2. digital
  3. 172823-1590

750$ Intel NUC vs $6000 Aurender N200: I don't hear the difference

I finally plunged into the source is as important as the DAC belief that is quite prevalent here and decided to test out Aurender N200. And given I have a very highend DAC, thought if the N200 pans out I would go for the N20 or N30.

 

I was expecting the N200 to blow away my Intel NUC which is 10th gen, core i7, 8GB and running Roon Rock BUT I am switching back and forth between USB playing the Roon Rock, and Co-axial playing Aurender N200, and I don't hear much of a difference maybe a hair, or not even that.

 

A few caveats: 1) Roon Rock is playing Quboz, N200 is playing Tidal (I am unable to get Qobuz login to the N200 for reason I don't understand).

2) I am comparing Coaxial on N200, USB on Roon Rock.

Caveat #2 can be ignored because I don't hear a difference between Coaxial and USB output of N200.

 

So either this is an "Emperor has no clothes" moment or I am missing something big. Any thoughts on what I might be missing before I send this N200 back to the dealer on Monday.

 

Rest of my system: Nagra TUBE DAC -> Accuphase E-650 -> Devore O96 and all Acoustic Revive wiring. 

essrand
lordmelton's avatar
lordmelton
877 posts
 

A hard on for Aurender, one of your previous posts.

 

Aurender A10 help

Got the A10 yesterday all hooked up and connected to the conductor app. Streaming Quobuz but getting no sound. Coltrane is playing and I see the meter jumping around but alas no sound. Any suggestions?

auxinput
2,920 posts
 

The following is not a definite root cause, but just an idea of what you could be experiencing.  You are using very high efficiency speakers (96 db) which have a silk dome tweeter (soft dome tweeter).  The soft-dome tweeters are sometimes more forgiving and not as revealing or transparent as other hard-dome tweeters.  Additionally, the tube in the Nagra dac -might- be softening the sound and resolution as well.

It could very well be that your system is not high resolution enough to show the difference between the NUC and the Aurender N200.  If you are using a linear power supply on the NUC, then it will be even harder to hear the difference.

Once again, just an idea of what you could be experiencing, but hard to prove.

audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,618 posts
 

lord melton we have tested these servers under identical conditions

 

same everything just swapped usb cables pretty scientific

 

also the reviewer ed seally has tested many servers

dep14
333 posts
 

Your conclusion makes sense to me.  Sever has one job, deliver bit-perfect data to your DAC.  

Use your ears.

welcher's avatar
welcher
106 posts
 

I own the Aurender n200 and in my testing I found there is definite difference in sound quality between the usb and coax output. IMHO the usb output is all around better than the coax ouput. A fairer test would be comparing the nuc and aurender usb outputs to your dac. 

More to discover