Going from computer audio to dedicated streamer

@mofojo
Gosh, don’t be spending any more money on my say so ! :-)

I was just curious if you might have tried the V-Link in the path and to find out if I was alone in thinking it made a difference.

It has been a good while since I first hooked up the Aries. Things are getting a little fuzzy. I’m pretty sure I first tried it with coax out direct to the Gungnir. While the Aries Mini DOES have a USB out, my Gungnir does not have USB in. (Hence the V-Link) Thinking a simpler more direct path would be better, I went with coax out from the Aries when I first got it.

What is NOT getting fuzzy is that I was initially disappointed with the Aries>>Gungnir sound compared to the MacBook>>V-Link>>Gungnir. The sound was kind of thin (best I know how to describe it). For whatever reason it occurred to me to try the V-Link in the path using the USB out from the Aries. What a relief ! The sound really came alive...much more fleshed out and (dynamic?). Maybe it’s due to jitter (lack thereof) but I was thinking something else at play. It wasn’t a subtle improvement.

Anyway , if you can get that W4S Remedy with an in-home trial period, would be an interesting experiment. I’d be very curious what you think.

@mofojo 
I'm running a synology NAS as my music drive. Just point the Node to the folder on the NAS and it indexes the music and plays just fine. the only problem is album art. My collection is a mess that I made in iTunes and doesn't  transfer well. I'd say half of my collection need to be fixed.

project for a rainy day.

@mofojo 

I've had my Bluesound Node 2 for nearly a year. Like you I heard an immediate improvement; more musical, refined and easy to listen to. I'm very glad to have the computer out of the way and I can't see ever going back to USB.

I believe I'll also try the W4S Remedy soon. Too many good reviews and user comments not to give it a try.

Cheers,

Scott

Went from a nice Mac/audirvana setup to the auralic Aries and a big jump in performance. The Aries was hooked up to my w4s dac 2 dsd using a aq diamond USB. Since the Aries had a Fenton clock in it, I didn't need to use the w4s recovery USB reclocker. The GUI interface iPad app is fantastic, I could use the ds lightning app or the lumin app to control the Aries. 

If you want to try an external DAC, keep in mind if the external DAC is not MQA compatible you'll not be able to take full advantage of the MQA processing which Node2 delivers.