Auralic Aries (Hardware) - Impressions and Information

[Anthro]

6 hours ago, pl_svn said:

 

darling... I have no problem living with it

even though... I'm really astonished they released even just a beta with such a big bug in such a basic function 

 

and I just though it would be wise to alert others about it

 

You missed that one big bug a few beta's back that accidentally bricked Aries units that updated through ethernet cable instead of WiFi? After that I had to get my unit replaced (perfect service from mister Wang and WifiMedia though), and became very skeptical about these beta's.

[Leeuwarden]

39 minutes ago, mikey8811 said:

I've just tried it.

 

It updated and then found the Lightning Device.

 

But the Music Library is now empty. Do I setup Lightning Device or just go to Music Library?

 

I tried the latter and it seems to have automatically located the Network Drive. It is still scanning files after 20 or so minutes and the Music Library still has 0 songs.

 

I guess I just leave it to scan? How long does a full 2 Tb drive take to scan?

Scanning takes a while. There was a mention at the release of this beta that the library would be empty.

[mikey8811]

Just now, Leeuwarden said:

Scanning takes a while. There was a mention at the release of this beta that the library would be empty.

Thanks.

 

It's going on 40 minutes now.

 

Where do I find the IP address of the Lightning Server or Aries for the web browser interface?

[Leeuwarden]

Hmmm 40 minutes is long.. don't know about that.

 

IP adress is in "wireless" (LDS, click the wheel, etc...)

[mikey8811]

I will need to get out of scanning to go back to click the wheel.

 

I presume I shouldn't do that or I will have to go through the whole process and wait again. I was hoping I could continue the scan through the web interface so as to free up my iPhone to use.

 

It is still running though on 93169 files.

[mikey8811]

It's done now. Took over an hour.

 

It now picks up single FLAC, APE and Wavpack files with a cue and splits them into constituent tracks which is a nice thing.

 

Some off the cuff remarks - after doing the entire rescan for about 1.5 hours for a 2 Tb SMB drive and a little longer to initialise the music library, it then decided the drive was not mounted and the Music Library it saw was greyed out. Restarting fixed it. I don't know if this dropping of a recognised library happens often and is part of the new code.

 

The web interface looks like it is only for settings? That's what I have seen so far. I can't see a playback screen or access to music library like you can from other software like LMS, from there.

 

If I am using a preamp, do I disable the Volume Control under Streamer Setup? The default is enabled.

 

I left the Decoding Method under MQA Playback Setup to Auto which was the default.

 

What did you guys do with the Sampling Rate settings under Resampling Configuration in Processor Setup?

 

 

 

 

[Leeuwarden]

Yes, web interface is for settings only. I changed all PCM to 384. No other changes for me so far. 

I bookmarked the IP adres on my iPad so I can experiment with other settings while listening to music. 

Curious if there is any difference audible between different filtersettings...

[Hauser]

15 minutes ago, mikey8811 said:

It's done now. Took over an hour.

 

It now picks up single FLAC, APE and Wavpack files with a cue and splits them into constituent tracks which is a nice thing.

 

Some off the cuff remarks - after doing the entire rescan for about 1.5 hours for a 2 Tb SMB drive and a little longer to initialise the music library, it then decided the drive was not mounted and the Music Library it saw was greyed out. Restarting fixed it. I don't know if this dropping of a recognised library happens often and is part of the new code.

 

The web interface looks like it is only for settings? That's what I have seen so far. I can't see a playback screen or access to music library like you can from other software like LMS, from there.

 

If I am using a preamp, do I disable the Volume Control under Streamer Setup? The default is enabled.

 

I left the Decoding Method under MQA Playback Setup to Auto which was the default.

 

What did you guys do with the Sampling Rate settings under Resampling Configuration in Processor Setup?

 

 

 

 

You can keep Volume Control selected.  If you want to use your pre amp volume control, just slide the Streamer one to zero on the iPad.

[Hauser]

I noticed Beta 5 says where albums have multiple discs, these will be combined into one album.  I have rescanned a couple of times, the 'The' has been ignored in albums but I still have multi disc albums with each disc displayed with its own art.  Anyone had successful aggregation?

 

Martin.

[erikd]

Hey, where can i find ipadress for aries, i am running with lan cable? wanna try web interface

[Leeuwarden]

Click the wheel in LDF and look for "wireless".

[mikey8811]

33 minutes ago, Leeuwarden said:

Yes, web interface is for settings only. I changed all PCM to 384. No other changes for me so far. 

I bookmarked the IP adres on my iPad so I can experiment with other settings while listening to music. 

Curious if there is any difference audible between different filtersettings...

 

Is there a reason why 384 is set by default to downsample to 192, 705.6 to 352.8 and 768 to 192?

 

I left the filter setting on smooth

[erikd]

6 minutes ago, Leeuwarden said:

Click the wheel in LDF and look for "wireless".

Thank you sir, found it

[Leeuwarden]

1 minute ago, mikey8811 said:

 

Is there a reason why 384 is set by default to downsample to 192, 705.6 to 352.8 and 768 to 192?

 

 

 

 

Do you have a Mini?

[mjb]

42 minutes ago, mikey8811 said:

Some off the cuff remarks - after doing the entire rescan for about 1.5 hours for a 2 Tb SMB drive and a little longer to initialise the music library, it then decided the drive was not mounted and the Music Library it saw was greyed out. Restarting fixed it. I don't know if this dropping of a recognised library happens often and is part of the new code.

 

I had the same issue, though I was able to slide the "Mount" switch to re-mount the drive. 

[mjb]

29 minutes ago, Hauser said:

You can keep Volume Control selected.  If you want to use your pre amp volume control, just slide the Streamer one to zero on the iPad.

 

Not sure if I'm imagining it, but I'm sure it sounds better with the volume control disabled, versus enabled and set to 100%.

[Darock]

@Morph

The default setting is to use Auralics proprietary MQA-decoding.

If you have a MQA-ready DAC you should use the setting "MQA pass-through" if you want the decoding to be handled by the DAC.

[Morph]

8 minutes ago, Darock said:

@Morph

The default setting is to use Auralics proprietary MQA-decoding.

If you have a MQA-ready DAC you should use the setting "MQA pass-through" if you want the decoding to be handled by the DAC.

Hi Darock

 

Yes got it now, Thanks,

 

Morph

[mikey8811]

21 minutes ago, Leeuwarden said:

 

 

Do you have a Mini?

No, I have a regular Aries Femto.

[Leeuwarden]

In that case I have no answer I'm afraid...

[Hauser]

16 minutes ago, mjb said:

 

Not sure if I'm imagining it, but I'm sure it sounds better with the volume control disabled, versus enabled and set to 100%.

I have found Dac volume control sounds better than  Aries  but if enabled and set to zero has no detrimental effect on sound.  Aries volume control is more for convenience when the Dac remote isn't handy.

[pl_svn]

3 hours ago, Anthro said:

You missed that one big bug a few beta's back that accidentally bricked Aries units that updated through ethernet cable instead of WiFi?

 

No, I didn't: my Aries took a trip to China and back last year 

[Darock]

@Morph

It would be very interesting to get your views on the differencies between Auralics decoding vs Mytek Brooklyn's hardware decoding.

 

Darock

[hemidemisemiquaver]

Hi All,

I turned on my Aries/Vega combination this morning and wondered why I did not a music library. I did a rescan thinking it was just a network glitch (they happen occasionally). Then I noticed that there was new beta version for beta participants. I played my usual favour tracks to see if the new kernel made any appreciable differences and i was totally blown away by the change. I had only a week ago upgraded both of my usb cables (connected HD to Aries & Aries to Vega) to Curious usb (0.8m) from my AQ Carbon set.

The change in cables made a huge difference (which I wasn't really expecting). This change in software augments the improvement from the new cables. The biggest differences are better control in the bass, better separation and more 3-D soundstage. The cables cost me $760 while the software upgrade comes with the product.

And I haven't even tried the web based upsampling option yet !

Great work Auralic !!

[Leeuwarden]

6 minutes ago, hemidemisemiquaver said:

The biggest differences are better control in the bass, better separation and more 3-D soundstage.

Great work Auralic !!

 

 

+1! Very happy!