I have a Korean car, watch KDramas and even listen to some KPop, but I don’t get what Aurender is doing.
I’m currently in digital hold given that my new Holo DAC died, but intend on listening to my IFi Zen stream and look at upgrade paths.
Some of the most respected members of this forum swear by Aurender, so it must deliver, but here is my point of confusion:
1. Coax and AES are the preferred outputs, but higher bandwidths require dual AES out, but I don’t have dual in on my DAC.
2. Aurender’s top models claim to have great clocks, so why not pass this on to the DAC via I2s?
3. Top Aurenders accept external clocks and I assume this is used with a DAC that accepts external clocks, but why bother when I2s would take care of this?
4. The argument against I2s is that there isn’t a standard, but this isn’t a problem in most implementations.
I’m sure that I have misrepresented things above, so please correct my understanding.
we can use any hard drive as per the teac ripper it doesnt add much to the cost and having a ripper can be nice addition.
Carlsbad you do need cpu horsepower to run roon the aurender cpu is not capable of running Roon got that directly from aurender at axponna a few years ago.
it is not a matter of performance some of the worlds best servers run Roon including the $35,000.00 Taiko Extreme the innous statement the 432EVO servers
all of these products are cores and endpoints in one
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.
I don`t domuch upsampling, I am having better success with NOS at the DAC (44k) via USB. THE Aurender is set similarly at basic levels. (I guess thats where my confusion originates. (Tons of options,, basic sounds best,, concerned I am overlooking something). I have AES "Front Row", USB AQ Coffee and Nodost SPDIF. From the Modem Small Green Computer to Fibre, back to ethernet to English Switch, AQ Vodka to N20.
Pre BAT REX II, AMP PASS XA60.8, 2 REL S510`s, Paradigm Persona F7, All Frey 2, Equi-Tek power conditioner.
I enjoyed my time with N20 immensely (paired with EMM Labs DA2). I believe N20 holds a sweet spot if you can utilize all of its brilliant features. As far as settings goes, my recommendation would be to play with each setting and keep what sounds best to your ears. The same applies to digital output, AES vs USB. All of these choices are subjective…I guess my point is it would be a shame to not explore all the features on a transport like N20 :-)
When I had my N20, I did not prefer any upsampling or DSD conversion. I had my N20 connected using both AES (for files upto 24bit/192kHz) and USB for DSD’s. Another thing I really appreciated was CLM (critical listening mode) in N20. It further drops the noise floor and allows you appreciate quiet passages and space between instruments.
Use best digital cables you can afford. And lastly, if you have not yet; tweak your Ethernet signal with a passive filter from Network Acoustics’s ENO or Muon. They will further relax the sound and take off any digital edge or grunge.
I intentionally held back my feedback on one of the most important feature of N20, the clock input. PM me if you are curious about the master clock input.
I can say without hesitation the Aurender Conductor App has been a very good experience. I owned a Lumen D2 and the Naim Streamer DAC solutions prior to my current setup. In both cases, the Conductor App has been more intuitive and reliable, IOS and Android are prevalent in my home, neither have been an issue.
Finding the right combination Aurender settings an interconnects has been the challenge. With all the variables (DSD to PCM, AES, USB, LOW Pass Filter, Upsampling level options, etc..) It is literally picking a lock! I have purchased many different interconnects, all very good. I,ve found many times sound quality depends on the recording, not the Conductor settings or interconnects.
I have spoken to both Tim at Holo and Ari at Aurender, great guys, experts in their respective verticals, but hesitant to recommend a comprehensive setting or interconnect configuration.
I am not technical, the science is too broad. There is so much content and expertise on this thread. If anyone cares to potentially narrow down a couple best in class settings to recommend, I would really appreciate it, I.E. Low Pass Filter Setting, DSD to PCM or not, upsample or not, interconnect, etc...
Lots of beautiful equipment in a very nicely treated listening room. I would be a fool not to take you up on the offer. I don't go to Houston often but will let you know when I do. Take care.
I appreciate the invite. I would love to connect with you and listen to your amazing system next time I visit Austin. My point of engagement was not to cast doubt on what you’re hearing with Node 2, which is a great performer for the money and even better with upgraded power supply. Bottom line, if you’re satisfied with what you’ve put together then it shouldn’t matter what else out there.
I used to own Vault 2 so I can say from my experience, Aurender streamers offers a substantial upgrade in sound over Node albeit at higher price of admission. Streamer is just one piece of the pie, so one needs to ensure your rest of the system is up to the task. My impressions of Node vs Aurender are in the context of my system (listed here under my moniker).
You’re welcome to stop by next time you’re in Houston.
just like any aspect of the hifi system building game, people speak about their journey, their experience, their system -- with a certain baseline of expectations, skill, experience and budget
people find happiness and excellent sound at many various levels of expense and expertise... that happiness is found at modest levels of system building is a blessing for those who achieve this, while others may push push push, with ever more effort, learning and expense trying to achieve ever higher levels of sonic quality (as they perceive it) ... there is no right or wrong either way, we all enjoy the pursuit our own way, subject to our time, energy, wallet, and disposition
i think the key is no one should judge where anyone else is on the journey and how they achieve musical happiness, how they spend the money and effort and the sonic result achieved... if you are fully satisfied with a bluesound node with an added lps, power to you - but don’t tell others that if they have a grimm, an innuos zen or a roon core+optical rendu that theirs isn’t better (and vice versa) ... let’s just celebrate that everyone can find their ’happy place’
I can't speak the the I2S issues raised by the OP, but with regard to the AES/EBU interface being limited to 192khz/24 bits, that is because that is the limit according to the AES/EBU specification. Due to this limit, Dual AES was developed to support higher resolutions. While you can of course bypass this limitation by using USB, some DACs seem to perform better with AES. At least, that has been my experience, using an Aurender N20 with a dCS Bartok.
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?
Aurender is not NAS friendly, so I’ll look elsewhere. If there was that option, I’d highly consider Aurender. I’ve been thru that with these two Aurender salesman and got nowhere. In my opinion, a node with an external power supply and NAS is a hard to beat option for the money. With that, put your money into a great DAC and call it a day. If I felt the need to throw more cash at this I’d consider a Lumin. Just my humble opinion as one of the audiophile community!
As I referred to in an earlier post above, my conclusion is drawn by the fact that my streaming is now AT LEAST as good as my vinyl and CD setups, which are no slouch by any means. Meaning I don't need to try uber expensive streamers to know that the way I setup my NODE in my particularly well build listening room is already completely satisfying. I invite anyone who keeps telling us here in a polite way that the NODE is real good but just a beginning on the streaming journey, to come in and listen to it in my house of stereo if you ever are in the Austin area. Let me know, it might open your mind, or not. Of course I am not talking about the NODE as the only part of my streaming setup. It took a lot more than that to get it to match and even beat the performances of my vinyl and CD setups. The details of it are all in my system. I am transparent that way. On its own it should speak volume to anyone willing to look into it in depth. Short of listening to my systems, it is the best I can do to convey my sound experiences to you guys on paper.
My Android has been more stable lately. Aurender added the TD100 to the software, I'm sure they make running changes also without calling it a new "revision"
I have zero regrets going with Aurender. Its an awesome machine
@vonhelmholtz - glad they are taking care of you. The R2R DAC has everything one could ask for. It is a reference quality DAC. Substituting chokes in place of other parts improved the sound more then we imagined and the use of V-Cap ODAMs took it over the top. We have had almost every DAC on the market at our Listening Room in Northern New Jersey (everyone is welcomed) where we enjoy listening and repairing equipment.
I own an N100H 4TB and it has worked flawlessly for me. The N100H is USB only. I have a PS Audio DirectStream Sr. DAC which requires an i2s connection to play anything larger than DSD128. I put a Matrix X-SPDIF 2 DDC in my chain so now I can play DSD256.
I have never had a problem with Conductor as well. My music gets backed up to a QNAP NAS every night and I have a 1U Tripp-Lite UPS in my audio rack specifically for my Aurender.
I’m in agreement with @baylinor I have the new node with a Teddy Pardo LPS and it sounds fantastic! I am using the DAC in my Boulder 866 as well. Happy listening!
Aurender OS is not android phone friendly, so it kills it for me.
Android has now been fully upgraded to the same level as Apple.
I've used Android Conductor App for almost a year and it never bothered me, because I use Folder View, which lists your ripped files by name only without album covers. Much quicker to search a large library.
Like I had mentioned before, streamers are still in their infancy. There are a lot of affordable options out there , but component sized streamers like Aurender , Auralic, Innous, are always going to be above $2500.
Every one is controlled by firmware which is always being tweaked so these devices are getting better every day. Thats why buying a streamer from a company that only does streamers is to me one of the most important considerations...
Bluesound Node and Vault are the best choice at their price points. I almost bought the Lumin U2 Mini, at $2400 it is one of the more affordable offerings from companies that only do streamers. And it is the next level of performance compared to Bluesound. I was originally interested in the Aurender N100 and got a great deal on a N200 , most of it’s price was my trade in so for $850 out of pocket it was a no brainer.
what is needed is a excellent $1k streamer without a DAC that has no connection issues like a popular option. something with a OS like the Bluesound and the sound of the iFi Zen Stream. currently the next level up starts at $2,500. pity.
I just put a 4 TB SSD drive in the N200. It is amazing what that machine can do. I turned it on and there was another icon in the menu. The TD100. Its a USB trigger for the Aurender to turn on 2 trigger enabled devices .
When I picked the unit up and pulled it out of its rack I was quickly reminded of the quality of the Aurender. It is built like a tank. Pics don't demonstrate how nice these units are.
Not limited to Aurender, a high quality clock is usually one using OCXO or Femto and “quality” is about accuracy of timing, just like a luxury watch that uses a mechanical design to keep time. The clock’s role is focused on the transmission of digital samples and how well it assembles those samples back together. I wrote in a different thread, but clock and digital playback accuracy can be compared to photography. Many cameras and lenses can take a photo, and many of them do it “well”. But some stand out because of the quality of the lens in reproducing exactly what is out there, and the image is crisper, more natural, and the colors do not bleed due to aberration. A great clock does the same and results in the most accurate timing of digital signals, which will result in clarity, separation, and coherence. A lesser clock can still reproduce well, but in comparison to a great clock, it’s as if the image just wasn’t properly focused ever so slightly, or a slightly inferior lens was used. Sometimes one cannot tell unless comparing the two photos side by side.
Higher end Aurender’s do leverage better clocks, but they also leverage more robust power supplies, better isolation (both in circuit design and chassis), and other benefits.
Fairly new Aurender user here. Have the N200 in a speaker system and the N150 in a headphone system. Use an Android phone in both with absolutely no problems. Sound is glorious in both systems. Could not be happier that I upgraded.
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"?
@baylinorApologies, in most posts I do mention that I am an authorized Aurender dealer. I missed it this time. That said, I purchased my N30SA prior to becoming a dealer. Sometimes I prioritize being an audiophile first and was not intending to promote Aurender and try to make a sale. Vonhelmholtz and I have had many discussions personally, and I was simply responding to him directly. He knows I’m a dealer, as he has purchased from me in the past.
@vonhelmholtz FWIW, yes the higher end Aurender’s have better clocks, but as @oddiofyl states, even with the N200 he prefers coax. I did not sell him that unit, but I did provide his coax cable.
Also, I meant to say +1 in support of a master clock. My T+A unit already has a masterclock built in, and does not accommodate any external clocks, otherwise I’d be looking at one myself!
@audiotroyYou need almost no CPU to be a roon endpoint. the core is usually on a stand alone machine anyway. Aurender doesn't do roon endpoint because they compete with roon.
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.
@vonhelmholtz Just seeing this thread now and weighing in.
First, sample rates higher than 176-192KHz are nowhere near as important as the quality of the clock and the protocol. With that said, I would take a digital source with a quality clock maxxed out at 192KHz using AES over 768KHz USB any day. I am in the camp that believes USB is noisy and fatiguing in comparison. One case I can make is using USB from my $24K Aurender N30SA into my $38.5K T+A SDV 3100 HV. Where USB will use the T+A’s reference clock, even with 768Khz, I still prefer AES and the Aurender’s clock with 192Khz sample rates. The quality of the clocks in Aurender’s higher end units is very admirable and the N30SA (and the T+A DAC) is one of the reasons I’m debating so hard on whether I should give up on vinyl completely (you and I have discussed this). Many other endgame DAC manufacturers also prioritize AES, such as Berkeley, and AES is a professional protocol used in the pro audio / recording / mastering / production works. It is NOT a legacy interface.
Audiotroy mentions that Aurender can’t run Roon because it’s processors aren’t strong/fast enough. This is by design. By utilizing a low processing power architecture, Aurender can achieve lower noise floor, better separation, and just more of everything. Conductor is a proprietary platform to work its best alongside this low processing power environment. On the contrast, there is much debate about the “sound of Roon”. There was a fairly lengthy thread on this where I also commented on the elements that make a quality server/streamer (a robust linear power supply, low power, low noise, isolation, and clocking).
Also, I’m not aware of Aurender having any issues with native DSD playback. The Conductor platform allows users to choose whether they want native playback, DSD over PCM (DoP), or conversion to PCM. In this case, it boils down to the DAC’s supported formats.
Agree with others on i2s. There’s been a lot of hype, but implementations vary.
I appreciate oddiofyl input. However I have not had any issues with bluos for weeks now. Not a single hiccup. I don"t have vault, just using the NODE to stream Qobuz. And the reliability is awesome. Aurender will have to make huge strides towards android reliability before I ever consider it. And as far as the Aurender sound being so much better than the NODE, it all depends on how you set up your NODE. No need to keep rehashing how I do it, just look at my system, fully described there. I honestly don"t see what I am missing sound wise vs. Aurender since my streaming setup is at least up to par with both my vinyl and CD setups, and they are no slouch, also fully described in my system. If Aurender works great for many, great, but it's far from the only game in town and similar performance can be gotten for much less money in my experience. Whatever Aurender did to get such reputation on this site is obviously genius.
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.
It’s not that bad on Android. I spoke to them last week and they are doing updates to improve stability. I think some people are not setting permissions and it cuts out. I set permission to always on on the background and made a few other changes and it is much better. They said in the new few weeks.
Bluesound has its issues too. My Tab could not always find the Vault. I would have to close all programs and launch Vault. Minor inconvenience for such a great platform
The Aurender search function is much better. Going straight to Albums, Artists and Songs is much better. The Queue is much better , playlist compilation. All much better
One has to always remember that this tech is still sort of in its infancy. Fortunately these devices ( most of them ) get better through firmware updates. I’ll take some minor quirks if the sound quality is excellent, which it is.
As jjss49 said, there are many good streamers out there. There’s never been a better time to embrace streaming if you have been on the fence
I bought a Bluesound Vault 2i a few years ago and it totally changed the way I listened to music. In a few years I discovered more new music than 40 years of CD and vinyl….
That Aurender is perfect for me, it’s primarily what I do now, stream.
My problems with Aurender mimic'ed @cleeds and I had to cut my losses.
I replaced an N10 with a Roon Nucleus with an IFi Zen Stream endpoint at a lower price point and am experiencing better sound quality, excellent stability/reliability and a better user interface. YMMV.
Whichever ‘digital’ output you end up preferring from any of the Aurender transport (streamer) is largely depends on your DAC implementation of USB and legacy digital inputs like AES or SPDIF. As a long time Aurender user, I can say with utmost confidence that they are built to very high standards and no matter which digital output you use, Aurender will faithfully render the digital bits to your DAC. Another important consideration while choosing a streamer is the app interface. Once you get your replacement DAC, reach out to Aurender dealer for in-home audition. Good luck!
aurender no doubt makes real good stuff, as does innuos, auralic, lumin, red rose, grimm and so on -- roon users can go the nuc/nucleus route with 'a la carte' endpoints such as sonore products, bypassing the expensive all-in-one boxes sold by the 'luxury digital system integrators' named above
each company has worked hard and developed excellent solutions to streaming/digital music management... each of course has also made strategic choices on how to handle the software aspect, and each is wary, to varying degrees, of roon seizing control of the end use customer
i would think given how each company has developed its solutions, each company’s products may favor certain connection protocols, external clocking protocols, and so on... some thus may play better with certain other downstream dacs and how they implement connections ...
I own the N200, with my DAC I think it sounds better with SPDIF. It sounds good via USB but it's my DAC , not the N200's outputs.
My other back up DAC is a RME and it uses it's internal clock no matter the input type . So I really can't compare.
The Aurender sounds much better than the Vault it replaced, can play or copy ripped files from the Vault. It sounds great with Qobuz... really good, like I don't need to spin CDs type of good.
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.
USB is historically prone to transferring noise between devices. That’s why Aurender’s dedicated USB Audio output is physically and electrically isolated from the noise-generating CPU board to minimize noise in the sensitive audio interconnect.
The May DAC has the new and exclusive USB Enhanced module (L2 and KTE ONLY) which has our FPGA with the new Titanis 2.0 and custom firmware to improve USB Eye Pattern and reduce latency to near zero as well as reduce jitter to very very low levels. The USB module has completely new code written to optimize performance and reduce latency significantly. Low frequency performance (-40db) is also improved. The “enhanced” USB xmos module is twice as powerful/capable as the one that is used in the Spring2.
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.
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.
That is correct. Not only we have varying I2S standards, there is no consistency between I2s connectors among manufacturers of DAC / Streamers.
The software/DSP-level DSD-to-PCM conversion was aimed to accommodate compatibility with DACs that do not support DSD decoding on SPDIF or AES/EBU inputs. Typically, software/DSP-level DSD-to-PCM conversion almost always sounds terrible. That’s why Aurender’s transports like N10, N20 SPDIF / AES outputs allows an extremely high quality DSD-to-PCM conversion engine performed by FPGA using thousands of tap filters.
If you don’t prefer DSD to PCM conversion, then please use USB output on any of the Aurender streamers for high resolution files beyond 24bit/192kHz. BTW, N10 is now officially discontinued. You can still find good bargains on used N10’s but the newer N series is much improved over its predecessors.
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