Auralic Aries vs Aurender X100 vs Melco N1Z

[amabrok]

Hi are you using the Melco as a transport? i.e. do you have the new firmware? I understand there is also a direct mode...

Guillaume

I will opt for a level playground to try as much as possible to have a fair comparison. having said that, i will avoid the direct mode setup and will rely on the USB connection to have an apple to apple comparison mainly to my Aurender. Also in my comparison i will play exact tracks from internal storage to rule out any impact from the local network, of course the exception here would Auralic Aries as it has no built in storage.

the thing that bugs me is that i can't get the Aries >> USB >> D400 connection to work (currently only relying on digital coax). my understanding is that there was a firmware update for Aries that enables that. Any idea how to sort this. Ideally I want all three streamers on the same USB port using the same USB cable