Aurender N200


Hi

I was hoping to get feedback on the Aurender N200.   I have a Bluesound Vault 2i that honestly has been great but I am looking for a significant bump up in sound. Will be using with a LAB 12 DAC which accepts USB class 2 output and has coax also.  I really like this DAC , although I do have the opportunity to trade up within a year so that's to be seen if I do that.  I find myself mostly streaming and want a great sounding stand alone streamer that won't be outclassed if I upgrade the DAC.   Any opinions of this unit would be appreciated 

Thanks 

128x128oddiofyl

@oddiofyl 

When I play a MQA track into my non MQA DAC it identifies the sample rate as 96k on the DAC but the Aurender says “44.1k MQA

This is not correct, 2x 44.1k is 88.2k but MQA doesn't upsample. Maybe do a full shutdown and restart on your N200. Do you have upsampling switched on?

Go to MQA Core upgrade in Settings and switch to enable. My N20 came with MQA Core installed but you may need to buy it from Google Play.

You will need an MQA DAC for 176.4/192 Khz unfolding.

“When I play a MQA track into my non MQA DAC it identifies the sample rate as 96k on the DAC but the Aurender says “44.1k MQA”

@oddiofyl

With MQA license, the Aurender MQA Core decoder in N200 can only unfold first layer of MQA files, thus the 88.2kHz or 96kHz sample rate reading on your non-MQA DAC. Technically, there is no audible difference between 88.2kHz or 96kHz files. Only you can access if there is a ‘value’ in keeping both subscription. I tossed out Tidal after extended A/B in favor of Qobuz.

Thanks all.  I connected another DAC that displays sampling rates and  I see what's happening.    

I copied some songs on HDD to  the 4 TB SSD I installed and it was easy.  I scanned the drive and it got most of the artwork and titles .  It actually did a pretty good job considering there were several formats.    I am loving this thing more the more I use it.  

Aurender made some updates to Conductor 3. It seems completely stable now with Andriod . It looks as if the problem with it losing connection has been solved. Much better.