2R, 005 uses ESS chips. Each has it's followers.

Personally I have put up my 005 against a $30k DAC and found it superior, and it isn't fully burned in yet. I won't tell the name because a lot of people will see their expensive DACs lose huge amounts of money and my schadenfreude feelings don't go that far.

However I will say as I've said before, with all these excellent Chinese DACs on the market the bottom has dropped out of the Hi-End DAC market in Hong Kong which is one of the largest Hi Fi markets in the World.

Auender N20 plus 005 max $15k you could sell your Nagara DAC and still have $5k change and a superior sound and ease of use.

Pfftt.

I replaced an Aurender N10 with a Roon Nucleus paired with an IFi Zen Stream as the Roon endpoint. The Roon Nucleus/IFi Zen Stream combo handily surpasses the Aurender in sound quality, stability and user interface... and it was 1/4th the cost of the Aurender.

Check this youtube video where Jay's Audio Lab finds that the Taiko Extreme (a universally acknowledged best music server ever) has no sonic effect when used on his MSB DAC.

The lesson I have gotten is that the effect of the server mainly depends on how competent your DAC is with input signal. Mine (Nagra Tube DAC) seems to be very competent because of various design reasons and has taken particular efforts to negate the bad effects of USB input. So I don't need to waste time with music servers just like Jay with his MSB Select 2 DAC. YMMV. 

So do a home trial of the music server with your DAC, before blindly assuming that music server is needed because some guru/dealer/forum-member says so, or because-it-costs-10K$-it has-to-beat-a-600$-NUC.

This basically debunks the source first theory of digital that lot of people in this site and others seem to be propagating.

A truly dumb question - What is NUC referring to?  I suspect the C is for a computer but not sure.  My last server/streamer was a Mac Mini with a solid state drive.  The now discontinued entry level Aurender N100H blew it away.  Just curious.  This is on a very high resolution system.

If I'm not mistaken, Jay, in the Youtube video above (evaluating 300K plus systems on Youtube - really?) is comparing ethernet with USB inputs on the DAC.  If so the comparison is invalid.  USB can sound really good but there are always jitter issues.  Some DAC's are better than others at dealing with them but they exist.  I have a Jay's Audio CD transport that sounds better played directly into the AES input on two high end DAC's than the USB of the same disc from my 6K music server.  Source is always a limiting factor but it isn't the only one.  If you have system components that are unable to reveal all that your source can do, that's the limiting factor.  

I use a NUC directly to the DAC. It sounds way better than going through an end point. My NUC is running ROCK, is fanless powered by a Nikola linear PSU.

After being in this hobby for so long, I begin to realize that a lot of stuffs people tell me are wrong!

Now, I am considering adding a DDC to my NUC, and I bet it will outperform most high-end streamers.

I won’t argue with @essrand’s experience. I’ve never used a NUC so I can’t offer an informed opinion.

But it’s important to understand that the N200 is optimized for USB output, with the SPDIF output available only for convenience, in case the need arises.

The N200 doesn’t have the OCXO clock Aurender uses in some of its gear. If it did, it would make no difference for the USB output. USB connections are asynchronous—the timing of the data transfer is controlled by the clock in the DAC, whereas SPDIF (or AES/EBU) signals are controlled by the clock in the source.

Since the N200 doesn’t include such a clock (to make it more affordable than the N20 and other Aurender products), you aren’t getting the best audio it’s capable of if you use its SPDIF out.

The reason for optimizing the N200 for the USB output was mentioned earlier in the thread: native DSD can be transferred only via USB (or I2S). Therefore many DACs, including my Bryston BDA-3, prioritize the USB input.

Aurender says the USB board in the N200 is physically separated and electrically isolated from the noise-generating CPU board.

@essrand ultimately based his evaluation on the N200’s USB output, which is the correct method. So I do not mean to argue with his conclusions. But none of the comments mentioned Aurender’s design decisions, and it’s important to understand the philosophy they utilized in designing the N200.

In response to some other comments/questions in the thread — 

I disagree with the suggestion that it’s better to invest more money in a DAC than in a server. DAC technology has been advancing rapidly for a decade or more now. As a result, a lot of things have been figured out and a relatively inexpensive DAC can perform at a very high level. 

With streamers/servers, we’re only a few years into the learning curve—it’s a product that didn’t even exist until 2009 or thereabouts. A lot of money is still being spent on research and development, and difficult challenges are being addressed by trial and error to identify what works. That drives up costs for manufacturers and those costs are necessarily passed along to the consumer.

I expect 10 or 15 years from now, high quality servers will be much more affordable. But for now, a server will likely cost more than a DAC if the two devices are of comparable quality. 

Second—someone asked what justifies the extra expense of a server/streamer over using a laptop as your audio source. Servers typically cache the audio data before sending it on to the DAC. That is, they read the digital file in advance and store it in RAM or an SSD before sending it to the DAC, which (as far as I understand it) reduces read and timing errors. 

Most servers use RAM and store just a few seconds of information ahead of playback. But Aurender uses a 240 GB SSD to store an entire playlist in advance of playback. This is advantageous (Aurender claims) particularly if some of the songs on the playlist come from internal storage while other songs come from Roon, Qobuz or Tidal. During playback all the songs are handled equivalently since they’re all coming from the SSD cache. 

Aurender has also introduced what they call Critical Listening Mode. When you switch it on, the display switches off, and so do any background processes that are a source of noise. I don’t believe Critical Listening Mode existed when @essrand carried out his evaluation a couple of years ago. Reports are that it makes a significant difference in sound quality. 

I’m not trying to promote Aurender here. I’ve  been researching music servers—I haven’t bought one yet—and I’m using Aurender to illustrate the advantages (theoretical or actual) of using a streamer/server instead of a laptop computer.

I am probably listing my NUC I7 with LPS if anyone is interested. Feel free to PM me. 

I've heard HUGE differences between coaxial and USB on my Aurender N200. Remember this unit doesn't have OCXO like the N20 does and this will impact the performance on the coaxial. The USB sounded way better for me, but my DAC is at its best with its excellent USB interface! If you can't tell a difference between the N200 and an Intel NUC then something is seriously wrong. Also, you should be comparing them using the same interface.

I didn’t read the entire thread but I saw this post and it didn’t stop me from trying the N200. The test conducted by the OP is flawed in several ways. 
1. As already mentioned above the N200 is optimized for USB. The spdif out sounds fine but it’s very audible how much better the USB is. (see the posts above talking about the N200 clock)

2. Tidal sound significantly worse than Qobuz with the N200, and I think with Aurender in general.

So for the comparison the N200 was set up in a worst possible way. But even in this configuration I would expect it to beat the nuc. I tried streaming with my mac mini and it doesn’t hold a candle yo the n200. 

It’s always YMMV.

Firstly, please try a Roon rock on nuc not a Mac mini.

Secondly, The delta between an Aurender and a NUC with Roon rock  and Quboz should be far greater than delta between tidal and Quboz.

Third, it really depends on the DAC, that’s my conclusion. Perhaps the Nagra DAC does 95% of heavy lifting that typically streamers do with other perhaps lesser DACs? Who knows? 
 

by all means spend the 6k on the Aurender, but my humble suggestion would be to try a Roon rock on an nuc first. It cost as much as an audiophile usb cable for gods sake :)

@essrand 

Figured out why Tidal sounded significantly worse than Qobuz. I incidentally compared MQA version on Tidal to Qobuz hi-res. None of my digital front end components unfold MQA so it was coming across similar to what the mp3 would sound. There’s still a difference between Tidal 16/44 and Qobuz 16/44 but it isn’t that great. 

And I agree, DAC will matter as well as the rest of your system. But the way you had tested using two different services and two different interface types still remains sub optimal. 

I’ve had a similar experience, although not with components that are as expensive.  My current setup of a MacBook Pro streaming via Tidal or Qobuz native apps into a Denafrips Hermes and Pontus II sounds better than the HiFi Rose 250a they replaced.  The Pontus by itself outperformed the dedicated streamer.  I just recently added the Hermes.

jastralfu.

What USB cable were using from your MacBook, when you made your comparisons?

It doesn’t matter what usb cable was used. Comparing mac/ddc/dac combo or even just mac/dac combo to a one box solution such as Rose 250a isn’t a comparison. Apples and oranges. The right comparison would be to feed the signal from Rose to Denafrips dac or to the ddc/dac combo and compare that to the mac/denafrips combo. Compare streamers alone. Or compare a denafrips dac to Rose dac using mac as streamer feeding denafrips vs mac feeding Rose.

What you accomplished is you misinformed yourself and now you’re posting this BS here.