Aurender A200 vs N200

+1 to what @ghdprentice has to say.  He was influential in my streamer purchase. I recently went through an extensive review and search process for a streamer and selected the N200.  I was patient and found a one owner lightly used N200 and its a wonderful streamer.  I found Aurrender's Conductor app easy to use along with simple/reliable connectivity with my iPad with Qobuz. 

I have an Aurender N200.    It's been great.   Using it with the the Lab 12 DAC 1 Reference and it sounds great.   

I also think that's a good plan to focus on streamer and using the McIntosh DAC for now.  

While we are on the subject of streamers, I will say support, firmware, user interface are all of equal and high importance.

A "great" streamer with terrible support and mediocre user interface is not really that great

That’s why I like Aurender , they can remotely diagnose and install firmware. It’s a very good user experience. They usually do a really good job of handing software revisions.

I’ll use one of the current "hot" streamers as an example, the Eversolo DMP-A6. I set one up for my Dad last year and up until last week, all was well until about five days before it’s warranty was up . Their latest firmware update rendered USB inoperable with his McIntosh MA8950 . Pretty frustrating....

I reached out to Zidoo support, they were prompt but when I called them out they denied it could be possible although there are posts going back a year that describe USB not recognizing the DAC for some Chord and Mac owners.

I asked for previous firmware, they will not send it , just instructions on how to. Thanks ! Anyway , I said to them " if it’s not the latest firmware that caused it, must be hardware . " How do we initiate warranty repair ? That was about a week ago and they haven’t replied.....

Too bad because it’s not a bad streamer but It is no Aurender , or Innuos, or Aurilic.. Support is everything with a streamer .

Build quality is very high with all Aurender , they are tanks.

I agree with others - N200 in a long run is a better choice. With A200 when you get an external DAC you will end up having its DAC section unused but on and consuming power. That would potentially make the overall noise floor with the A200 higher than what you would get with the N200. Will you hear it? May be in direct comparison with N200…depending on the DAC you choose and how resolving the rest of your system is. 
 

One other suggestion - email Aurender and get their take on streamer comparison between the two units. They might shed some more light on the differences. 

I asked this very question before buying my N 200. The difference in a nut schell is the A 200 is an N150 level streamer with a DAC added. The N200 is a higher level streamer as far as components and power supply being dedicated only to a music server. The N 200 will present better performance with outboard DAC.