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Melco v Aurender
#21
Hey Rufus.. Not to hijack the thread but what do you think of your Raidho's ? I'm considering the C1.1 as an upgrade from my Proac D30R
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#22
I'll send a PM!
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#23
Lovely day today at Nick's (cc1) with Guillaume and Alasdair from Oxford Audio Consultants who'd brought some toys along - principally a (black) Melco N1A and an Aurender N100H*.  Also of great interest was a rather nice-looking Chord Sarum Tuned ARAY USB cable.
Equipment used was Nick's striking-looking Vivid B1 speakers and a D200.

OK, first up the Melco. Played quite a few tracks with Nick's usual USB cable (sorry - I didn't ask what it was!). Sounding pretty good. That nice Melco rather analogue sound. It was sounding all quite laid-back and polite. Very nice but I had a bit of a yearning for it to be a little more forward, a little more top-end detail.
Step forward the Sarum USB cable. Wow. This was a big difference. I used to own a few Sarum TA cables and this instantly gave me the same feeling - big soundstage, more detail, air between instruments. A bit more top-end. Just what was needed in fact! It seems to breathe life into the music. This cable is a great demonstrator for those who are sceptical USB cables can make any difference! I was secretly cursing my recent purchase of another USB cable without trying the Chord...

After playing quite a lot of music and thoroughly enjoying everything, next up the Aurender. It's slickly packaged - nice looking casework and frankly a bit prettier than the Melco. Also the control apps are in a different league (well Melco don't actually produce any control apps yet so for that it's down to standard UPnP controllers such as Kinsky).  First impressions - brighter, a little less bass than the Melco. The bass resolution seemed really good but it seemed a little lacking in weight. I wondered how old the unit was - it was brand new out of the box. This might explain it.  It definitely improved over the next 1/2-1 hour or so but probably still retained those characteristics a little against the Melco.

Back to the Melco again. Now I have to admit I find the Melco more analogue than the Aurender and I found it a bit more compelling to listen to. I think in fairness the Aurender should have a few more hours/days of running to really get sounding good so maybe not a totally fair test. The Aurender as a package is really nice. The Melco is quite a bit more spartan, partly by design of course. But then again it's also a fair bit less expensive. I am a tad biased towards the Melco as I own one and am well used to it by now.


Right, so a few more little tests. What I originally wanted to try was Nick's UpTone (Amber) Regen with the Melco.  After a bit of back-to-back listening I still felt a little confused how I felt about it!  The Regen seemed to enhance the detail a little, but perhaps add just a touch of harshness. Without it it sounded a little smoother to me, perhaps a bit more musical. I think I could live with both, changing it on a regular basis as taste permits.  It would be interesting to hear the Regen with different power supplies...

Finally we tried a few USB cables against the Sarum. First off Alasdair's Computer Audio Design USB cable (apologies if I got the brand wrong) which had the power split off from the data lines. It was good, nice detail, but a bit flat in terms of soundstage compared with the Sarum. Bass was less apparent too.
Next up my Totaldac D1 cable. Initially I thought it was quite similar to the CAD cable. As time went on I felt there was more bass weight, and perhaps a bit more musical. It is quite a subtle cable and needs a bit of time.  It was still definitely missing that holographic soundstage of the Sarum though.

So, big revelation of the day for me - that Sarum USB cable is brilliant!



* corrected model number. I mistakenly wrote X100H originally.
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#24
Thanks for the write-up, Rufus, it sounds like you a had a very interesting day Smile  Please can you confirm which Aurender model you tried - you mention X100H but I think you must mean either X100L or N100H. I doubt if there's much difference in SQ between them though the N100H has an LPS and could possibly sound better. It sounds like you clearly preferred the Melco but iit is a shame that the Aurender wasn't run-in; as you say, it may not have been a fair comparison.

I have only ever tried two USB cables as part of my hi-fi - the Chord Sarum and a Canon printer cable and can confirm the former is much better. It only has two drawbacks - absurd price and it's not very flexible... The Sarum I tried was white - not sure it they all are? - I honestly didn't think it looked that great.

http://www.chord.co.uk/product/chord-sar...to-type-b/


EDIT: just a thought - you can buy a Melco N1A plus Chord Sarum for less than the price of an Aurender N100H Wink
IMac macOS 10.15.3 (no link to Devialet Sad ) / MacBook Pro Retina OS X 10.14.4 / Linn LP12 / Devialet 200 Wilson Benesch Discovery. 
Qobuz Desktop Latest Version / Audirvana 3.2.18 / Audirvana Remote / iTunes 12.9 / AIR 3.0.4 / Wi-Fi / FW 8.1.0 / SAM 50%
Cambridge, UK (Updated 27th February, 2020)
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#25
That's the right cable. It's not that bad looking! It is a little inflexible though.
As soon as I wrote the Aurender model number I had second thoughts. I'm hoping someone else will come along in a minute and dig me out of the hole I've dug for myself by giving the correct model! Bit silly writing a review if I don't know what the flippin' product is ...
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#26
(06-Jul-2015, 21:08)Rufus McDufus Wrote: That's the right cable. It's not that bad looking! It is a little inflexible though.
As soon as I wrote the Aurender model number I had second thoughts. I'm hoping someone else will come along in a minute and dig me out of the hole I've dug for myself by giving the correct model! Bit silly writing a review if I don't know what the flippin' product is ...

Looking back it was GuillaumeB in post #1 who started calling it an X100H so if I were you I would would blame it on him Wink

Do you know which version of FW you were using and whether SAM was on?

Thanks.
IMac macOS 10.15.3 (no link to Devialet Sad ) / MacBook Pro Retina OS X 10.14.4 / Linn LP12 / Devialet 200 Wilson Benesch Discovery. 
Qobuz Desktop Latest Version / Audirvana 3.2.18 / Audirvana Remote / iTunes 12.9 / AIR 3.0.4 / Wi-Fi / FW 8.1.0 / SAM 50%
Cambridge, UK (Updated 27th February, 2020)
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#27
Rufus - the Aurender was the N100H

PhilP - we were using the latest FW, 8.1.2, and SAM was on the whole time

It was a very interesting afternoon - it was great to meet Guillaume and Rufus. And a big thank you to Ali for bringing the kit down! Got to pretty much concur with Rufus' opinions. The Sarum cable was indeed excellent!
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#28
If it's a new one it's the N100H.. Also I made this mistake when I got mine, and it's fairly easy to do.. There are THREE USB outputs on the unit.. two are right under the ethernet port.. the third is off to the side and says "USB AUDIO"  the two USB ports under the Lan port will output music, so it's easy to hook it up using to one of those since the unit will output from those, although they are really designed for hooking up a USB drive to. The USB port that's off to the side is the one for playing music.. it sounds way better than the other two.. Don't ask me how I know  :-)  And yes it does take a good while to get right sounding.. say about 72 hours..
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#29
cc1 - thanks Smile
IMac macOS 10.15.3 (no link to Devialet Sad ) / MacBook Pro Retina OS X 10.14.4 / Linn LP12 / Devialet 200 Wilson Benesch Discovery. 
Qobuz Desktop Latest Version / Audirvana 3.2.18 / Audirvana Remote / iTunes 12.9 / AIR 3.0.4 / Wi-Fi / FW 8.1.0 / SAM 50%
Cambridge, UK (Updated 27th February, 2020)
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#30
ErikM - we were definitely using the correct USB audio output but it is probably the unit could have benefited from further use as it did certainly improve over the short time we used it.
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