The Aurenders S10 & W20

[Quest]

My experience with Aurender is that even if the DAC is not supported, they would be willing to try to add it to the list. However, I believe this requires the manufacturer to work with them and provide some codes, and not all manufacturers are willing to.

 

I don't have an issue just because most of the usb/spdif converters I tried work fine with it. You'd be able to use your DAC one way or another.

[Quest]

Anyone know if the Aurender software works with an EMM Dac 2x (or any Meitner DAC)?

 

I have one with me.. I can confirm it works with the EMM DAC2X via USB. Front display also shows the device name.

 

I've not tried DSD though.

[Quest]

Thanks, Quest and Eloise.

 

Quest, Please let me know if you can play DSD... I'm about to pull the trigger on an Aurender.

 

As it's not my Aurender, it's not so nice for me to just add in files. Hi-res runs fine via usb.

It should work.. driver is working and it now supports DSD, etc.

 

 

Just to make a comment about the sound. I've a bit of experience with the S10 over the years. Personally I find its digital outputs pretty normal sounding, but via USB, if either using a usb/spdif converter or using a usb power device, you can get pretty good sound. It's also quite sensitive to vibration isolation.

 

What's interesting to me is that while performance is undoubtedly quite good, there is a certain tonality about the S10 which isn't neutral to my ear. The sound is also less effortless. The sound is better in my system with the LAN cable unattached as well, so I usually queue up my tracks then disconnect it. If I need to fast forward or pause I just use the controls at the front.

 

Putting the LAN cable aside, at first I thought maybe some of the sound is because the S10's usb outputs aren't optimised for audio (whereas the X100L and W20 are), but interestingly enough, when I use Airplay on the Aurender (yes, it's a neat feature to have) and stream from something like an iphone (diff devices do sound a bit different, but I like the iphone), the sound doesn't have these issues. The tonality is nice and I don't really have a problem with it even while the LAN cable is attached.

 

Wonder if anyone else has had similar experiences.

 

The sound difference between Airplay vs local playback makes me wonder if it's the software that makes more difference, or just the local harddisks. I did try playing back via NAS and it does sound different, but I couldn't get the sound I wanted (didn't really try optimising the NAS for audio playback).

 

I'll have to try the X100L and W20 to figure out part of the answer I guess.

[Quest]

I never tried my W20 and S10 with LAN cable unattached.

However, to my great surprise I did observe the improvement of the SQ with a good LAN cable. I did not pay attention to that until the friend of mine proposed to audition at home the JCAT LAN cable. Before I had a " no name " cable and after changing it the sound was clearly better .

 

For what it's worth, I did try many different LAN cables with the S10. Different topic though.

 

So you feel no difference between remote and local playback?

 

Are there any major differences between W20 and S10 for usb in terms of sound character? (I'd expect performance to be better)

[Quest]

The difference in sonic performance between S10 and W20 is obvious from the first minute of the audition.

First of all, there is a darker background , then the sound is much less technical, fuller , more edmotionally involving .

As far as remote and local playback are concerned ,imo the big advantage of Aurender is its remote ipad application and I couldn't be happy without it:)

 

When I was asking about remote vs local playback, I was referring to playback on NAS or Airplay vs via the files stored on the Aurender. I guess you did not try this.

 

Has the Aurender X100 been released yet? I don't see any information on the Aurender page. All I see is press release. Where can I see detailed info on the specs and where to purchase it from?

 

It's released in my country.. but I'm in Asia.

[Quest]

Hi all, I've done some further listening tests with the Aurender X100L and would like to share some additional points for discussion (though my earlier points didn't go anywhere).

 

Does anyone else feel that the sound is different depending on how you select a track? e.g. selecting same song via 'album' view, 'folder' view or 'genre' view.

 

This is an easy test.