Mac AIR v MiND 180 v Auralic ARIES v totaldac d1 server

[GuillaumeB]

Day three of back to back comparisons between AIR, Aries and the totaldac d1... this time with Rufus sitting in the sweet spot!

We decided to focus a bit more on A+/AIR and the Aries this time.

Couple of changes:

- we selected "direct mode" in the A+ settings
- we used an Entreq Apollo USB cable (with Apollo ground cable) between the Aries and the Devialet
- we replaced the Transparent AES/EBU with an Entreq Apollo AES/EBU (with Apollo ground cable)

Results:

- we preferred A+ with Direct Mode to A+ with just use maximum I/O buffer size selected. There wasn't a huge difference between the two but with Direct Mode it did seem slightly less bright/analytical (not that it was that bad but you get my meaning).
- the Aries with a USB output definitely seems better than AES/EBU. I had also found this a few days ago when I first tried the Aries with the USB cable so we can't only put this down to burn-in.
- moving on to the totaldac d1 it was a substantial (read big) improvement over the other two, despite the change of AES/EBU cable to the Entreq one. Once we were playing music through the totaldac it was very difficult to go back to the other streaming methods.
- So in first place by a long margin: totaldac d1, A+/AIR was in second and the Aries came in third place.. we both felt that the Aries had improved a fair bit since our first audition last week.

I'm sure Rufus will fill in with a lot more detail since he made loads of notes!

Guillaume