Aria Streamers

[Confused]

I visited the Bristol Sound and Vision show at Bristol yesterday.  A couple of products looked like they might be of interest to Devialet owners, the Aria Streamer and the Aria Mini.

On display they had a full size Aria steamer with 2TB storage and built in CD ripping (dBpoweramp) for £3799.  (DAC free)  This is also available with 2TB SSD for an extra £700.  I think with the right rack or set up, the Aria could be a good match in a Devialet based system, it is a similar kind of size to a Devialet, albeit not as slim, and has a brushed stainless steal look to the finish, although it is actually brushed aluminium.  It looked good, certainly not super flash or anything, but I for one would be happy to have one on my rack.

They were also showing the Aria mini, which looks like a classy iPad stand.  Without DAC this was £1995 without storage, £2295 with 2TB or £2795 with 1TB SSD.

They also do a kit to turn an Oppo 105 into an Aria streamer! 

The iPad control app looked good and appeared to work well. (looks very similar to Apple remote)  In fact both the Aria streamers looked like they would make good companions with a Devialet. 

This leads to the question of how they compare to the Aurender and other obvious rivals.  The Aurender X100 for example, is a little cheaper in the UK, and has a nicer display.  The Aria mini would be up against the cheaper 3D Lab Nano, NAD M50 and others.

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The Aria would have to be very good sound quality wise to make the short list.  I am told that home demo in the UK is possible.

I think this looks great. I think in that price range we also need to consider the Melco N1A which is also now a transport thanks to a firmware update. Although the Melco doesn't have a CD ripper... I think the Antipodes does though?

It's becoming a very interesting area of the market. 

Guillaume

Melco were at the show and had the N1A on display.  To be honest I thought it looked a little "home made"!  As an example, a couple of stands away, Pioneer were displaying the new N-70 streamer.  The Pioneer looks like a Rolls Royce premium product in comparison to the Melco.  (In fact the N-70 does look rather smart)  Sound quality is a different matter of course, and on this I have no basis to comment.

An interesting area of the market?  I could not agree more Guillaume!