Auralic Aries

@ghdprentice 
Interesting.  I’m not going to suggest the Aries G2 is the equal of the W20SE, but I have one and had an Aurender N100H.  The G2 is/was quite a bit the better unit between those two (I sold the N100H) and I  know several who think it’s better than the N10.  As I haven’t heard the N10, I can’t say.  In any case, it doesn’t matter for the W20SE is clearly world class and I can imagine only possibly bettered by the Taiko extreme.

Best,

I’d like to restate that others have a very different experience with the Auralic Aries G2 series.  My own experience (and in direct A/B comparison with other units from Aurender, Lumin and Simaudio) indicates that it does not have a high noise floor - but a low noise floor.  Feel free to seek out the very thorough review by Hans B on YouTube as he’s far more impartial than most.  If @ghdprentice experienced otherwise, I can only suspect something was wrong with his unit.  It happens. Or, perhaps he/she had more noise coming into the Auralic than it was able to handle.  That too I can easily imagine.  Why?

I have the ENO Network filter and an upgraded network switch.  When I inserted these into the system, the the noise floor dropped  considerably - frankly I was shocked.  Regardless, this indicated that any noise was upstream of the streaming transport - not within it.  I get that part of the reason to go to a unit like this is to avoid needing tweaks.  It doesn’t need the tweaks.  But, it turns out that the best of units reveal the benefits of such efforts whereas lessor units do not.

Lastly, I actually compared the streaming transport function of the G2 against one very well respected unit costing close to $40k.  Was it better? No.  Was it a big difference?  No - surprisingly minor as a matter of fact.  

I mention all of this not to defend a brand I purchased but to remind people that experiences are both subjective and situational.

Congrats on your purchase @rfnoise!  

A couple of observations/user experiences that might be helpful to you:

It’s likely (but not assured) that you would be rewarded by improving the quality of your USB cable.  Though i can’t explain why, the differences in digital cables are quite easy for me to hear in my system, but they’re system dependent. 

Are you connected via WiFi or Ethernet?  The latter likely will sound better though others have noted less difference.

Though you didn’t mention an interest in Roon, it would seem that most Auralic users have noted that Lightning DS (Auralic’s native library management and operating system) sounds significantly better than Roon. Roon has the better interface.  LDS has the better sonics.  

There are other network “tweaks” that are beneficial, but also would cost you more $.  Let me know if you’re interested in exploring those.  For now - enjoy the music!

Best,

@paulcreed 

I found Auralic actually plays fine with Roon.  However, as I noted in an earlier post in this thread, Lighting DS (“LDS”), sounds significantly better than Roon whether streaming Qobuz or playing a file on a NAS. I’m not the only user with this view.  If you want the user interface, go Roon and be happy - it still sounds good over Auralic units.  If you want the best sonics available from the unit, go LDS and be happy as it works just fine as a library management system as well.  

With respect to Auralic vs any number of streaming transports - there’s a fair amount of differing opinions.  My takeaway is that they’re all pretty good and they get better as you go up the food chain within each line. That’s certainly been my experience.  

As you stated, it’s not night and day difference, but those differences do reveal themselves mostly via more spatial information, particularly depth, and to a lessor extent, more detail. 

I was also well rewarded with network tweaks and cable upgrades.  You may find the G1 rewards such efforts as well.

Best,

@rfnoise - I personally use a google WiFi mesh system with 3 waypoints, plugging the primary unit into my initial router, (which I have completely locked down for security purposes and have turned off WiFi broadcasting),  In essence, I can have two distinct WiFi networks if I wanted.  In any case, the WiFi points connect to the primary and create a much more stable signal across the house.  And, each provides the ability to plug devices in via an Ethernet cable. So, it solves two problems - eliminating poor and uneven coverage across my three floors, and providing a secure, stable and fast short connection for my streaming transport.  There are other mesh units you can get, but google’s works fairly well for a modest price.