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AURALiC Aries price reduction

I have been considering ditching my "laptop as music server" setup I have been using for the past 7 years and purchasing the  AURALiC Aries music streamer.  Last week Audio Advisor dropped the price of the "full" version of this product to $1,279.99, a $319 savings.  Upscale Audio and HiFi Heaven have followed suit . Has anyone on this forum heard why the price drop?  Is AURALiC getting ready to release an update / upgrade / Aries II?  If so then I play the mind game of do I wait until the updated version is released, or purchase something at a reduced price that I was pretty close to sold on based on all the positive reviews.  

Any information would be appreciated.  Also, if you own one, what is your opinion?  If you upgraded from a Mac or PC to the Aries, was the sound upgrade worth the price of admission?  My biggest concern is if the Lightning DS will meet my needs.  I have invested a lot of time building my library and tags in Foobar 2000, which I will have jettison if I go with the Aries.  I am a TIdal HiFi subscriber, so I know the Aries will work well with that, and the Lightning DS interface would most likely be a step up from the Tidal interface..

Anyway, thank you for reading, and any constructive suggestions / opinions you have to offer.
exile_ken
dlcockrum's avatar
dlcockrum
2,190 posts
 
Hi Ken,

Be patient - mint used N100H can be had for ~$1800.

Dave
mikhaelkuz
56 posts
 
I got used Aries recently. I do not know how much Aurender is better, but compared with OPPO-105 Aries streaming sound quality is way, way better and easy audible. I actually very surprised as I bought it for convenience and was shocked how much more smooth and detailed sound from Auralic Aries is. And especially imaging - image from proper hi-rez became 3-dimensional, like I only had before from the very best CDs or even better (I am using AES/EBU to my AYON CD-5). Apparently I was blaming HDtracks downloads for nothing )).


Ag insider logo xs@2x
dbphd
1,628 posts
 
I confess to being confused about what goes together.  I'm running Roon as a core on an upstairs iMac and planned to run the Roon remote app downstairs on my iPad.  The Ayre QX-5 Twenty DAC is downstairs and receives files via ethernet.  Would a N100H or Melco have any role in such a setup?

db
exile_ken OP
8 posts
 
Thank you Mikhaelkuz for the update.  How do you find the LightningDS app.  I have 20K plus tracks in Foobar 2000.  Would my library be manageable, plus Tidal access, with the LightningDS app?
mikhaelkuz
56 posts
 
exile_ken, yes now it is running Lightning server and LightningDS.
I have approximately 60,000 tracks from various sources (my different rips, tracks purchases, hdtracks downloads, etc) and library is very manageable. I did not measure, but it took less then an hour for sure to load and index it from my NAS (Synology 414 with 12G of drives). Integration with Tidal is pretty dicent (for example when I am search for track in my library search terms remains when I am click Tidal, which is very useful). Tidal sounds way better now then with OPPO app.
There are some quirks (not all album artwork shows up, I have to figure out why) and it is by no means a swiss-knife jriver (I have to try jriver+BubbleUpnp I used with OPPO) - but still not bad. I am running 5.1 beta, and having my CUE-based rips plays without pauses is great (OPPO could not).
I am running LightningDS on new ipad with 128G memory. As a convenience it worked I would say B- so far, but as playback quality concern - A+ (at least compared to my PC, OPPO or previous cheap streamers, which were even worse). Is it femto clock, is it AES/EBU vs coaх I do not know.

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