Aurender N100H or Auralic Aries?

Hi falconquest,

I just got the Aurender N100H in my system and boy, does it do wonders for SQ! It is truly a night and day difference.

Some of the reasons why the Aurender sounds so good could be down to its internal storage and 120G RAM cache for playback. This shortens the signal path and reduces noise from the hard drive.

I did consider the Auralic Aries before deciding on the Aurender.
The Aries does not have internal storage or RAM cache for playback. 

Hope this helps. 

J. :)

@jon2020
May I ask what your previous source was?  I am currently using a Windows 7 "all inclusive" workstation to feed my DAC, and am considering trying this unit out.  I was impressed by the Aurender interface and sound quality at Axpona a couple of weeks ago.  It actually made Neil Young's "Sedan Delivery" sound good (the hi-rez file likely helped, too!).

My dac has a usb A-port at the rear panel and I previously played music files off a thumbdrive ported to this.
But comparing this with the same thumbdrive ported to the Aurender, the Aurender sounds better.
When playing files from the Aurender’s internal storage, the SQ improved substantially.

One major alert here. If you do finally get the N100H, please do not upgrade the system software if your new unit comes with an older version. I find the latest software upgrade which is meant to cater to the unfolding of MQA files actually degrades the sound of redbook and non-MQA hires PCM and DSD files considerably.

Fortunately, you can roll back to the original version by doing a factory reset as described in the manual. If your unit comes with the latest version, you are out of luck. My dac is non-MQA, and that may be an issue.

J. :)

@jon2020 , I also own a non-MQA DAC and did not hear any degration in sound quality on red book recordings. Have you reached out to Aurender support for a possible explanation? 

@falconquest, I only heard Aries demo's at shows and to my ears, N100H sounded more neutral and relaxed which is a huge plus on prolonged listening sessions. No listening fatigue with Aurender.