Esoteric K-01 and Aurender S10 compatibility

I don't see the need to complicate things going USB when the S10 is designed to directly connect via S/PDIF.

Complementarily, you can build or purchase something like a CAPS computer (see the latest four designs at Computer Audiophile) and then have SOTA, battery-powered USB sound plus your Aurender. They are at least as good as or even better sounding than the S10.

I thought CA found USB out from the Aurender to sound better than the AES to a Meitner MA-1? Perhaps there's something to be said about having the DAC handle clock control.

Perhaps that's what the OP is trying to achieve. I do agree that the Aurender was designed primarily for AES so I guess SPDIF should work just as well. The newest model W? is supposed to have a clock input so that might tilt it back in favour of AES/SPDIF with a clock that controls both the DAC and the Aurender.

Feedback from various people who saw the new W20 at CES seemed mightily impressed. An external clock syncing the K-01 and the W20 would be great....though from what I read the W20 will be at least twice the price of the S10...maybe more.

Also looking at the Zuma C.A.P.S 3.0.

Thanks all for the excellent comments!

The reason I am interested in USB is that I have some great cables and wanted to use them.

I have the Locus Design Cynosure V2 USB and Core SPDIF cables....so impressed with these cables.

I wanted to come out of the S10 via USB, then into the latest Sonicweld Diverter, then out via SPDIF to the K-01 DAC.

Couple of problems with this dream....I loose async over USB...Esoteric K-01 has a good clock and this would sync the Aurender as a slave to the K-01 DAC via a direct USB cable.

The Diverter cannot do Linix, so that's out.

I can use this approach for both Windows and MAC, though. I have heard the Diverter in some systems...and from what I heard was a noticeably improved sonic performance...even when giving up the benifit of going direct USB and benifit of async functionality.

Aurender S10 is also lacking internal memory expansion...and no forward compatibility to DSD. So PCM is the best it will ever do. Concerned that the S10 will be worth next to nothing in a few years time.

Thus looking at C.A.P.S 3 and MAC.

Has anyone compared a hot rod'd MAC Moni or C.A.P.S 3 vs the Aurender S10.

I build my own computers and follow CA daily. Any CAPS is surely better sounding than Mac Minis and the latest v3 (both computer and USB card battery-powered by one RWA Black Lightning) probably better than the S10 too (Chris Conaker believes so even about CAPS2). If you use JPlay, especially the coming version 5 which has its own GUI, and strip down Win8 as much as possible for a dedicated audio PC, more so. For JPlay you would need the Zuma with at least a i5-3330 CPU.