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Aurender N10 - Sound quality performance is erratic

I am having problems with my N10. Some days it plays amazingly good, other days good and some days not good at all.

I live very near Aurender in SoCal and so I took my unit in for service and they provided me with a loaner. The first session after I put the loaner in the system was all-time good. Then the next day wasn't all that great. Then the next two days were good but no great. Anyway, this is just weird. Both N10s appear to exhibit this erratic behavior.

My internet is ATT DSL at 24Mbps and that has been suggested as the culprit (I was thinking about calling and asking them to give me a trial at 50 or 100 Mbps to see if the increased speed will eliminate the problem - 24Mbps is fast enough I almost never seen buffering in Netflix). It has been suggested that I get hi-speed cable to solve this problem and get rid of the twisted pairs on the phone line. I have tried a DSL filter and it hasn't seemed to help, assuming I've got it installed correctly.

So have any of you N10 users had this problem? If so, how did you fix it?
pokey77
mcgal
199 posts
 
While I like using Tidal in HiFi - 44.1 quality for auditioning music on my Aurender N10, adding MQA to the N10 for less than $50 brought my sound quality up to where I really enjoy the sound. I have a MQA DAC and non MQA DAC. Tidal MQA streamed via the N10 sounds fantastic in both DACs.
pokey77 OP
1,268 posts
 
I bought the $50 MQA app the day the N10 was installed. On the few MQA  tracks I've played it seems to make a positive difference vs the redbook file. But I do note 44.1 redbook files that are recorded well do play amazingly. I still consider myself new to this but all the best sounding tracks I know are not MQA and the vast majority are redbook.
pokey77 OP
1,268 posts
 
UPDATE - Day 2 / Oct 25 with the repaired N10 - Was really good again and mostly similar to Oct 24. I very much enjoyed my listening session and I am hoping and praying that this is the new normal.

Again, I really appreciate all posters comments and suggestions.
jon2020's avatar
jon2020
988 posts
 
.....The first session after I put the loaner in the system was all-time good. Then the next day wasn't all that great. Then the next two days were good but no great. Anyway, this is just weird. Both N10s appear to exhibit this erratic behavior......
 
Now that the erratic behavior issue of your N10 has been resolved by the repair, it appears that the loaner N10 is also in need of repair.  This may point to a flaw in some batches of N10's. 
pokey77 OP
1,268 posts
 
@jon2020 

So I listened today after work around 5:30 PM and though good, the sound was warmer, less bass control/definition, and with less resolution. Satisfactory, but not all time. In a way, this is the similar to the way that my original N10 performed and in fact this is my repaired N10, back in the system since October 24th. Being that both N10s had varying quality of sound on different days, I don't think it points to a flaw in N10s, but may be more likely the fault of my DSL connection. During the listening session I attempted to run a speed test and it would not complete. After the session I tried to run it multiple times and it would not complete the test; the test would show download speed but no latency and only sometimes report upload and the upload speeds were either way lower than included in the service or double the speed, which I've never seen before. I also tried again just a few minutes ago to get the test to run all the way through, and it still would not complete. I do not know if this is the fault of the speed test or that my DSL is not operating correctly. But I need to have ATT send a tech out here to get to the bottom of this.
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