Streamer? Aurender's "caching streaming" ? how important is this feature?

I love my N200.   Sound quality is exceptional,  great machine 

OP, If tne Aurender N100H is in your price range and more is not. Absolutely it is worth the money. Aurender produces outstanding components. That is less than half price and is less than 8 years old.

@blisshifi 

Thank you 🙏 

@lalitk I will ask, but I know two things:

1. The conductor app is backwards compatible across all Aurender units, though the settings menus are different depending on the unit that is being used. 

2. Both the N10 and N100 have had firmware/software upgrades in October, so while they may be legacy units it seems there is still support. 

@blisshifi 

May I know if Aurender is still supporting N100 or N10 (both discontinued) as far as future software upgrades? 

@audiocanada 

If you can’t fork money for N150 then N100 would be a nice upgrade over Node. 

@audiocanada The N100H is a good price for a used unit, but it is also Aurender's most entry level component, was introduced in 2015, and is now discontinued. I would encourage you to look into the Aurender N150 or N200, which were both released in the last year. While the price difference is somewhat significant ($3500 and $6000 USD respectively), the N200 delivers at the caliber of the Lumin X1 you mentioned (The X1 has a DAC, the N200 does not), whereas the N150 is a step down at a much more accessible price range.

Significant advancements have been made to improve the sound quality across these newer units. Moore's law takes into effect here, so plan to invest in a solution that will last you for the years to come over a unit that has already been out for closer to a decade.

In full disclosure I am an authorized Aurender dealer.

@audiocanada @oddiofyl 

I have the Aurender N200 for about 4 months. Love it. The 100h is a good deal, but if you want to store your digital music on it, make sure 2TB is enough for you. Yes, 2TB is a lot of music, but I managed to collect more and therefore went with an N200. 

I would add Bricasti to your list.  

a local seller has a used 100h for 1200 usd

is that a good deal?

I've been advised that my node is the weak link in my system

wondering how I can get a significant upgrade without getting into X1 territory

the two most inexpensive options at the moment appear to be a aurender 100h and/or lumin u2 mini with upgraded power supply

@oddiofyl

Congratulations. I bet you are excited. Look forward to hearing your impressions. I suspect you will find this a nice upgrade over the Bluesound.

I will definitely post my opinion, however my system is a bit hobbled since selling my preamp and putting my old trusty SFL-1 back in the chain.  
 

I am a few months away from receiving my new preamp I’m having built.   Either way I should hear an improvement…..  to what extent I won’t quite find out until November or December 

I have a PS Audio PerfectWave MkII DAC which has a buffering and reclocking feature they call a "Digital Lens." I'm not sure what the cashing feature on a streamer would do for me. It might be cheaper to get a DAC with a buffering feature than to get it in a streamer.

BTW, I stream through an ASUS gaming laptop. A FLAC or Qobuz file sounds the same as the corresponding CD to my ears. I partly credit this to the DAC's buffering and reclocking feature. Whatever noise or digital nasties that the laptop is generating are taken care of by the DAC.

@oddiofyl  I would love to hear everything you have to say about the N200 once you have it and how you like it, how much better it is than what you have SQ wise. It's on my future upgrade radar. Thank you.

I am expecting the Aurender N200 tomorrow or Thursday and part of the reason I went with it was it's playback from memory.    It makes sense to play streaming media back that way.   

PS Audio is about to come out with their next DAC and the man that designed both hardware and software has gone through pages of posts explaining in great detail the myriad of tradeoffs in design.  The number of decisions made are staggering, but when they make a change, they then listen to the results.  It isn't just having a buffer, but companies like Aurender have many years of iteration behind their present product.  My iFi Zen Stream has a buffer, but it isn't an Aurender.

So do most reputable player programs.

Heck, my Raspberry Pi running moOde offers "caching". In the options it's called the audio buffer and the max size is 64 MB. For a stereo 24/192 file, that's about a minute's worth of music. It can also prefetch the next song in the queue and put that in memory.

thank you, so which of their competitors offer caching?

@audiocanada I’ve posted a lot on the forums lately in response to people’s inquiries on Aurender, and hopefully people aren’t getting tired of me. In transparency, I am also an Aurender dealer, always happy to work with folks. 

To add to Carlsbad on SSD caching committing files to memory, it’s not just about giving the streamer full control, but also has much to do with noise reduction. The 240GB NvME SSD drive inside the unit is lodged into the board, so there is no wiring between it and the remainder of the hardware. It is also very fast since files are committed to memory, so in combination with the great clocks Aurender provides, the sampling/timing is much more “in focus” than playing it straight from the internet. Think of it like your computer’s RAM, and just like current is important with any amplifier, instantaneous access and delivery is crucial for stellar digital audio. 

I highly recommend Aurender for their excellent sound quality for the money. That is all they do is streaming. I own two after a very exhaustive search.

what did you get?

which streamer brands have this feature?

i don't see the terminolgy on the sites from others like innous and aurulic

Aurender isn't the only manufacture using a cache.  

Less expensive streamers don't use a cache.  I had one I really liked for $300, I think $400 retail.

I upgraded to a $4500 streamer (not aurender) with a large cache.  It was a slight improvement.  

The cache allows the file to be played from memory rather than as it streams so that the streamer has full control of the playback.

Jerry