Sound Quality


First off, I am pleading ignorance here, so my apologies up front, but I need some help on figuring out what this digital stuff is all about. It was simple, just to pull out a CD and play it, but with streaming and such, it seems to be a whole different ball of wax.

After finally finishing the remodel on my home, I've have had a bit of time to sit down and listen to my system. My Aurender N200 came with an SD card loaded with music. Most of it is ripped from hybrid SACDs or at 16bit- 44.1kHz "Original Mastering Recording" CDs, (some are DSF files some WAV files, but all sound the same to me). The music sounds flat and dull but when I play the equivalent song on Tidal in 16bit-44.1 kHz it sounds much better.

I have a second SD card  with some HD Tracks CDs at 24 bit-96 kHz that I which sound really good through the N200. Maybe understandable being hi-res, but some say they can't hear a big difference between the two, but I sure can in this instance.

I understand that up sampling, DSD and HQ Player can even bring better sound to the table, but I'm having enough trouble with just the basics here, that stuff is way over my head. 

I'd like to rip a couple of my own CDs to a new SD card and try it to compare with the SD card that came with the N200. What is the best method to do this?

As always, your thought & comments are much appreciated!

128x128navyachts

“Even further to that, how can I take the files that are on the SD card that's in the N200 and move them elsewhere?”
@navyachts 

I hope this is a temporary move? Ideally, you want to play files stored on N200 SSD (solid state drive) not elsewhere on your network. 

You gotten some good advise, getting a better DAC would be the next logical step. Patience is the key when it comes to optimizing your streaming setup. You’re off to great start with N200. As far as hearing differences between stored vs streaming files, it would come down to original mastering and downstream components. If you’re planning to rip CD’s, I would select WAV as ripping format since WAV encoding uses no compression. Have fun! 

@audphile1 Says DSF Files not DSD files

@bkeske no, not USB thumb drive. SD cards that are inside the N200

@lalitk I don't want to play the files elsewhere on the network, I just to park them for reference, then freshly download them onto the N200 (now blank) SD card. Thanks

New DAC is on the way!

 

@navyachts 

Good, then you are speaking to an SSD hard drive in one of the two N200 Bays. 

I was a bit confused by the terms you are/were using.

OK, I have one for you all! I am trying to access the SD card in the N200. I get there but when I click on the file (Music 1) I get the Microsoft Security "Enter you credentials to connect to: (network address)

I have no username or password for this. I have gone through all the steps the internet has to offer on trouble shooting this, but nothing has fixed the problem.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to bypass the network credentials prompt?

@navyachts

sounds like a plan! And congratulations on new DAC. BTW, a DSF (DSD Stream File) is a high-resolution audio file which contains uncompressed DSD audio data along with information about how the audio data is encoded. It can also optionally include an ID3v2 tag which contains metadata about the music e.g. artist, album, etc. The N200 will play files with .dsf extension as long as your DAC is able to decode DSD files.

All Aurender streamers ships with default user name and password ….type in aurender in both places.