Aurender

@blisshifi

You’re probably right! If I am faced with the decision to pick between Taiko + XDMS with marginal gains over N30SA, I am very likely to keep the $10K savings.

The T+A SDV3100 scenario you shared is what I find most interesting. If you have to try really hard to tell the difference between SDV3100 streaming client and N30SA, then my hats off to T+A. But I know there is little bit more to the story, the T+A interface for Qobuz / Tidal is not very user friendly (you can’t have it all, right). A close friend of mine who owns SDV3100 actually prefers Taiko over SDV3100 internal streaming client.

You gotta love the subjective nature of our hobby :-) I do appreciate your candid feedback, thank you!

@lalitk I would agree the UI for the native T+A streaming platform isn’t as mature as Roon or Conductor, but I would anticipate that knowing T+A hasn’t been a company completely dedicated to designing digital sources like others have. Of all the platforms out there, Roon is my favorite one to use, but in my experience it’s not always the best sounding. The Grimm MU1 and Taiko SGM are two that are truly exceptional with Roon. Pink Faun is up there as well. 

@blisshifi

Pink Faun has developed fully customized OS called Euphony Stylus. The end users can switch between Roon and Stylus depending on one’s preferences in playback quality and UI experience. You can also add Merging Technologies +player to above list. The implementation of ROON in their +player is just as remarkable not to mention the adoption of RAVENNA which allows streaming upto DSD256 over Ethernet.

The Suncoast Audio video was informative. They clearly stated that streaming services, streamed internal and NAS are processed and sound the same. All files are loaded to cache and played locally from cache. Given that some of you can hear a difference suggest that some difference in background processes must exist.

They clearly believe that the N20 is the sweet spot, but that the N200 is the best transport value for USB only. The choice depends upon how your DAC handles USB vs coax/AES.

All of the transports, except the battery powered W20SE have been updated within the last couple of years.  All now have transformer isolated ethernet inputs and the newer lower powered Intel chipset.

This video was a really good Aurender sales presentation.

@lalitk Nice to know about Euphony Stylus on Pink Faun. I recall when Euphony first came out there was a lot of chatter about how it sounded better than Roon. I have one friend that still uses it, but I never personally owned a hardware solution that ran it. Thanks for sharing. 

@vonhelmholtz Yes, while the streaming processes and protocols may be the same, the quality of the power supply, clock l, and isolation in the design of the circuits and components (isolation overall by chassis, isolation inside across individual components, etc) are the main reasons why each unit sounds the same.