Aurender

@bigkidz

I bookmarked your website. Holo is sending me a new DAC. I’m guessing that production is a challenge. You seem to have a wide array of products.  I bet your R-2R Tube DAC sounds quite musical.

I wasn’t aware of varying I2s standards, only differing I2s pinouts.

With AES DSD must be trancoded to PCM and John Atkinson noted that with the N10 the highest bandwidth was "24-bit PCM stream sampled at 176.4kHz". 

For those that buy higher bandwidth music files and aren't able to use twin AES, are you using USB with your Aurender?

and why not Roon ready?

Can the Holo be repaired?

The unit failed within the first two hours of use.  I asked Tim Conners, US dealer, what to do.  He said that they just found out that sub-par parts were used in a few units and they would send a new DAC.

guys aurender can’t run Roon their cpus aren’t powerful enough hence conductor

OK..but doesn’t your product line want me to buy a Teac drive and internal SSD storage? I might like your triple power supply, CPU and upgraded usb interface, but I store my music on a fast NAS and hope to find a top quality streamer and not streamer/server.

Aurender literature made me think that my DSD256 files would require USB, but Aurender’s USB interface was not optimized.

I think I got the impression that Aurender USB was not the best output from a @ghdprentice listening comparison of dual AES vs USB. Perhaps faulty memory here. I now understand the dual AES requires a serious financial investment, so it had better yield a return on investment.

@lalitk 

Sounds like a good plan.

@blisshifi

As usual, your contribution is on point, but personally, I have a few stops along the way prior to deciding to spend enough to buy an upper level Aurinder with the better clock. Additionally, I question if my DAC is of sufficient quality to be able to benefit from an upper level Aurinder. When I purchased the Holo, a DAC without the ability to sync with an external clock, I did so with an eye to using the I2s input and relying on the streamer’s clock, but the devil is in the details.  When you squared away my analog, my new Macintosh DAC had died..since repaired and within two hours of turning on the Holo, it died.  I'm now wondering if I'm offending the analog gods by going digital.

Just to make sure that I understand the terminology used. When purchasing a high end Aurender with a high quality clock, does this singly describe the stability of the clock, or are there other factors that contribute to the "high quality"?

Is finding your system,"completely satisfying", the real endpoint regardless of what others prefer? Makes sense to me.

Not to co-op my own thread, but many of you seem to be quite knowledgeable.  The I2s standard does not address implementation external to the board level.  Is the external I2s clock usually supplied by the output device, or by the DAC?

Ted Smith, the PS Audio engineer/designer/educator cleared up my I2s misconceptions.  Paul has promoted I2s as being superior because of the shared clock..at least this was my interpretation of what he said.  Ted explained that USB and I2s are processed the same.  Any clock signal supplied by I2s is ignored.  The main downside to USB is the noise created by the power running parallel to the data line.  I contacted Tim at Kitsune HiFi and it seems that USB/I2s are handled by the Holo the same way.

@pokey77 

Thanks for the info.

Roon can exhibit functional issues due to seemingly minor network issues.  For example, don't use a smart switch unless you know what you are doing.  Perhaps, some Conductor users suffer the same fate.

Roon musicality claims are all over the map.  I wonder if this can be traced back to Roon Core implementation.

The Suncoast Audio video was informative. They clearly stated that streaming services, streamed internal and NAS are processed and sound the same. All files are loaded to cache and played locally from cache. Given that some of you can hear a difference suggest that some difference in background processes must exist.

They clearly believe that the N20 is the sweet spot, but that the N200 is the best transport value for USB only. The choice depends upon how your DAC handles USB vs coax/AES.

All of the transports, except the battery powered W20SE have been updated within the last couple of years.  All now have transformer isolated ethernet inputs and the newer lower powered Intel chipset.

This video was a really good Aurender sales presentation.

@mkdm11

My replacement Holo May DAC KTE will be here on Wednesday. I’m interpreting your post to say that AES/Coax vs USB performance is very close With the Holo. If this is correct, then USB would certainly provide you with the added ability to listen to high bitrate PCM and DSD, but given the fact that you are struggling with interconnects, my interpretation of your remarks might be off.

@blisshifi 

Just to make sure that I understand..The better clock is integral to providing the ultra low jitter Coax/AES output, but is not central to USB output, thus for USB only the N200 is sufficient.

@falconquest

I use Roon to broadcast to my 2 channel and 11.2 rooms. Others have many other Roon endpoints. For me, this flexibility would not prevent me from moving to Aurender/Conductor, but it is a consideration.