jastralfu.
What USB cable were using from your MacBook, when you made your comparisons?
750$ Intel NUC vs $6000 Aurender N200: I don't hear the difference
I finally plunged into the source is as important as the DAC belief that is quite prevalent here and decided to test out Aurender N200. And given I have a very highend DAC, thought if the N200 pans out I would go for the N20 or N30.
I was expecting the N200 to blow away my Intel NUC which is 10th gen, core i7, 8GB and running Roon Rock BUT I am switching back and forth between USB playing the Roon Rock, and Co-axial playing Aurender N200, and I don't hear much of a difference maybe a hair, or not even that.
A few caveats: 1) Roon Rock is playing Quboz, N200 is playing Tidal (I am unable to get Qobuz login to the N200 for reason I don't understand).
2) I am comparing Coaxial on N200, USB on Roon Rock.
Caveat #2 can be ignored because I don't hear a difference between Coaxial and USB output of N200.
So either this is an "Emperor has no clothes" moment or I am missing something big. Any thoughts on what I might be missing before I send this N200 back to the dealer on Monday.
Rest of my system: Nagra TUBE DAC -> Accuphase E-650 -> Devore O96 and all Acoustic Revive wiring.
- ...
- 211 posts total
It doesn’t matter what usb cable was used. Comparing mac/ddc/dac combo or even just mac/dac combo to a one box solution such as Rose 250a isn’t a comparison. Apples and oranges. The right comparison would be to feed the signal from Rose to Denafrips dac or to the ddc/dac combo and compare that to the mac/denafrips combo. Compare streamers alone. Or compare a denafrips dac to Rose dac using mac as streamer feeding denafrips vs mac feeding Rose. What you accomplished is you misinformed yourself and now you’re posting this BS here. |
Nagra tube dac owner here. A few thoughts: 1. the digital part of the Nagra -- with its DSD upsampling -- does a lot of lifting. I would say server/streamer matching is much less important with the Nagra, than it is with other dacs I’ve used. 2. the analog output stage of the Nagra is one of the best in the business. This is of course what Nagra is legendary for. Analog, tape specifically. 3. notwithstanding 1, there is a clearly synergistic streamer to pair with the Nagra, and that’s the Playback Designs MPS-X. Designed by AK, who designed the digital module in the dac. Just a streamer, so you can continue to use your NUC as the server. This replaced a Grimm MU1 in my system. |
There are two sides to this coin. I agree with you…whatever floats your boat and makes you happy…that’s side one of the coin. The side two of it is the inconsistency in the A/B testing between the two use cases, the subjective nature of it all and the part where the inaccurate data posted here will result in misguiding others who are potentially striving to improve their systems. May be I’m completely off track here, but here are my $0.05 cents (inflation adjusted). |
- 211 posts total