Aurender N100H or Auralic Aries?

@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. 

My apologies for getting the MQA part wrong as pointed out to me in another forum.

As for the sound degradation, there is really nothing wrong with my unit. I won't send it back for anything. It sounds really, really, really gorgeous once I roll back to the older version. 

:)

Auralic! I compared both and I liked the Aries better and purchased it. I think the cache in the aurender is a gimmick. You don't need a cache that big unless you want to store hundreds of albums which is unrealistic. 
Plus with the Aries, I used both the ds lightning and the lumin iPad software to control my music.
the Aries has 4G of cache which is enough to hold 6 or more cds.