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Pops/clicks with Aurender N100H + McIntosh C47 combo

I have had a N100H for several months an was using it feeding a Peachtree Nova500 without any issues. I recently replaced the Peachtree with a Mac C47+Wyred4Sound SX-1000R setup. Unfortunately, no matter how I change the settings in the Aurender (Fade In/Out, Time Delay, etc.) I get a sharp pop or click whenever I pause a track (streamed or played from the internal drive.) It wouldn’t be too big of a deal except that it is volume-dependent. When playing at higher levels, I’m concerned at the click may cause enough distortion to actually damage a driver in my speaker (likely the tweeter.) My short-term workaround is to always mute the C47 before I pause the track on the N100, but this is a serious pain and inconvenient....especially as my I’m not the only user of the gear. Another family member might forget to mute first and then....’bang!’  I've also noticed I can get the clicks sometimes when the resolution changes from one track to the next.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? Where you able to eliminate it? My only two options that I can think of now are to 1. swap the C47 for a different pre/dac combo or 2. swap the N100 for something like the Lumin U1 Mini.

I’ve already spent more than I had budgeted for this system so any changes suggested need to be equal or less to the $ I already have committed. Any help would be appreciated.

BTW...I emailed Aurender support and still haven’t gotten a response (3 days.)
jkscherk
jkscherk OP
43 posts
 
Aurender solved the problem.  I had extensive email exchanges with their Technical Support Manager;  awesome guy.  Turns out I'm not the only one whose had issues.  They had heard of the same problem from other customers.  He asked if they could push a beta firmware to my unit as that version has fixed the issue for others. Bam!!!  Problem solved.  It eliminated the problem for almost every instance.  I have heard the click only once now and it was at a greatly reduced level, and that was only when the resolution switched from 96 to 88...which is a rather seldom occurrence.  All clicks from pausing and skipping tracks are gone.   I'd consider it fixed.

There is also a somewhat common occurrence of DACs attenuating the output of the Aurender by as much as 70%, resulting in you needing to turn up the volume quite high on your pre to get to listenable levels.  Yep....the Mac is an offender there as well.  The Aurender team can go into thee machine and adjust the level to compensate.  So they did that as well!

All-in-all....I gotta say this is a quality team and responsive to boot.  Glad I didn't just jump ship to Lumin or something else without contacting them.
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
Great news on the high level of customer support from Aurender.
That alone has pushed the N100H right to the top of my next streamer list.
Thank you very much for the update!
jkscherk OP
43 posts
 
The only other one I'd consider would be Lumin.  All depends if you need onboard storage.
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
Just bit the bullet and purchased a lightly used N100H!
Hopefully great things will unfold.
Just downloaded the Conductor app which looks straight forward enough.
jkscherk OP
43 posts
 
The app is pretty straightforward.  Sometimes it can be frustrating how switching from local music to Tidal for example will change your underlying view;  you'll understand when you see it and get used to it.  I'm still tempted to try the Schiit Eitr USB-SPDIF converter to see if I can elevate the performance a bit more.  I haven't read much feedback of how good the Mac USB implementation is.  Given my recent experience, my guess is they focused on other parts of their DAC so maybe the coax input could be better!?
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