Is My 7 Year Old Aires G1 Still Relevant?

. I am familiar with the Aries G2.1 and G2.2. The G2.1 sonically was below par with some of its competitors and the 2.2 was a large sonic upgrade. So, it is likely the Altair would likely be a very significant upgrade. 

From a long term perspective. If you are planning on continuously upgrading your system far into the future. It might be better to upgrade the DAC and then the streamer separately. But it is dependent on your strategy, preferences and long term goals. 

I use an Aries G1 outputting to a Yamamoto YDA-1 Dac and I think it sounds great and it's been totally reliable. I'm sure the Altair sounds great but I'm personally a fan of keeping streamer and Dac separate it makes upgrading easier.

There's nothing wrong with your G1, it is still great. I have the G2.2 and love it but it is a significant investment, and I really can't say how much better it is. One would expect at least some improvement hard to say if it is worth the cost. 

I think if your G1 still runs smooth and feels snappy when navigating your music library, and if there aren't a bunch of new features that you feel you are missing out on, then maybe just stick with it? Or if you can find a dealer to let you try out a G2.2 that would be ideal, compare them directly and see.

I personally didn't like the Altaire series nearly as much as the Aries paired with a nice external DAC.

May be worth looking at the Hoer Wenge psu upgrade, I've read great things about the sonic uplift this mod gives.

I agree with the comment above. That upgrade is really easy and will breathe some new life into your G1. Keep in mind that (in my opinion) you'll have to spend a bit to beat what you already have. I compared the rose 150 to my modded G1 and I ended up sending the 150 back. 

If you like how it sounds is all that matters. 

Thank you everyone. I'm coming to the conclusion that my G1 feeding my Harmony DAC is probably not going to be improved upon dramatically unless I enter the +$10K arena (list price of course) for an "All in One" unit like the Bartok (used), or the Esoteric N-05XD.