I haven’t experienced any problems with Aurender’s conductor app, which I utilize exclusively on a 9th generation iPad. I just purchased an N100H 2TB model, used, from TMR and so far I am fairly pleased with it.
Frankly, after having a Bluesound Vault as well as a Sony HAPZ1es in the past, I think that Aurender could improve a few things - either one of the aforementioned apps had a much friendlier interface, and a far superior ability at capturing album art. Some of the errors the Aurender makes with album art and indentification are hilarious.
As I had done before with the Vault and HAP I want to use the Aurender solely as a player for my 700+ cd collection. (Which I’ve saved on a SSD hard drive over the years) I don’t really want a computer anywhere near my two channel rig, so after I load the hard drives the only connections I have are directly to my amp and/or, as with the Aurender, a separate DAC. (The Vault has a self contained cd slot to for ripping, and I used a cheap-ass $89 Apple cd drive to rip into the HAP) Easy peasey, not to mention time consuming. I saved all of my files as FLAC. Both the Vault and the HAP contained 1 TB hard drives
I am now searching to update my DAC, which is currently a cheap, old Jolida FX Glass Tubed Dac. I just purchased a used Mytek Liberty believing that it would bring me up to current Dac technologies. This has developed very quickly into a rather problematic experience to say the least.
I assumed that the Mytek Liberty’s connection to my setup would be as simple as the Jolida’s was. A USB A-B cable, a couple of RCA’s, and the power cord. Voila!
Not so-o-o-o-o fast there…As I mentioned earlier I operate the Aurender, as I had with the other brands, through an iPad. While a desktop Mac has some latitude for installing audio drivers, an iPad does not. The first thing I had to do with the Mytek was to download its driver - which I couldn’t do. Well, actually I did download the driver but it failed to appear anywhere on the iPad. Go figure. It’s there somewhere, but exactly where …I have no idea.
So, the Mytek Liberty appears to be strictly for users who listen from a proper computer, not an iPad or anything similar. (I guess) Mytek does not provide an app for their driver, which would be super useful to people like myself, and in all likelihood expand their customer base appreciably. I emailed Mytek’s U. S. office explaining my dilemma with incorporating the Liberty into my setup, but so far I haven’t received a reply.
Anyway…I truly enjoy the Aurender. It’s an impressively built machine, and their support is top notch. Easy to download updates, pretty easy to use straight out of the box.
My renewed search for a DAC will be conducted with a small number of brands - Schiit, Benchmark, Cambridge Audio, and possibly Musical Fidelity. With the exception of the Cambridge I am considering, most of the ones I’m researching are $600 or higher. (I can be a cheap bastard sometimes) All I desire to do is swap out the old Dac and install a new one without getting over-involved with downloading stuff to make it work.
Cheers!
