Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Matt, ok, I am going to do it, Told you so matt!, all those that undermined me to look like I do not know what I was speaking about earlier in this thread when I said how many hours the Esoteric K-01 player takes to do total burn-in of this unit, one word, Fxxx oxx!, do not ever doubt me again!, as you can read what matt is doing for hours of burn in for this unit, I am absolutly correct!

Matt,I am sorry for my prior post, but you remember when those few posters bashed me and tried to make me appear to be a fool, and question my exsperience as a well seasoned audiophile when I told everyone on this thread how long the Esoteric K-01 took for total burn-in of the unit?, the above post is only directed to those who belittled me, Not to anyone else, they know who they are,they deserve what I said to them above!

Matt the Aries has a firmware update due out in a day or so that will allow for Local USB use.. You'll now also be able to just hook up a USB drive directly to the Aries. As far as sound quality goes I'd certainly expect a unit with Femto Clocks and an external Linear power supply to out perform a computer. If nothing else it's got a way better from factor, and it's got lots of internal horsepower for upgrades in firmware. And Auralic is spending big money on programmers to make thing work as they should..

Goose is right. Do the scans with a good mic. What I have found is that minimal acoustic treatments, including sidewall absorbers, rearwall scattering(diffusors) and a couple of bass traps is about right. Anything more is overkill. Then apply the EQ with Amarra. This will make a bigger difference on bass resonances than any treatments.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Erik - the advantage of the Aurilic Aries IMO is the Ethernet/network interface. If it uses a minimal Linux kernel to generate and output USB, then it may sound better than a computer, maybe not. All of this effort to reduce jitter in the source device is unnecessary if the output is S/PDIF, AES or I2S. The issue here is generating USB to make it compatible with USB DACs.

The best way to do Ethernet is to go directly to I2S and avoid the S/W and H/W overhead of USB entirely. This is what my new "Interchange" module does. Interchange can be swapped in to replace any of my Async USB interface modules, on my Off-Ramp converters or Overdrive DACs. It gives you wired Ethernet direct to I2S, supporting up to 384kHz and double DSD, just like the Aries. WiFi can be added with an external device, but I suspect most will use it wired. It is DLNA, so some of the extra features of the Aries are not supported.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio