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Auralic Aries

Since getting my DAC I’ve been using Tidal via my laptop as my primary source, but the noise from the PC usb connection has gotten to be insufferable. So I’ve been looking at some dedicated streamers. The Aurender and Lumin gear seemed to be pretty much out of my budget, so I turned my eye to the Auralic Aries, Cambridge CXN, and Pro-ject Streambox. The onboard DAC and automatic upsampling on the Cambridge didn’t appeal to me, and I had I hard time seeing myself paying over $800 for Pro-ject’s suped up rPi, whereas I’ve read nothing but good things about Auralic. So today I won an auction for a pre-owned Aries with linear power supply for $695 including shipping. How’d I do? Seemed like a reasonable price to me...

Anyone know of any known issues to look out for on a pre-owned unit?

rfnoise
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,164 posts
 
Brother hasAries Mini, LPS into a Lampizator Amber II… very nice

have fun
ghosthouse's avatar
ghosthouse
4,321 posts
 
+whatever on Aries, @rfnoise.  Hope you enjoy yours for a long time.

I also have an Aries Mini. Blame jond. Bought soon after he did. Never a lick of trouble and NOT noisy. I run wirelessly and use an iFi power supply (with their proprietary noise reduction). Run the Aries Mini via USB to Schiit Eitr to Schiit Gungnir. Control is via their Lightning DS app using an ancient iPhone. Auralic has updated software (and firmware?) several times over the years. The only little eccentricity worth reporting is on graphics. I burn my CDs to an external hard drive in ALAC and when the CD is accompanied by artwork from Apple, the Aries won’t display it. BUT if I have gone on the ’net to find artwork that Apple could not, for whatever reason, the Aries does show that. Metadata is unaffected in those instances, shows just fine in either case.
Very satisfied with sound quality.

Having said all that, I am sore tempted by the Aries G1. But at nearly 5x what I spent on the Mini, I am resisting. Especially given that I suspect it will yield, at most, an incremental improvement over the Mini. Am ready to hear from others that made the jump and found otherwise. The other consideration is that gear in my modest system is not the limiter of music enjoyment. It’s the recording quality (assuming composition and performance are "worthwhile") that’s the biggest factor in that regard.
kmmd's avatar
kmmd
73 posts
 
I’ve been using the Aries G2.1 for about a year, installed a Samsung EVO SSD and haven’t experienced any “noise” when connected to a Yggy or May KTE via USB. Both streamer and DAC are powered by a Shunyata Everest. Noise with a Holo Audio May KTE DAC is ah lol.
I also love the Auralic forums, Lightning DS app, firmware and software support and upgrades. I may try an Aurender at some point, but for now, I’m very satisfied with what I have.
Happy listening!

Ken
jond's avatar
jond
5,979 posts
 
@ghosthouse Glad to hear you’re still digging your Mini and don’t worry I always get blamed ;) And I am with you curious about a G1 in my case mostly because my Mini is now 5 years old wondering how long a lifespan it has.


@kmmd Agreed the Auralic forums are a nice place to hang out and I think LDS is one of the best streaming apps out there.
ghdprentice
7,598 posts
 
The noise in the Aries G2 is having a high noise floor… not a sssssh coming out of the speakers. Just in case someone thought that was what I was talking about.
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