Auralic Aries (Hardware) - Impressions and Information

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That's great news! For those of us in the US this should be a nice Thanksgiving treat!

 

Will there be an updated Aries user guide showing how the USB disk should be set up?

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I am convinced I have a defective unit. Loads wav and flac no problem. DSF and DFF files are a no go. Any hard drive with DSF and wav and flac mixed is a no go. I have done too many load,unload,double swipe,power on power off, refresh, yada,yada,yada to know something isn't right. I will be contacting my dealer for a swap out.

 

Love the way it sounds though.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions, will let you know when the new one arrives.

Russ

 

Your unit may not be defective. I encountered the same problem with a USB drive carrying mixed PCM & DSD content. The LightningServer entry under Music Library would appear and disappear, count to several percent and reset to zero and repeat, etc. and never finishing. I had to delete all the folders carrying DSF and DFF files, and LDS finally scanned the USB drive to completion. The remaining music collection is mostly FLAC files of CD & high-res (24/88, 24/96, etc.) plus one folder with AIF and LDS appears to handle them properly.

 

I would therefore say Aries/LDS has a bug in processing USB drives with mixed PCM/DSD content. My guess is that the problem has more to do with LDS app than Aries 1.10 firmware. When LDS gets stuck like that I don't see the activity LED blink on the USB drive.

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Your unit may not be defective. I encountered the same problem with a USB drive carrying mixed PCM & DSD content. The LightningServer entry under Music Library would appear and disappear, count to several percent and reset to zero and repeat, etc. and never finishing. I had to delete all the folders carrying DSF and DFF files, and LDS finally scanned the USB drive to completion. The remaining music collection is mostly FLAC files of CD & high-res (24/88, 24/96, etc.) plus one folder with AIF and LDS appears to handle them properly.

 

I would therefore say Aries/LDS has a bug in processing USB drives with mixed PCM/DSD content. My guess is that the problem has more to do with LDS app than Aries 1.10 firmware. When LDS gets stuck like that I don't see the activity LED blink on the USB drive.

 

Upon further investigation it now appears that Aries/LDS has difficulty processing any DSD content specifically in DFF (DSDIFF) format that is alongside PCM content on a USB drive. Once I deleted all folders carrying DFF files from the USB drive, LDS was able to complete the scanning. DSF files appear to be handled correctly, and can play normally (with DoP enabled in LDS) along with PCM content in FLAC or WAV in various resolutions.

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I wonder if I found another bug tonight.

I selected Digital outputs setting which then was stored in the Aries, but when I try to revert to USB, the setting is not available in the LDS.

I have tried everything I could think of (except for reset) with no luck.

 

Any ideas?

 

If your DAC has stayed connected to Aries over a USB cable then this sounds like a bug. LDS only shows the USB option when Aries can detect a connected DAC via its USB port. I found out the hard way trying to pre-select USB in LDS for my Vega DAC before connecting it to Aries.

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Thanks everyone for the help. Still not working though.

 

The drive that I want to use and have been trying with for the last hour or so is a Monster Digital SSD (I also tried a drive with a power supply with the same results).

 

Interesting thing is that I reset the Aries via the button on the bottom and then plugged in the SSD with two albums on it - and it worked (Lightning Server launched, indexed the two albums...). I got pretty excited and added the rest of the ~300GB to the drive and back to the same problem.

 

After that, I figured I would take the computer I have been using out of the picture, so I used my daughter's Mac with Yosemite to create a new partition, run verify & fix and then add a few albums. Still not working.

 

Listening to Band of Horses' Live at The Ryman via Tidal as I write this and it sounds great. The USB stick still works too. Sigh. Auralic will have a lot of logs to look through when they get back on Monday

 

Does your 300GB music collection happen to include DSD files in .DFF (DSDIFF) format? Several weeks ago I ran into an issue with Aries where it consistently failed to index 120GB of music on a USB 3.0 stick, and I traced the problem to certain .DFF DSD files within the collection.

 

Since metadata tagging is not supported by .DFF files, apparently an Aries FW issue caused it to malfunction while attempting to scan .DFF files for metadata. There is supposed to be a fix in place for this in FW 1.11, but I have not yet retested the same DFF-containing music collection to see if the indexing can complete properly.

 

I noticed that not all .DFF files on USB storage will make Aries go berserk, but I have not done any further research in this matter. I plan to replace all my .DFF files with .DSF, via either format conversion or re-extracting ripped SACDs in DSF format. My hope is to prevent Aries from messing up as I grow my DSD music collection.

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I just took delivery of a second Aries today, and got a little surprise: this Aries has an Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 802.11ac WLAN module installed inside!

 

I am very familiar with this Intel 7260 "Wilkins Peak 2" 11ac module, and I have used it in a few PC towers and notebooks for more than a year. The module inside this Aries is in HMC (half Mini Card) form factor, and supports two antenna connections.

 

My first Aries has a WLE350NX module with Atheros AR9580 radio, in FMC form factor. It is 802.11n, with support for 3 antennas.

 

Both Aries are working equally well in my home environment. I have tried streaming DSD128 and 24/352.8 (DXD) content over wireless with no issues from either unit. My router is a D-Link DIR-868L.

 

The WLAN module type is identified on the sticker at the bottom of the unit: "AR9580" vs. "7260HMW". Lightning DS app also reports the module type under Device-->Device Information-->WiFi Version.

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Has anyone successfully played DSD256 out the Aries USB DAC port? I have two DACs that support DSD256: Oppo HA-1 and HA-2, but when either DAC is hooked up to Aries to play DSD256 I get only loud noise. DSD64 and DSD128 play fine, however.

 

The tested DSD256 .DSF file is able to play through the Oppo units with a notebook PC running Win8.1 & Foobar2000, with the usual ASIO plugin, foo_input_sacd & ASIOProxy, so the problem is not with the DSD256 file itself.

 

Aries FW release notes say "Added limited DSD256 file decode support (will only output through USB)". My Aries has the latest v2.1 FW, but DSD256 does not work properly.

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My Aries is stuck showing a "wifi" icon and I cannot get the Aries to be recognized by the lighting app. Any help would be appreciated. I emailed auralic but no response

thanks; Tim

 

Go to Settings on your iPad and change the WiFi connection to "AURALiC-Lightning". Launch Lightning DS and it should see your Aries. Within LDS, under Network Connection --> Wireless, change the wireless connection back to your home network for this Aries.

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Not sure if the following can be helpful, but here goes...

 

I just took my Aries to a friend's house for an audition, and ran into the repetitive WiFi icon issue during setup. After seeing the WiFi icon on the Aries display, I proceeded to changing my iPad to connect to the "AURALiC-Lightning" network, got LDS to see the Aries, then went into wireless setup to change the network back to the target network. Aries would display "APPLYING SETTING" for a while, then go right back to displaying the WiFi icon. Success rate was 0/4.

 

It turns out the problem in my case had to do with me trying to connect both Aries and the iPad to a wireless network that has no internet connection. The router was my friend's Apple Airport Extreme, dedicated to music streaming only. After several rounds of this, I suggested we try again but with another wireless network with an internet connection. This worked on the first try, without needing to press the Aries reset button.

 

This suggests that having a valid internet connection is important during the setup process. The earlier setup attempts apparently failed because Aries was unable to "phone home" in some way.

 

However, my colleague has provided an opposing data point, stating he has properly set up an Aries by going through a wireless router that was never given an internet connection of any kind, so it is unclear to me how critical an internet connection is for the Aries setup process. Perhaps Auralic can shed some light on this.

 

YMMV, of course.

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Has anyone successfully played DSD256 out the Aries USB DAC port? I have two DACs that support DSD256: Oppo HA-1 and HA-2, but when either DAC is hooked up to Aries to play DSD256 I get only loud noise. DSD64 and DSD128 play fine, however.

 

The tested DSD256 .DSF file is able to play through the Oppo units with a notebook PC running Win8.1 & Foobar2000, with the usual ASIO plugin, foo_input_sacd & ASIOProxy, so the problem is not with the DSD256 file itself.

 

Aries FW release notes say "Added limited DSD256 file decode support (will only output through USB)". My Aries has the latest v2.1 FW, but DSD256 does not work properly.

 

I continue to have trouble with Aries playing DSD256 content to my Oppo HA-1 over USB. I have now tried with Aries FW 2.1, 2.2 & 2.3 with the same results.

 

Has no one else played DSD256 with Aries? Just trying to determine whether it's an issue with my setup or something to do with Aries.

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Oppo HA-1 only supports DSD256 in DSD native mode. As of today, the Aries does not support this mode of operation. Even if it did, the support for Oppo HA-1 would need to be hardcoded into the drivers.

 

Thanks for the clarification! This explains why my Aries/Oppo setup can play DSD64 & DSD128 but not DSD256. The HA-1 supports DoP v1.1 and native mode for DSD64 & DSD128 but only native mode for DSD256, and Aries currently only supports DoP for any DSD.

 

I also have an Auralic Vega DAC, and hope that some day it can play DSD256 in DoP mode from an Aries.

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Just a word of caution about these firmware updates. A month ago the firmware update caused the display on my Aries to go dark, and no steps recommended by tech support could resurrect it. My dealer had to get me a new unit. Last week the update to 2.2 went flawlessly. Today I got no notice on my DS Lightning that there was a firmware upgrade, but my unit never booted properly and got into an endless loop of starting but not fully booting. My dealer contacted a tech support person for the Auralic who actually spoke to the head of Auralic who said some units spontaneously tried to update themselves today without a warning notice, and failed. They are looking into a fix.

 

My two Aries did spontaneously update to FW 2.3 successfully today. Having heard about 2.3 being out, I went to check Aries FW revision in LDS app, only to find both units already updated to 2.3 without any interaction.

 

The WiFi modules inside these two Aries are different, but this does not appear to affect whether FW can be successfully updated.

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An oddly enough, mine notified me of the update and asked if I wanted to update the firmware.

 

Mine did ask for the update from 2.1 to 2.2 to be accepted, but not from 2.2 to 2.3.

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There appears to be at least 3 different scenarios when a new FW is released for Aries:

- Unit spontaneously updates without any user interaction

- LDS prompts user to accept FW update (after navigating to the device screen)

- LDS prompts user to reboot after a FW update

 

I have seen the first two, and fortunately not the situation where the display would go dark. I did run into a situation previously where the FW was updated automatically but the display showed "Connect Ethernet cable" (or something like it) along with loss of existing settings. If I recall correctly this occurred after the FW went from 1.11 to 2.1.

 

I do appreciate the latest FW releases supporting an AP mode to allow the settings to be changed back to wireless without the need for an Ethernet (wired) connection.

 

The other thing I noticed is how Aries seems unable to get set up properly with certain wireless routers, such as an Apple Airport Extreme at my friend's house. Out of 3 separate sessions to get Aries & iPad/LDS to link up through this router, it worked only once, though each time the Aries had a different FW revision. It was inconclusive as to whether the problem was caused by Aries not working reliably with this Airport Extreme, or because the router had no connection to the internet.

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I've been trying to copy music files to a USB thumb drive plugged into an Aries, from a Windows PC. I got a network drive mapped and can see the folders and files on this USB thumb drive, but they appear to only have read permission, so I cannot create a folder, or add or delete files.

 

From the PC perspective, all folders and files within this mapped drive are owned by "root (Unix User\root)", with only "Special permissions" checked. All attempts to edit permissions for root or "Everyone" resulted in a "Access denied" error.

 

Thanks in advance for any help to enable "Full control" permissions for this Aries USB drive.

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I did a Map Network Drive with \\192.168.0.113\usb, and entered auralic for username & password.

 

Both my Aries running 2.3FW have the same behavior.

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Thanks for the suggestion, bplexico!

 

I just tried a different USB thumb drive, freshly formatted to FAT32, copied some music to it, plugged it into Aries, and it has full file permissions including folder & file create/delete!

 

Now I need to figure out what's different about the two thumb drives I've been using with the Aries. I'll post a follow-up.

 

-Sam

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Thanks for the suggestion, bplexico!

 

I just tried a different USB thumb drive, freshly formatted to FAT32, copied some music to it, plugged it into Aries, and it has full file permissions including folder & file create/delete!

 

Now I need to figure out what's different about the two thumb drives I've been using with the Aries. I'll post a follow-up.

 

-Sam

 

I experimented a bit and here are some results:

 

* 32GB Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 flash drive (formatted to FAT32): full permissions

* 32GB Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 flash drive (formatted to exFAT): read-only permissions

* 128GB Lexar JumpDrive S25 USB 3.0 flash drive (formatted to exFAT): read-only permissions (used with Aries #1)

* 1TB Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator USB 3.0 flash drive (formatted to exFAT): read-only permissions (used with Aries #2)

* 256GB Micron M600 2.5" SATA SSD (formatted to NTFS) + SIIG JU-SA0812-S3 USB 3.0 to SATA 6Gb/s adapter: full permissions

 

This suggests accessing the Aries-attached USB storage from a Windows PC is problematic if the USB storage is formatted to exFAT. The issue with read-only permissions was not seen with NTFS or FAT32 formatted USB storage, though I should collect more data points to see if this theory holds water.

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I experimented a bit and here are some results:

 

* 32GB Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 flash drive (formatted to FAT32): full permissions

* 32GB Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 flash drive (formatted to exFAT): read-only permissions

* 128GB Lexar JumpDrive S25 USB 3.0 flash drive (formatted to exFAT): read-only permissions (used with Aries #1)

* 1TB Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator USB 3.0 flash drive (formatted to exFAT): read-only permissions (used with Aries #2)

* 256GB Micron M600 2.5" SATA SSD (formatted to NTFS) + SIIG JU-SA0812-S3 USB 3.0 to SATA 6Gb/s adapter: full permissions

 

This suggests accessing the Aries-attached USB storage from a Windows PC is problematic if the USB storage is formatted to exFAT. The issue with read-only permissions was not seen with NTFS or FAT32 formatted USB storage, though I should collect more data points to see if this theory holds water.

 

One more test result:

 

* 32GB Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 flash drive (formatted to NTFS): full permissions

 

I also tried a couple of different cluster sizes when formatting this drive to exFAT, but it made no difference: still ended up with read-only permissions.

 

All the exFAT formatting was done with the USB drives plugged into a Windows 7 PC. I also tried formatting with a different Windows 8.1 PC with the same results.

 

It is beginning to look like Aries 2.3 FW has a bug with exFAT formatted USB storage. I plan to reformat my USB drives to NTFS for use with Aries, to sidestep this bug.

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Has anyone successfully paired an Aries with KEF X300A speakers via USB? I tried this today, and can see the X300A show up in LDS as a USB DAC, but no music would play at any sampling rate or bit depth. The X300A accepts a maximum of 24/96 so I avoided playing anything higher. The Aries' time counter is stuck at 0:00 with no forward progress.

 

From what I can tell, the DAC inside X300A is only USB Audio Class 1 compliant, unlike most contemporary DACs supporting Class 2 and sampling rates well above 96K. When the X300A is plugged into a Windows PC, no special USB driver is needed (Windows 8.1 inbox USB audio driver loads), which suggests the X300A built-in DAC works at the Class 1 level.

 

It looks like Aries supports USB Class 2 mode DACs but not Class 1 mode DACs. This is currently only speculation on my part. I'll need to experiment some more. I have a Cambridge Audio DACmagic Plus that can be toggled between USB Class 1 & 2 modes. This DAC in Class 2 mode already checked out fine with Aries previously, but I have yet to try Class 1 mode.

 

I'm interested in Aries driving X300A as a simple setup mainly for playing internet radio.

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That happens from time to time with my Mytek. I sometimes have to fully power down both Aries and DAC to get things started again. Try this if you've not yet done so.

 

Also I would think a Class 1 device should be fine due to backward compatibility.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, kennyb123 and bplexico.

 

It now appears that X300A simply does not like the Aries (or vice versa). I've tried power cycling both, individually as well as simultaneously, to no effect. The Aries display is stuck at pause and 0:00, even while I toggle between play and pause in LDS. Plugging X300A through a working USB3 hub made no difference either. The playback failure is 100%.

 

In contrast, Aries has no problems driving my DACmagic Plus DAC in either USB Class 1 or Class 2 mode, and even through the same USB3 hub. No playback issue with Aries driving any of my other DACs either.

 

X300A firmware is not user upgradable so I may be stuck.

 

I will try a SOtM sMS-100 with X300A next, followed by a CA UPnP/DLNA Renderer later when a BBB arrives. I can also try Aries again with an Uptone REGEN when it gets here next week, but I'm not hopeful. X300A is a strange beast.

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Patch to fix KEF X300A issue was commited for Linux 3.11. The Aries use Linux 3.10. It will be supported when Auralic upgrade the kernel.

 

Thanks for the information. What is the brand/model of the USB chip used in the X300A?

 

Today I discovered Aries is not the only renderer incompatible with X300A. My newly acquired SOtM sMS-100 is the same way, and I suppose also any renderer based on Linux 3.10 or older.

 

For now, I have no choice but to keep my Aries away from the X300A speakers. X300A works fine with a Windows 8.1 ultrabook PC running Foobar.

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I use the following to access the files on a USB storage device attached to Aries, from a Windows PC:

 

"Map network drive" --> Folder: \\<Aries IP address>\usb

 

This requires you to determine the IP address of Aries in the network. For example: \\192.168.0.113\usb

 

Alternatively, you can just type the same string into the text box of an Windows explorer window.

 

I gave my Aries a known IP address by using the DHCP reservation feature of my wireless router.

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From my experience you don't need to define the IP address when mapping a network drive ... just type \\aries\usb and log in with user and pw "auralic".

 

Yes, \\aries\us works, at least for my first Aries. I was unable to use this for my second Aries which is on the same network, so ended up using the IP address instead.

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Apologies if the following has been discussed before (this thread is huge).

 

I have an Aries/Vega/Taurus MkII/Sennheiser HD 800 (balanced) headphone setup, and just recently discovered much better SQ using either an RCA coax or AES balanced cable between Aries & Vega than the USB I've used for nearly a year. The differences are very audible with Redbook 16/44 content, as well as for hi-res up to 24/192. Also, I have experienced ZERO dropouts with coax or AES with the Vega in Exact clock mode, unlike USB where there are usually a few dropouts before the Vega locks in the clock, especially when switching amongst various sampling rates and formats.

 

The same Aries/Vega combo also elicited similar responses from my audiophile buddies when hooked up to a stereo system at one of their places. With USB, the sound was more flat, and the tone of solo violin changed dramatically. Switching to coax made that violin sound so much more realistic, and the sound stage became closer to concert hall as well.

 

I even inserted an Uptone REGEN between Aries & Vega, but for this setup it made practically no improvement (though for a PC source the REGEN difference was very audible). This is probably a testament to the high quality USB output of Aries, but for some reason the coax/AES link consistently trumps the USB link in SQ.

 

Does anyone with Aries & Vega have similar experiences to share?