2. home-theater
  3. 143063-115375

Aurender vs. Roon

I would greatly appreciiate any input on something I was told yesterday by a learned audiophile. A) that aurenders conductor app is inferior to roon. That is probably a given. However, I thought Roon will interact with the conductor app. so if that is the case then you can have the best of both worlds.  Also, Roon has better audio quality the Aurender? Aside from that, is the landscape moving toward Roon? Reason I ask is I have been looking at Aurender streamers to purchase and there seems to be more and more of them for sale on Audiogon and US Audio Mart etc. Is it possible Roon Ready devices are going to be the newest frontier so why bother with Aurender if they are not going to support it? Thanks in advance for any insight or suggestions.
mrdon
docknow
316 posts
 
I'm very happy with my Nucleus.  First time Roon user with it.  Replaced a 2011 MacBook Pro running iTunes and BitPerfect and has clearly better sound quality.  Much less noise and there is lots of music down there.

Took about 20 mins to be up and running, so very turn key.
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,840 posts
 
Docknow, yes the Nuclueus would be easy to use, so are a lot of other servers. 

We are not fans of the Nuclues for one very good reason, for its price point there are better constructed servers which will output a cleaner signal to your dac.

If you look at the $2500 Roon Nucleus server vs the $2600 Innuous Zen server you will see a world of difference.

The Roon server is based on an Intel Nuc with optomizations and a large memory cache the unit still uses a switch mode power supply.

Compare that the the Innous Zen:

1: Custom designed linear power supply
2: Custom designed low noise mother board designed for audio
3: Custom designed USB board
4: Optomized software 
5: Ethernet noise filters are in many ot their models as well.

For this reason we picked Innuous over the Roon product, Roon is a great company but has very  little experience in designing hardware.

Aurender uses very well executed hardware the issue is true Roon compatibility, for this reason Innous is one of the best server choices on the market. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Innous and Aurender dealers


gdnrbob
4,458 posts
 
If I could afford it, I would get the Aurender over the Roon in a heartbeat.
I demoed it a couple of weeks ago and was very impressed with the interface and ease of use.
B
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,840 posts
 
gdnrbob, if you read our post above, the Roon is nothing special for hardware.Aurender is a much better designed and sounding box, the issue is Aurender is facing stiff competition from Innuous who makes a fanastic server that is also a Roon server.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Innous and Aurender dealers
thyname's avatar
thyname
3,107 posts
 
Best of both worlds: get an Innuos (ZEN Mini, ZEN, or ZENith, depending on your budget), to use as a server, AND endpoint, with Roon!

And if you don't have (or don't want) a Roon sub, you can use Innuos with other apps, such as iPeng 9 on iPhone, or Orange Squeeze on Android. It uses LMS (logitech media server) or of course, Roon. Your choice
More to discover