Auralic Aries vs Aurender X100 vs Melco N1Z

[Rufus McDufus]

Was the Aries brand new? I understand they improve somewhat after time (as do the others probably!).

[GuillaumeB]

Amabrok presented such a elaborate review, that there is not much to add for me....   

After the session we came more or less to the same conclusions on build quality and sound quality. I can't comment on operation, since I didn't operate the system. Having said that, I have to admit that it took me more effort to come to reliable conclusions than Amabrok. Maybe that was because the system and most of the music were new to me, or maybe Amabrok simply has better ears

Also for me, the Melco was the best of the three. The Melco sounded most organic, with the right tonal balance. The Aurender has a bit brighter tonal balance. The two are very close however, and I would definitely go for the Aurender based on the flawless operation. The Auralic Aries was clearly behind the Melco and Aurender. Cymbals sounded a bit smeared in comparison, and the whole sound was less organic. I would still give it a 7 though (instead of the 6 from Amabrok), but that may very well be owner's pride...       There was one aspect of sound quality that I could not really assess, and that is soundstage. Normally, the exact 3D positioning of instruments in the soundstage, and the overall sense of soundstage, are very important for me (which made me choose for Wadia + Chord Electronics + B&W Nautilus 803 + MIT cabling in my system in the Netherlands). But since I was listening outside the sweet spot, I can't really say anything about that; it seems to me that being in the sweet spot is quite important with planar loudspeakers like the MLs.

Which one would I choose, based on our shoutout? Clearly the Aurender. I have the Auralic now, and I won't upgrade immediately. But quality-wise, the Aurender would definitely fit better in my system. And if you look at the differences in both build quality and sound, the Aurender is definitely worth the higher price ($3500 vs $1500). To me, the Melco, although presenting the overall best sound, doesn't warrant the higher price.

Well summarized Eric!

Thanks for sharing your views and also thank you for working with me on this


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Brilliant work chaps, I know it isn't easy! 

Good point re soundstage too, funnily enough this is an area where I think AIR (in my setup!) falls a little short. I also wonder if the Devialet couldn't also improve in this regard. I know there have also been some questions marks raised about the stereo imaging on dual mono models post D-Premier so it's possibly difficult to disentangle which part is causing what...

I did also notice that the Aries improved with time so Rufus' question is a good one.

Guillaume

[amabrok]

Was the Aries brand new? I understand they improve somewhat after time (as do the others probably!).

Hi Rufus. No, the Aires was not new. It was a demo unit used by the local dealer in the showroom

However I cannot confirm how many hours of operations it has logged


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[PhilP]

If an HDD fails in an Aurender what's the procedure for replacing it?  Is this something that a consumer can do (including restoring from back-up) or does it have to go back to a dealer/manufacturer?  I would much prefer to have an external an HDD or SDD.

Thanks.

EDIT: I read in the Aurender manual that it is possible to play music from an external HDD or even a NAS which is great! I couldn't see any mention of the possibility to swap the internal HDD or how to back it up?

EDIT2: FWIW, I just read on Computeraudiophile that it is physically possible for a user to replace a failed HDD (though the effects of this on the warranty aren't clear) but that the disk then has to be reformatted. Apparently this can be done remotely by the Aurender support team (great ) or by a dealer who has special s/w to do it.

"Aurender music servers don't have any built-in disk redundancy. This means when a hard drive fails and is subsequently replaced, the music must be copied back to the unit." Apparently its fairly straightforward to configure a NAS to make the backups making the Aurender discs look like local folders. There's no need to put any s/w on the Aurender itself to make backups. The main downside is that according to the manual it can take 5-6 hrs to copy 1TB of music to the Aurender - still, hopefully it shouldn't be necessary to do this too often

Overall these solutions seems pretty good! Now, if only it could stream Qobuz....


EDIT 3: Computeraudiophile also commented that "The X100L is a great buy, but it's not as good as the W20 even when only considering the USB output. The final sound quality also depends on the DAC used. Some DACs like the Ayre QB-9 DSD may perform identically connected via USB to either Aurender model because it's completely immune to power signals from the server." Too bad it costs so much.

[amabrok]

If an HDD fails in an Aurender what's the procedure for replacing it?  Is this something that a consumer can do (including restoring from back-up) or does it have to go back to a dealer/manufacturer?  I would much prefer to have an external an HDD or SDD.

Thanks.

EDIT: I read in the Aurender manual that it is possible to play music from an external HDD or even a NAS which is great! I couldn't see any mention of the possibility to swap the internal HDD or how to back it up?

That is correct. There is a USB port for external storage. And yes Aurender does support playback from NAS.

For backup, Aurender built in storage appears on the local network as a network drive and as such you can backup all its content to another hard drive either manually or using any backup tool

Regarding replacement of internal HDD, I will check the possibility/ease of that and whether it can be done by the owner or does it have to be sent to a professional service center.


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[GuillaumeB]

All I'm looking for is a high quality streamer that will stream Qobuz and/or Tidal now and which doesn't have an optical drive or internal HDD (for reliability reasons).

From my very limited experience of online streaming services, and admittedly only with Tidal so far, I am getting the distinct impression that there are some sound quality compromises.

So if we take my totaldac d1, I have a number of ways of listening to music, based on the firmware which I decide to flash on the micro-SD card:

- MPD only (with and without pre-loading) - using the MPAD or MPOD apps on iDevices
- UPnP using a standard UPnP control point (as Amabrok did with the Melco)
- Airplay
- Ipeng app on iPad (this is using the Logitech Media Server inside the totaldac)

Tidal is only supported inside the Ipeng8 app and it is a bugger to set up and get working. 

If I take a CD I know well, and compare between Tidal Ipeng and MPD only, the difference is huge... like a 6 and a 10 to use Amabrok's scoring system. I actually got it up to 7 using my iPad to stream via Airplay... but 7 v 10? I spent all this money on my system with all the silly tweaks etc to end up with 7? No way!

Now I'm not saying Tidal isn't a great thing... quite the opposite! I'm actually really keen to see if there is a way I could get the sound to improve by a point or two. So I'm going to try the Akurate DS and see what that can do first.

Anyway I'm digressing from Amabrok and EricDH's excellent piece of work but I wanted to make this point nonetheless. 

Guillaume

[PhilP]

Thanks Amabrok - I found some of the info Computeraudiophile and in the Aurender manual and was typing it in while you were typing your message.  Looks to be a very good product. I hope you continue to enjoy it

[PhilP]

Hi Guillaume, it sounds like you've had plenty of "fun" trying the various options.  I've had a lot more experience with Qobuz than with Tidal and have made comparisons several times between Qobuz Desktop and iTunes CD Rips on my Mac streamed via AIR.  A lot of the time the differences are not very significant though I still do tend to end up buying CDs or downloads (usually 24-bit) of the albums I really like as the SQ is slightly better (and I can play them in the car).

My understanding is that Qobuz desktop uses a 3 second buffer for music which is then streamed bit-perfectly to the soundcard i.e. AIR.  If this is the case and the music source files are identical then I can't really see why the SQ should be any different from locally stored files played via iTunes.  Apart, of course, from the 'noise' which the Mac or other components may introduce....?

[amabrok]

All I'm looking for is a high quality streamer that will stream Qobuz and/or Tidal now and which doesn't have an optical drive or internal HDD (for reliability reasons).

From my very limited experience of online streaming services, and admittedly only with Tidal so far, I am getting the distinct impression that there are some sound quality compromises.

So if we take my totaldac d1, I have a number of ways of listening to music, based on the firmware which I decide to flash on the micro-SD card:

- MPD only (with and without pre-loading) - using the MPAD or MPOD apps on iDevices
- UPnP using a standard UPnP control point (as Amabrok did with the Melco)
- Airplay
- Ipeng app on iPad (this is using the Logitech Media Server inside the totaldac)

Tidal is only supported inside the Ipeng8 app and it is a bugger to set up and get working. 

If I take a CD I know well, and compare between Tidal Ipeng and MPD only, the difference is huge... like a 6 and a 10 to use Amabrok's scoring system. I actually got it up to 7 using my iPad to stream via Airplay... but 7 v 10? I spent all this money on my system with all the silly tweaks etc to end up with 7? No way!

Now I'm not saying Tidal isn't a great thing... quite the opposite! I'm actually really keen to see if there is a way I could get the sound to improve by a point or two. So I'm going to try the Akurate DS and see what that can do first.

Anyway I'm digressing from Amabrok and EricDH's excellent piece of work but I wanted to make this point nonetheless. 

Guillaume

Thanks for sharing that Guillaume. Now I'm really eager to learn what the outcome of a TotalDac D1 vs Aurender X100 shot out would be?


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[GuillaumeB]

Thanks for sharing that Guillaume. Now I'm really eager to learn what the outcome of a TotalDac D1 vs Aurender X100 shot out would be?

Hi amabrok I'd need to try and source one since none of my friendly dealers stock Aurender. 

Guillaume