2. digital
  3. 129600-1453

Aurender N100H or Auralic Aries?

Thought I would seek the opinion of everyone here. If you had to choose between these two units, which one would you choose? Please don’t offer suggestions for a myriad of alternatives I am interested in feedback on these two pieces of equipment. (Sorry, sit on your hands MicroRendu owners).
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dlcockrum's avatar
dlcockrum
2,190 posts
 
The Aurender arrived today. What a beautiful and solidly-built piece of audio gear it is! Had it installed and streaming Tidal in 15 minutes. Very nice.

One question for Aurender owners: When streaming Tidal "Masters" with the N100H, my DAC shows it is only receiving a 24/48 signal instead of the 24/96 signal when fed from my laptop. Am I missing something in the Aurender setup or maybe a setting in the Tidal portion of the software? Can anyone verify that their DAC is receiving a 24/96 signal when streaming Tidal Masters from their Aurender? 

Dave 
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lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,614 posts
 
@dlcockrum,  

Looks like its probably your Tidal desktop software setting. My DAC shows 24/96 signal when fed from Aurender. 

You may contact Aurender help desk, they are super helpful. 


dlcockrum's avatar
dlcockrum
2,190 posts
 
Thanks lalitk. Indeed, I did post a ticket through their cool "Help" feature. It was somewhat late in the day and I didn't hear back. I am sure that I will tomorrow.

I felt confident that one of the super-members here like you would step up and verify that their unit did indeed pass the 24/96 signal from Tidal Masters.  Thanks for the input.

Dave
hgeifman
2,278 posts
 
dlcockrum, lalitk's  Audiogon above post states he "streams Aurender Tidal MQA masters at 24/96" and my Ayre Codex DAC displays 24/48.  My Tidal settings are correct (I think but will verify this later today) so I emailed Aurender customer support for help. I am guessing his DAC handles MQA masters better than mine.  I will post their response when I get it.  

I did find that "Tidal announced they were finally streaming true high-resolution data in the form of  “Masters”24/48 MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) files". 

"Any MQA-certified DAC will unfold the 24bit/48kHz file back out to its full resolution – or up to the DAC’s maximum sample rate capabilities – prior to D/A conversion. MQA refer to this process of unfolding as ‘decoding‘.  lalitk's DAC must be doing some decoding in order to get 24/96".   I do not know.

I am waiting for Aurender Customer Support to reply.  This is very confusing (to me). 

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