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Aurender N20 or A15

After many loops through the Aurender product selector, and paying attention to what I am willing to spend, I have landed at a likely choice between the N20 or A15.  For any who've had the chance to listen to these two critically with the same external DAC, can you ascribe any difference in sound quality?  

While I can certainly see that the N20 is a more flexible component in terms of digital connectivity, and has some additional hardware refinement, maybe the A15 is very very (i.e nearly indistinguishably) close to the same sound quality?  I realize I might or might not choose to use it's onboard DAC (my current DAC is the DA2 module installed in my C2700 preamp) depending on how it sounds, and indeed the DAC might be "wasted", but there is no N15...

Thanks for any first-hand advice,

 

Mark

mhwilliford
lordmelton's avatar
lordmelton
877 posts
 

If money is not in short supply, take the N20. Otherwise look at the N200 it has USB and COAX outputs.

If you take the N20 you can use the McDAC and upgrade later and also add a Master Clock during the meantime.

glennewdick's avatar
glennewdick
1,658 posts
 

If it matters I have the A10 and also a C2700 and if i was honest the C2700's Dac2 is as good if not more detailed then the A10's internal DAC. I'm not sure if the newer ones are better but I find the A10 to be rather boring using the internal DAC. I'd suggest looking at the ones that do not have a DAC and save your self the money. you can always upgrade your DAC later. 

If i was really honest I'd say the A10 as a streamer is ok but not any better then my prior optimized PC based streamer, but defiantly better then the Roon Nucleus I had as well. 

lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,436 posts
 

Personally, I wouldn’t get N20 unless you’re planning to pair it a better DAC. With DA2 as your DAC, save your money and get N150. 

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