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Aurender N10

From mfr product puff: "[Aurender]  N10’s AES/EBU, BNC, Coaxial, and Optical outputs provide a superior musical presentation. As opposed to an asynchonous USB connection, where the DAC pulls packets of information from the player, N10’s SPDIF and AES/EBU audio outputs push signal out to the DAC at intervals defined by the on-board OCXO clock. With a clock this precise, trust us, you want to use it!"

Anyone have a basis to agree or disagree?
hickamore
mikemeeks
26 posts
 

I have an N10 which I have used with both USB and AES/EBU.  In both cases I was connecting to a Levinson 585 using Transparent cables - the Premium USB and Reference AES/EBU.  Initially they sounded  somewhat different, but fairly close in overall quality.  After about 100 hours of break in, it was a different story - the AES/EBU was far, far better.  So that appears to back up Aurender’s claim.  However, I would caution that the results could vary depending on the cables and DAC you are using.  But in my case it was an easy decision, even considering the cost of the Transparent Reference cable.


hickamore OP
654 posts
 
Thank you mikemeeks. I watched/heard on my #2 system a YouTube video comparing AES/EBU with SP/DIF coax. The Brit reviewer opened with the premise that both are superior to USB. Like you, he was using Levinson amp and both test cables were Audioquest of equal grade. All he did was A/B on the Levinson input selector with same tracks.

Both he and you have shown that I was wrong in simply chasing after better USB. Which is something I really needed to know. The field has narrowed ;-)

auxinput
2,920 posts
 
As far as USB goes, it really depends on how good the USB receiver board is within the DAC.  If is is using an Amanero board, then you can definitely get really good sound out of a USB connection. The Amanero board has to receive the USB data and then clock the data at the proper samping rate before sending i2s data to the DAC chip. 

Of course, a cheap USB cable is going to sound crappy just like S/PDIF cables.

With S/PDIF on the other cable tables, the A10 has to clock the sampling rate and then send the pulses in exact timing for the audio file (such as 44.1khz, 96khz, etc.). 

You can get some pretty damn good S/PDIF cables (think Nordost Heimdall or better, or Transparent Audio or Purist Audio Design.
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