Aurender N200

I am confidentt it will be.   Now I know what to expect from Toolshed .   The amp exceeded my expectations for sound quality and obviously build quality.   It's a special piece for sure.    

@oddiofyl

You have high sensitivity speakers. How much gain will your 101D preamp have? I imagine the 300b amplifier is likely pretty sensitive with an input voltage of 1 volt or less. You won’t need much preamp gain.

Charles

Actually the input sensitivity is about 2.4 v.    Seems like my last preamp with 12dB put the volume in the sweet spot for average to a little above average listening.  Im guessing the gain will be around the same.   Not quite sure but it won't be like my former CJ which was I think 27 dB which was ridiculous.   At 9 o'clock it was cranking with most amps

@oddiofyl

Oh I see. With an amplifier input voltage of 2.4v you’ll be fine with a preamplifier gain of around 15 db or less. My SET mono blocks input voltage is 0.7v, so pretty high sensitivity. However I am doing good with 10db of gain from my 101D preamplifier. You are assembling a terrific audio system.

Charles

Thanks again Charles .   Kids are adults ,  bills are low right now for me,  work pays for car and everything associated with it plus phone.    Hearing is still good,  now is the time to do it !   Never been a better time actually. 

I'm hoping the Aurender will be a slick interface and hub of my Digital universe.   I'm definitely going to take full advantage of storing all of my music on it.   The sole fact that it is a casching memory player is what drew me to it.  Many advantages to that .

Hearing is still good,  now is the time to do it !   Never been a better time actually. 

I understand completely. There are times when you have to stop and smell the roses. You recognized you are in a great situation and wise enough to appreciate it and take advantage. Enjoy every moment with your evolving and improved audio system. I’m curious to know how much of a difference you’ll hear between the Blue Node and the Aurender N200.

Charles

@oddiofyl

I bet you can hardly wait to plug-in N200. Here are few things you can do to further enhance your experience with N200 (allow 200-300 hours of break-in)

1. Sign up with Qobuz

2. Try both USB and Coax outputs and decide which output sounds best to your ears

3. Use high quality USB or Coax cable

4. Use high quality PC, preferably the one uses PCOCC copper.

5.  Listen to N200 in ‘Critical Listening Mode’

I went from a blue sound vault, then added a dedicated DAC to it, then upgraded to the N200. Very happy with the value and sound of each upgrade. Just the facts from someone who actually did what you are thinking of doing. No problems with the system or software, had one question on it and their support is excellent. 

@oddiofyl 

Forgot to add, get Samsung SSD drives. They are slightly more expensive than HDD but offer quieter and faster operation. 

I've had my N200 for several months now - absolutely love it. I also own an N150, which I use in my headphone rig. The N150 is excellent as well. Aurender recommends the Samsung EVO SSD's. I don't know why anyone would use a NAS for music storage if they own an N200.

I am really looking forward to this.  I went from playing PC ripped content on a thumb drive through my OPPO, to the Vault 2i, and finally this.  I have two DACs to  play with , one Non OS with tubes and the other can play DSD.    Being able to store music on the N200 was a major factor in my consideration.    Removable drives are the way to go I think

I should have it Thursday , I'm going  to pick up one of those EVO drives.  Those with the fact that it is a memory player sealed the deal for me .

Each storage bay will hold an SSD up to 8TB, so you'll have up to 16TB total. And I agree, removable drives are the way to go. Also, integration with Qobuz is very good. And the Conductor app works great for me on an iPad.

OP,

I would purchase as little storage as possible. As soon as I got my streamers… transferred some of my files to my Aurenders and then haven’t used them since. Streaming sounds the same or better through Qobuz. 
 

I think I had to reboot my router a year or two ago and played internal files for a little while.

It’s nice to know you have something to play, just in case. But there isn’t much of a reason. If you have special recordings… well, that may not last long as it is likely you will get lost in the hundreds of thousands of high resolution albums and groups you have never heard of before. At least this is the path I took and many others. 

@sdw Have you compared the N150 to the N200? If so, can you describe how notable are the differences sonically? I have heard both but as an Aurender dealer I’d love to hear a customer’s experiences with the two as I was just talking to someone else on the phone about the two last night. 

I have not had the two in the same system. The N200 is in my 2 channel system and the N150 is in my headphone rig. Now I'm curious though - sometime this week I'll try the N150 in my 2 channel system and report back.

@sdw I'll be curious what you think.  I just bought the N200 for one of my speaker systems and then ended up buying the N150 for a headphone system too.  Systems are in different houses so no way for me to easily compare anytime soon.  Anxious to see what you find.

We are in the same boat. Headphone rig in one house, 2 channel in another. Hence the delay in reporting back.

Great minds lol.

@marco1 / OP,

Yep. I got an Aurender N100 for my headphone system… which resulted in me getting my W20SE for my main sister.

Missed Fed Ex today.... usually they come a day late at 7pm.....   

My daughter is going to hang out here tomorrow to receive the N200.    She's such a great kid.    She works nights so that's pretty solid of her to do that.  

50/50 Chance I'm going to work Friday.......  

@oddiofyl 

So what are your initial thoughts?

It sounds great , just getting used to the different layout compared to Bluesound.  

It will not achieve digital lock with my Lab 12 via coax on anything 88.kHz or above.   Noise and dropouts,   Works flawlessly via USB , not sure why.   Seems to work fine with RME adi2 via coax so I'm not sure what's going on there, need to troubleshoot further.  

@oddiofyl 

 Congratulations  on receiving the Aurender. I hope that you get the connection issue sorted out. At this early stage, are there sound quality differences between it and the Blue Node?

Charles

It definitely sounds better , frustrating that it won't work via Coax out.  That is how I wanted to use it with this DAC.    Works fine with Vault with same cable , works fine with RME .  Tried new cable, known good cable.     Only loses lock above 48k with Aurender. 

@oddiofyl What coax cable are you using?

Also, are you switching sample formats often? If so there is a setting to allow to adjust for that and put a few second delay. Doing that sometimes helps to adjust for the switching. 

Hi Juan

I tried setting the delay and no change.   There is digital noise and the unlock light glows dim and the sample freq lights flicker.   Only works via lower sample rates.   Three known good coax , including new d-750.  

Tried the Vault in both coax inputs of DAC works flawlessly 

Works fine via RME coax input.   

Problem only exists with N200 via coax to the Lab 12 DAC

Have you tried contacting their tech support? They are pretty good and responsive.

Glad to see you got the D-750 already, and I’m sorry to hear the N200 and your DAC are not playing together nicely. Do you happen to have a toslink cable? I think maybe one was included with the N200. If you try that and it works, then the SPDIF interfaces “should” be fine and it localized it to the coax connection. If Toslink also drops out, then it is a signal that one of the units’ SPDIF interfaces is problematic as a whole.

If you haven’t already, check it there are firmware upgrades for both units and also try a hard power down on both for a few minutes. 

Very odd that the N200 works flawlessly with the RME but not your Lab 12. 

I believe it’s the DAC and not the Aurender.  
 

I reached out to my dealer and they believe there is an update that needs to be done on my DAC    He is going to investigate and get back to me.  It sounds great through either DAC  

It was nice being able to play content on the Vault through the Aurender.  Pretty cool

Build quality seems high on this unit. It is built like a tank.  Real solid 

I just received another N200 for a local customer today and will be opening it for him to install the hard drive he had me pair it with (2TB Samsung EVO).

Steve - I know the Aurender can see other drives on the network, but I haven’t tried to make that work myself. Was it easy to set up?

And yes, the build is very admirable. I'm also quite pleased with the new Conductor V3 platform/app for mobile phones. It's much more usable and attractive vs past versions! I've already submitted a few feature requests and improvements. The Aurender engineering team has been quite receptive in the past.

Yes, super easy.  Just click on NAS and follow prompt.  It found my Vault right away.  I just signed in as guest and I could see all of my songs. It is in  Folder layout but easy to navigate

@oddiofyl 

Thanks for the update. It definitely sounds like digital board issue in your Lab12. I had a similar issue with my ARC DAC9 board, which ARC replaced for a very nominal cost.

Yes , it's definitely the DAC's input board.     There is a socketed upgrade that should take care of it.  Waiting to hear back from my dealer .

Still sounds great,via USB so it's not like I can't use it.   

The Aurender does a lot of cool things,  it can assemble a Playlist and pull from multiple drives or streams to reassemble that list.   

Well, I surely hope it gets repaired. But for anyone who has an N200 or is thinking about one and is also looking for a DAC to pair it with, I have said before and I’ll say again that my favorite match is the T+A DAC 200. In addition to being a stellar performer, the form factor similarity to the N200 is attractive!

As I just got another N200 in and am setting up for a customer, I decided to stack it with the DAC 200 so I could get a shot. These were not hooked up together at the time of the shot (as the N200 does not have AES) because I was just focused on getting the SSD set up for the customer.

I have no doubt they will take care of me.  It's under warranty and it sounds like they have addressed this in new builds.    

Great to hear!

FYI Aurender Owners. 

It's NOT the DAC after all.  After getting familiar with the Aurender set up and output options I figured out what was going on.   

In the Aurender settings in the Main Square Aurender Tab , displaying  Library there is an antenna or flag shaped Icon. Click and you will see DSD and 24 bit icons

Click and hold and a menu will pop up for each. It will allow you to turn off DSD output and limit to whatever sample rate you need.  For me I turned off 384k and sync problem went away.   

@oddiofyl 

Very good news!!

The Aurender N200 streamer and Lab 12 Reference DAC surely sound lovely together, I'm sure. Seems the N 200 is a true step up from the Bluenode streamer.

Charles

Yes.  The Aurender sounds better, absolutely 

It sounded good via USB but via coax with the Aurender as the clock it is markedly better.  More weight , shimmer in the upper registers

I swear I could hear the brass of a cymbal crash’s warble … the deformation or flexing of the cymbals    
 

If you stream a lot, have a great sounding DAC and your system can realize the potential of a really good streamer you should see if your dealer is kind enough to let you take one home to demo .  Further proof everything in the chain makes a difference   Whether things play nice together is a different thing    
 

I’m glad I read into this further and kept along the right troubleshooting path  

I had a hard time believing either was broken    Simple software toggle   

@oddiofyl 

Yes. The Aurender sounds better, absolutely

It sounded good via USB but via coax with the Aurender as the clock it is markedly better. More weight , shimmer in the upper registers

I swear I could hear the brass of a cymbal crash’s warble … the deformation or flexing of the cymbals

I was interested in your listening impressions and comparison of the two streamers. It seems intuitive that a higher quality music streamer would be impactful in a positive manner. It represents the source of your digital signal chain.

It strikes me as odd when some report upgrading their streamers made little, or no difference. Does not seem logical at all, But I understand people are simply reporting what they hear in their respective audio systems.

Charles

Exactly,  maybe their experience was indifferent for what ever reason but there are a lot of lateral moves in this hobby that can be very flavor of the month club impulse buys.  
 

This obviously was a major upgrade but with 80% of my content streamed or stored on a drive or PC this made sense for me.  It is amazing what it can do, I haven’t even scratched the surface yet.  It is so intelligent,  it is unreal how smart this box is.   It monitors every parameter of its operation 

Many have said the Android version is bad but I went in and allowed permission for it to always run in the background and that made it much more stable. 
 

A must have for me was a screen with Album art and other metadata.   Transport keys are nice to have also.    SPDIF was high on the want list too. 

This has been an interesting thread on streamers. I understand from Bliss’s comment on page 1 that Aurender is great at streaming but optimized also for storage for those that have files.

That’s not me. No files to play. Simply Tidal or Qobuz streaming for now. My question: is there any streamer under $2k that will outperform a LUMIN U1 mini for this purpose? Assume dac will probably be an Aqua La Scala mkii, under the thinking rule of thumb that put 75% of digital budget into dac, 25% to streamer, give or take

@oddiofyl I’m glad you resolved your issue! Seeing your DAC’s specs, it seems it only is capable of converting up to 192Khz, so adjusting that setting makes sense.

Regarding some not being able to discern streamer quality, I usually boil it down to the fact that those people’s systems are not resolving enough (like putting a $9K phono cartridge on a $1000 turntable / tonearm), they aren’t the critical listeners, or the upgrade in sonics isn’t worthwhile. But for those with a highly resolving system who are looking to make the best out of it, a high performance digital source should make a significant impact. 

@blisshifi 

Regarding some not being able to discern streamer quality, I usually boil it down to the fact that those people’s systems are not resolving enough (like putting a $9K phono cartridge on a $1000 turntable / tonearm), they aren’t the critical listeners, or the upgrade in sonics isn’t worthwhile. But for those with a highly resolving system who are looking to make the best out of it, a high performance digital source should make a significant impact.

This explanation is thoughtful and well reasoned in my opinion. With a resolving audio system, how could one not notice improvement with a better source component?

Charles

I thought my switching DSD off and limiting 384k sample was my problem but no....

Those settings revert back to default at power off 

TOTAL PILOT ERROR !!!   I was trying to compare USB via Coax with them both plugged in and it was confusing the DAC .   Removed the USB and problem gone.  Plays anything up to 24/192k like it should.   Duh... 

A very worthwhile purchase,  I finally have a digital front end that sounds great with streaming and stored content .   Listening to some 24/192k content and it has never sounded better.     Amazing machine.  

Thanks again to Mario and Dan at The Music Room 

@oddiofyl 

You have been on quite the successful acquisition roll.The Lab 12 DAC, the Toolshed 300b SET and now the Aurender N200. 😊

Charles

Yes, done for a while , one last piece to the puzzle and I have my desert island system.   

I sold off about $5000 worth of stuff not being used., or more   Have a few thousand in stuff to sell so it will take the sting out of it.  Shame to not use it. They went to good homes 

I had enough stuff for a nice second system but it didn't make sense and I turned it into the Aurender and the Toolshed Line stage I'm having built now 

Update. I was not imagining things , the DAC can not cope with more than one active SPDIF input. It has trouble switching between any Redbook and HiRez source across it’s SPDIF bus. Turn one unit off on Coax 1 and the unit on Coax 2 will resume play. It is the input board’s logic or it is not well insulated.

It isn’t broken in the traditional sense , but it is not working properly. No problem if USB from Aurender to DAC and Optical from Bluesound to DAC .

Unfortunately it is a recent build and has the most recent firmware so at this point as really believe it is a hardware limitation.