Aurender music servers: higher priced ones sonically better?

I don’t know much about the aurender, but i have streamed from itunes/bitperfect and (i cant recall the name) on my Macbook pro, and for years i have used Roon on a dedicated server. All three outperformed the CD player to the same DAC(s).

I will point out that Roon offers a number of advantages; since i have rarely used anything else in the last tow years, i can say how much they impact the sound - but the content difference is startling ( I have a love/hate relationship with Roon)

But here’s are the two things:

One -- there will be differences, based on implementation (hardware, powering, grounding, ...)

Two: on the other hand, if the software plays the music back bit perfect, you can get identical results.

Why? two critical factors in digital are magnitude and timing. Timing is the harder of the two since it is quasi analog. (read my blog on SonogyResearch if you want more). And timing is determined by the receiving DAC, but compromised by the player’s signal from which it must be derived. I admit there are some details deep down that i cannot explain. yet :-)

Roon is an interface has nothing to do with sound quality

totally incorrect. Roon is a 1) server, 2) streamer, 3) multi-room and network streamer with its own protocol, 4) upsampling DSP, 5) MQA first unfold algorithm, 6) timing and bit depth adjustment device, .....

How far do i need to continue. Totally, completely, off base.

Sorry to be blunt to the point of rude, but this is really misinformation. And Roon provides a lot of options to minimize network impacts, optimize timing, tune for rooms, etc.

I shoudl add i have no commercial affiliation with Roon expect that i was an early adopter, and often feel like a beat tester. Its a work-in-progress.

Nice system though Tom. Thumbs up on your choices, from what i can see.


2nd edit: if interested, i was asked, and wrote, a long post on how to get the best sound out of Roon in a digital audio thread not long ago.  It extended beyond Roon proper to bridge and USB interfacing (e.g.: lots of ground and power supply isolation) to get the best sound.  Remember that Pulse Amplitude Modulation is in effect a cartesian coordinate mapping of analog sound and the X (time) domain is just as important  as the Y (volume/bits) domain.

@ghdprentice, can you say more?
I clearly had a different experience, and its unclear what steps you took to get good sound out of a "macbook and/or PC".  Further, mac books and PCs are significantly different -- starting with, until very, very recently PCs didn't even support USB high res audio profile 2.  And, while there is huge variation, their power supplies are much noisier. Any SMPS is bad, but Apple's are typically "less bad".  The best procedure is to run them off battery for critical listening.  Will a dedicated server with a dedicated set of isolated LPS bet better? Sure - just like i built for Roon.

Did you use Bitperfect (you really need to, and its 10 bucks).  And the list goes on.  Without that your data point is useful o you, but not very valid as a learning point for others. Plus I'd like o now why the discrepancy.

I did all sorts of software and format changes. I doubt there was much I didn’t try. Bought a bunch of high res files. Tried from the MacBook, USB storage, network storage. All sorts of interconnects. The more I think back the more stuff I realized I tried.

But none of this is very specific and none addresses the ground isolation, jitter or processor load (which generates noise) which are the critical factors to optimize. I suspect that is all your streamers do - all the necessary EE blocking and tackling. But hat can all be done to Roon running on  NUC with a RPi bridge - with much effort. Or similarly, some can be addressed with a Laptop especially (since they can run on battery).

That's what I'm trying to understand - and i think is good learning for other starting down the path. Throwing money at it certainly can solve the problem, but takes, well, a pile of money.

The problem is PCs are simply not created with noise reduction and power conditioning in mind.

Correct.  Which is why i advocate simply isolating it and creating a dedicated low noise power supply on the "clean"side and allowing the Mac streamer to be dirty.  trying to fix the computer will have diminishing returns (but running of battery makes  a huge difference, with lots of limitations).  This is why i wanted to know precisely what you tried and didn't.

NUCs are actually quite good if dedicated and with dedicated,and split/isolated power.  RPis make good bridges (but start with the Pi4 or you will fight a lot of architectural issues).  I mean, have you looked at what's inside the box of many streamers?  Often a NUC or a Pi (as embedded).

i don't know if i can find my old post - its a needle in the haystack. You might search on my user name.  But most of it is blocking and tackling - clean power, clean grounds, isolation, keeping nosy digital devices away from sensitive analog ones, keeping the processing distributed (just like Roon recommends), etc.

That said, Roon is a frustratingly complex, but very powerful streaming solution.  It is sold as a full server (Nucleus) or as software that you cna load on your computer or build a dedicated server as I did - but in the end, its a streaming server with vastly more capabilities than anything you can buy from "fill in the blank". In fact some high end servers ARE in fact Roon, embedded.

Unlike most streaming servers you can serve multiple independent zones (rooms, systems), or synchronize them - AND control the timing priority for those synched zones.  For each, with enough computer power, you can correct for room abnormalities, although this is a needlessly difficult process (like much of Roon IMO).

I did look at my own history... and can't find the needle int he haystack.  Sorry.