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.
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!
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@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!
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! |
Try Audirvana. If you don't have Roon, then you won't mind its interface and its getting better with every release.. It's the software that makes a difference in sq. When I had the Auralic, I went back and forth using Lightning DS (Auralics software) and Lumin's GUI, yes, Lumin software worked on the Aries. I used to use Pure Music 15 years ago instead of iTunes, then went with audirvana when it came out. When I get rid of the auralic and the usb dac, I went with roon. I have retested audirvana off and on the last few years and it is a little bit better in sq, but I can't go backwards in the GUI. I only use my streamer to interface ethernet (data from roon server) then galvanically isolates the signal to i2s to the dac. This streamer only has i2s and spdif, no other outputs, and since 99% of dac users use usb, this wouldn't be a good fit for most. |
@bigby
Will this affect the quality of my Purist Audio Design CAT7 Ethernet Cable, making it irrelevant? I guess I would have to purchase another to plug in downstream. Or, would I be better to go with a couple of Fiber Media Converters and a patch cable set up?
I don’t have so much music so if I want to listen to my ripped CDs they are on my Seagate hard drive and I can play them from there.
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@rbstehno I sold my Roon Nucleus but still have some time left on my subscription so the only way to access Roon and Audirvana would be via a computer, which is supposedly a no no. Is this what you suggesting? |
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