Auralic Aries (Hardware) - Impressions and Information

[mfalcon]

Hi All,

I am looking into getting an Aries and using it with a USB drive that is attached to my router via USB3. My router is a netgear nighthawk and the Aries will be hardwired. It allows for the USB drives to be UPnP.

 

I understand this is not ideal, I'd prefer to get a NAS but that will be a while longer. I would rather connect the drive to the router so I can easily add music as opposed to connecting it directly to the Aries. I know that Auralic is working on making it smb compatible which would possibly solve this problem. My other concern is the USB drive is a little noisy so I'd rather have it in the next room.

 

This will all be until I can purchase a Synology and have a more "traditional" setup for the Aries.

Thanks

Mike

[mfalcon]

I'm in the US, is there anywhere to get a bit off the retail on the Aries? Sorry if this is not the right forum.

[mfalcon]

HI,

I've had success with group buy. Try the PS audio forum. Several members have organised purchases with worthwhile savings.

 

Regards Martin.

 

I looked, the guy is no longer doing them. I only saw one guy who was doing them from what i can tell. I'll keep an eye out.

So far the tweet geek guys are the best price I've found.

Thanks and if anyone has other ideas let me know.

[mfalcon]

@bplexico

I was under the impression that one of the advantages would be that I could attach a sub drive to the Aries and it would be mountable on another computer on the network. One possible advantage I think would be to rsync this drive to your library and have it be your Aries working HD as well as a backup of your library.

This may not be a common use case but to be able to access your sub drive connected to your aries using the SMB protocol would allow a lot of people to buy an Aries and use it in a number of different ways before they are able to buy a NAS which I would think of as more of an ideal use case.

Mike

[mfalcon]

@bplexico

Are you a Mac user? Have you had success with Carbon Copy Cloner or anything like that?

[mfalcon]

Does the power supply power the clocks when the unit is shutdown from the remote but not at the power supply? Or should I just leave it all on unless I'm gone for a few days?

Thanks

[mfalcon]

I thought so but wanted to double check. Thanks Bplexico

[mfalcon]

Has anyone experienced the problem when they view the files on their Aries network share in OSX and they can only see like 50 of their folders, but the music in the missing folders is available in the DS app. I can play it just fine. It's weird, any suggestions on how to fix. My library connected to the Aries is only like 1 TB.

[mfalcon]

Hi,

Does anyone know if the SPDIF on the Aries is routed through the USB as I've heard it might be in other topics on CA? I'm not actually sure it's that big of a deal but I've seen the question enough times that I'm curious.

If so does it imply anything significant?

[mfalcon]

I did email Aurelio and hopefully they will further clarify for us.

 

I like my Aries a lot and am mostly just curious. I have a Lynx Hilo and found the difference the AES and the USB to be small.

[mfalcon]

Here is the answer I got from Auralic. I hope they don't mind me posting it.

 

"The digital outputs are separate from the USB. They can handle 24/192k and DSD64. The USB can handle up to 32/384k and DSD128, 256 in the future. All the outputs are designed to sound similar. So the sound differences between them usually depends on the DAC and its inputs."

 

This is exactly what I was expecting but it's what they say.

Mike

[mfalcon]

Has there been any recent news about the Aries "resampling" or "upsampling" over USB?  

[mfalcon]

At this point are most people using lightning server with there Nas or do some still use Minimserver.  I've been using Minimserver the whole time and really have no complaints so I've been hesitant to change.

[mfalcon]

I do have a complaint about the current software but maybe someone can tell me how I'm dumb.  I don't use volume control(turned off) but you can still adjust the volume although it doesn't have an effect on output I think.  But if you accidentally adjust the volume to less than 100 I can't play my DSD files.  It took me 20 min to figure out why they wouldn't play and they play fine now.  I believe the accidental volume change happened after I upgraded to the newest lightning DS but not certain.

 

i like my Aries a lot despite this quirk

[mfalcon]

Has there been any news recently about when the Aries might get an update to firmware 5.2 like the other devices?  Has there been any mention in the past year or so of the Aries possibly working as a NAA?

thanks