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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
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,929 posts
 

as a server importer you are wrong on a number of facts

 

it does not take 6k to beat a nuc our  a higher end server will blow a nuc away

 

we are roon dealers and we have the  nucleus on display a nucleus  is a nuc in a nicer case with or wihout an lps

 

our 5,500,00 432Evo high end model sounds far better and the 7,500.00 Aeon will shock you with just how good a server can sound and the sonic difference these devices can make

 

if you love Roon and really want to experience how much better your digital can sound you should try one of our servers

 

we agree with you Roon is the best

 

our servers were designed from the ground up to run Roon and they are full cores as well as being an endpoint

 

Dave and Troy

Audio intellect

US importer 432Evo music servers

audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
2,033 posts
 

I'm sticking with my Grace Digital Link...$179...doubt there is THAT much difference between it and any of these hi-end streamers. Certainly not a difference large enough to justify spending literally thousands more!

david_ten
5,480 posts
 

@essrand  Good on getting together with your friend to sort it out.

One caution: you have a conclusion...but it is from a 'single' data point.

Hold on to the openness you've demonstrated.

itsjustme
683 posts
 

I would not expect a difference between the two servers.

 

That said, i would expect a difference between USB and COAX, although, i guess the Aurender has a very good clock (if its master).  I would also guess you can get an improvement by having ROCK --> bridge (e.g.: RPI or other with very good LPS and isolated USB output (isolate both signal and ground, separate power).

 

I do this, and have been for a couple of years.

 

Its often useful to also isolate the SMPS brick of the NUC from the rest of your AC with a decent passive filter.

itsjustme
683 posts
 

On some other comments, i know ROON makes a big deal about plenty of CPU etc. But it comes down to two questions:  1) do you employ DSP? and 2) do you simultaneously stream and synch multiple stream? If no, it runs on about anything (e.g.: i ran it for a while on a 2009 macbook pro laptop with  Core 2 Duo chip and also running plenty of other apps - ancient!).

 

Now that i employ a little DSP and sometimes synch 3 zones, i need more power. I have a quad core i5 NUC, a bunch of RAM (32? 16? forget) and two SSDs - one for Roon and one for music. Truth is that 99% of my listening is Tidal.

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