The "Official" Aurender Discussion Thread

[steveoat]

I am enjoying my N200 and appreciate all the help I have received thus far on the forum.

 

My one regret is that Aurender didn't include FPGA in the N200.  This couldn't have been that expensive to implement (Chord has it in a number of much cheaper DACs).  Hopefully, this will be rectified in the future.

[JS21]

6 hours ago, steveoat said:

I am enjoying my N200 and appreciate all the help I have received thus far on the forum.

 

Did you upgrade from any Aurender product? I’ve been on the fence with the N200 for a while now but I’m unsure of any improvements over my A10 since I will be using the dacs in my Lyngdorf. I love the aesthetics though.

[steveoat]

On 2/16/2022 at 2:24 PM, AurenderAmerica said:

@steveoatyes, the Aurender app displays pdf booklets from Qobuz in quite an elegant way (see screen capture video below). It's nice that the pdf reader is embedded in the app...so it doesn't boot you out to a different app/browser to view the liner notes. At this time, this functionality is available only for Qobuz content. But, adding support for pdf files accompanying locally stored files is in the development road map.

 

 

 

I like that Aurender displays the Qobuz liner notes, but I noticed one oddity.  When I make a selection from Qobuz a favorite, I can read the liner notes.  However, when I add this album to a playlist, and the album is played, I am no longer able to access the liner notes.  Is this how it is supposed to work, and if so, I think its a flaw.  You would want to be able to read the liner notes while listening to that particular album.  Or, am I missing something in terms of how to access the liner notes from al album on a playlist?

[Len44]

So, s few years later...Anyone know how "Simultaneous XLR and RCA output" connections work with the Aurender A30?  Would the RCA connectors need to be disconnected to have true balanced output from the A30?  

[AurenderAmerica]

On 3/13/2022 at 8:22 AM, Len44 said:

So, s few years later...Anyone know how "Simultaneous XLR and RCA output" connections work with the Aurender A30?  Would the RCA connectors need to be disconnected to have true balanced output from the A30?  

@Len44 A10, A20 and A30 have fully balanced circuits from end to end for XLR outputs with or without parallel RCA cables connected.

[Len44]

Thanks SO Much!

 

[steveoat]

I would like to start a wish list for improvements to the Aurender:   Here's a start:

 

Being able to acccess pdf booklets from your own internal albums rather than just Qobuz.

 

Being able to search by record label.

 

Faster scanning (especially the clean rescan which seems to take forever).

 

Ability to display more metadata (or able to customize what you display).

 

For future models, modular parts that you can replace when meaningful upgrades appear.

 

Any thoughts and/or other suggestions?

[kipdent]

I concur that being able to access pdf booklets from your own albums is a top request. I suspect this next idea will be viewed as quite minor, but I would like to see the ability to choose which album artwork is displayed in genre view instead of Conductor randomly (or however it does it) choosing an album cover. 

[AurenderAmerica]

@steveoat @kipdent these are great suggestions, most of which are definitely on the road map.

 

5 hours ago, steveoat said:

Faster scanning (especially the clean rescan which seems to take forever).

What model Aurender do you have, and how big is your library? It should be pretty freakin' fast...

[steveoat]

36 minutes ago, AurenderAmerica said:

@steveoat @kipdent these are great suggestions, most of which are definitely on the road map.

 

What model Aurender do you have, and how big is your library? It should be pretty freakin' fast...

About 400 K tracks.  Takes about 13 hours for clean rescan which is way too long.  Have 2  Samsung 8 TB SSD drives.

[AurenderAmerica]

1 minute ago, steveoat said:

About 400 K tracks.  Takes about 13 hours for clean rescan which is way too long.  Have 2  Samsung 8 TB SSD drives.

 

@steveoat Yeah, that's a huge library...like, top 1% of Aurender users. It's gonna take some time to scan a library like that on any platform, especially one like Aurender that is willing to eschew the fastest most powerful CPUs available in favor of achieving much better sound quality. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, AurenderAmerica said:

 

@steveoat Yeah, that's a huge library...like, top 1% of Aurender users. It's gonna take some time to scan a library like that on any platform, especially one like Aurender that is willing to eschew the fastest most powerful CPUs available in favor of achieving much better sound quality. 

Is there a reason why someone would do a full scan rather than run the much shorter scan for changes?

 

I know I’ve done both but it’s more of a testing thing and trying to break it type thing. 

[steveoat]

1 minute ago, AurenderAmerica said:

 

@steveoat Yeah, that's a huge library...like, top 1% of Aurender users. It's gonna take some time to scan a library like that on any platform, especially one like Aurender that is willing to eschew the fastest most powerful CPUs available in favor of achieving much better sound quality. 

I figured it had to do with the slower CPU.  My machines that run Roon or JRiver are typcially core i7 or i9.

 

Getting back to my suggestions for search, I would also like to be able to do multi level searches.  For example, take an artist like John Coltrane.  I would like to search for this artist and break the search down into his Impulse! recordings, his Concord Recordings and his Blue Note Recordings.  Same thing for someone like Miles Davis -- Concord, Sony, Warner, etc.

[steveoat]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Is there a reason why someone would do a full scan rather than run the much shorter scan for changes?

 

I know I’ve done both but it’s more of a testing thing and trying to break it type thing. 

Chris, I generally do the shorter scan.  However, I have noticed that after a software update, a full scan generally runs.  Not sure if this is by design.

[AurenderAmerica]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Is there a reason why someone would do a full scan rather than run the much shorter scan for changes?

@The Computer AudiophileI have found that sometimes if I edit the metadata of files on my Aurender HDD, those changes don't always get picked up in the "scan for new files" action. Especially if the file names or folder path has not been changed, sometimes the scanner doesn't recognize those edits as new activity. In those cases, a clean scan will re-scan EVERYTHING and the metadata edits will reflected. 

[AurenderAmerica]

1 minute ago, steveoat said:

I have noticed that after a software update, a full scan generally runs.  Not sure if this is by design.

@steveoatif the SySo (system software) update contains changes to the way the library database structure works, then yes, it will prompt a clean scan. For most updates, this is not the case.

 

And we 100% understand the record label feature you are asking for. Personally (this is Ari, by the way), this will be a really happy day for me when browsing and searching by record label becomes available. Rest assured, it is coming. Keep in mind this will depend on the record label metadata being present in the files. 

[steveoat]

6 minutes ago, AurenderAmerica said:

@steveoatif the SySo (system software) update contains changes to the way the library database structure works, then yes, it will prompt a clean scan. For most updates, this is not the case.

 

And we 100% understand the record label feature you are asking for. Personally (this is Ari, by the way), this will be a really happy day for me when browsing and searching by record label becomes available. Rest assured, it is coming. Keep in mind this will depend on the record label metadata being present in the files. 

Ari. This is great news Re searching by labels.  I gave some jazz example above, but it is even more useful for classical — for artists like Bernstein, Solti and the indefatigueable Neeme Jarvi.  By the way, love the sound of the N200.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I'd like to request Aurender support multichannel FLAC files. These can be output via USB or Ravenna. 

[litebreeze]

Hi! Has anyone had a good experience clocking a N20 with a high-end ocxo masterclock via the N20’s clock input in the following config? I’m running a dac connected via AES to the n20 and the dac does not have a clock input. 

If so, how significant was the improvement and what was the clock used? Cheers

[The Computer Audiophile]

Ok, it’s time again for my niche feature requests for Aurender. As I continue down my Atmos, immersive, and multichannel music journey, I am continually reminded of the early days of computer audio. It’s the Wild West. 
 

My dream request is for an Aurender that supports multichannel output via USB or Ravenna (preferably Ravenna), convolution filters, and a file format like Wave64, CAF, or WavPack because they support more than 8 channels and file sizes larger than 4GB (if needed). 
 

This would be the only server to support such features. Currently, if one wants to do this stuff, s/he must use a Mac or Windows machine. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, but it sure is nice to fire up Conductor and press play without thinking about what could go wrong. 
 

I’m playing 6, 8, and 12 channel PCM files now. The decoding is already done, so Aurender doesn’t need any Atmos or DTS decoder. 
 

Plus, hopefully music streaming services will offer Atmos content through hardware partners such as Aurender soon. 
 

OK, that’s my feature request for tonight. 

[Bolts]

My conductor app has started crashing on the IPad but only in QoBuz, go to load track and it crashes back to homepage.  Tried re downloading app but same issue - I’ll contact Aurender but if anyone has any thoughts very welcome.

[Bolts]

2 minutes ago, Bolts said:

My conductor app has started crashing on the IPad but only in QoBuz, go to load track and it crashes back to homepage.  Tried re downloading app but same issue - I’ll contact Aurender but if anyone has any thoughts very welcome.

Ah update - it only crashes in my QoBuz favourites - feels like it’s a QoBuz issue…

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Bolts said:

Ah update - it only crashes in my QoBuz favourites - feels like it’s a QoBuz issue…

Same problem here.

 

Paging @AurenderAmerica

[Bolts]

Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

Same problem here.

 

Paging @AurenderAmerica

Ah great to know that - I’ve also had some tracks added into my favourites, randomly that weren’t mine I cleared them and they reappear - seems like something is going haywire somewhere  - I can play my favourites from the QoBuz app so going back on myself it could be an Aurender issue - funnily enough I dropped Tidal because random tracks kept being added but it’s now happening in QoBuz. 

[Bolts]

OK further update - from what I can tell any Albums that have been designated as favourites crash the app, no matter where they’re selected from it seems. So for example if i select an album from new releases that I have also selected as a favourite the app crashes.