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Why I Sold My Aurender N200

People seemed more interested in why I sold my N200 than wanted to answer my questions in my last post on streaming quality, so here ya go:

I recently sat down with my wife (who has a much better ear for sound quality than I) and we A/B tested back and forth between listening to the N200 and the Bricasti M1 SE II’s network card and heard no difference.

Just before selling the N200 I contacted a very well-known and reputable dealer for his opinion on this. If anyone would know about the sound quality of streaming, he would and I asked what streamer he would recommend. He sells Bricasti, Playback Design, Lumin and Grimm streamers. his response to me was:

"In my humble opinion, there is no need to get a dedicated streamer if you have the network board in the Bricasti"

Most member’s comments are very positive on their N200, maybe you guys have much better ears than us, so please enjoy, but in my case, I sold it and gave the much-needed funds to my daughter who is just about to start her last semester at law school.

End of story.

Hope you all had wonderful Christmas and here’s wishing you all a Happy New Year!

128x128navyachts
navyachts's avatar
navyachts OP
654 posts
 

@lalitk +1 (sorry, but I wasn't referring to you) 

wjz500333
10 posts
 

I have the N100 and when I added it to my system I finally felt like my digital sounded as good if not better than my high end vinyl rig. So if your card sounds equal than great it’s all about your ear and taste! 

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
5,246 posts
 

@navyachts audirvana has Bricasti in the list of “Plays” approved partners. 
Have you tried Audirvana vs Roon via network/ethernet? 
I’m curious if you hear any differences there. I’ve tried audirvana long time ago before Bricasti in my system and my current M3 is DAC only no network. If you get around to do this comparison please either post here or message me. 

rbstehno
1,467 posts
 

Just don’t buy aurender in the 1st place, I didn’t, I bought an Auralic instead for both sq and especially the Lightning DS software. I sold the Auralic because usb sucks and went with a great sounding dac with an Ethernet card in it, much better sq than usb. I heard my dac with i2s instead of using Ethernet and I went with a streamer this year that it’s only job is to be a Roon endpoint, accept Roon data from a server outside of the audio room, and outputs i2s to my dac.

navyachts's avatar
navyachts OP
654 posts
 

@rbstehno what streamer did you go with?

@audphile1 I have not tried Audirvana vs Roon and may not get to trying that as I have a lot of stuff going on right now, so time to do so at present. If I get a chance, sometime in the future, I will let you know!

@rsf507

I’ve asked my dealer if I can do better streaming from my Bricasti M3 and has told me "maybe" for 15-20k additionally. He said just enjoy your music and if you really want better or different try the Bricasti M21. Love honest dealers.

LOL re. the honest dealer comment. Just a quick note on this, it’s the same network card in all the Bricasti models so the better sound is obviously related to other/better components in their upper line with the M21 being $10K more than the M3. I have the M1 so $4K short of the M21, it would be cool to try and hear the difference $4K would make. Maybe I can ask my daughter for a loan! 

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