The "Official" Aurender Discussion Thread

[edje]

On 2017-5-18 at 9:05 PM, russellbobby said:

Buddy is bringing over his Schiit Yggdrasil next week so we can shoot-out between the internal dac of the A10 and the Yggy.   Lot of Redbook and Hi-Rez ( except DSD of course). All Cardas Clear power cords and interconnects will be used in the shootout. Should have 4 pairs of ears so will be interesting.

Will report back.

Russ

 

Any news on this shootout? looking very much forward to it.

[edje]

On 15-7-2017 at 4:25 AM, Raphael said:

Will make a couple observations regarding the Aurender A 10 in a couple of posts.

Purchased tha A 10 about 4 weeks ago and am amazed by the overall presentation   -- midrange, stage, detailed bass and very detailed and nice upper range.  Have been running it non-stop since adding it to my system. 

Recommendation -- listen to the A 10 in two or more systems.  I listened to the A 10 in two extremely high end systems that were around 100 k each.  The A 10 was very detailed in the first system but the upper end was too bright at times.  Could not have lived with it.  In the second system, which was even more expensive, the upper end was better managed but too dry or whitish (whatever that all means) for my taste.  However, the midrange was more to my liking.  In the end, I took the plunge and bought the A 10 since I suspected it would be a better match in my system which has a fairly good upper range and is somewhat satisfactory in the lower end but really great in the midrange.  Not only does the A 10 enhance the midrange, it is remarkably detailed but very listenable in the upper range and produces an impressive tight bass.

I know this all sounds vague but my point is that the A 10 is remarkable in that there definitely can be a remarkable synergy in some systems and in others, one wonders why you ever thought you could live with it, let alone like it over the long term.

I recognise exactly what you described here. I too bought the A10 after a listen at the dealer in a very revealing setup. It sounded very coherent and naturally, although it was detailed in a good sense of way. So I ordered a unit, but in my own system it is a bit thin sounding. It seems that there is some energy missing in the middle/low part of the spectrum. I tried different cables (IL and power), but it does not make a big difference. The sound is so thin with some records that every time I give it a try I suspect there is something wrong with the streamer. There is sub-bass, but the bloom is missing at all, which makes the sound not very enjoyable.

I look foreward to your further obsevations.

[edje]

4 hours ago, russellbobby said:

Are you using a preamp?  I feel it needs a full 30 days of being left on to really give it a fair assessment. I installed Stillpoints ultra minis and made a huge difference. 

Also installed a Synergystic black fuse and that kicked it up another notch. 

Russelrobby, Yes I use a tube preamp (Aesthetix). But I made some progress yesterday.

I switched interlinks, and put another power cord on the A10, and al seems to merge together. I also played from my NAS, but it seems that playing directly from the A10 disk gives a smoother result.

The A10 is now exactly 30 days in my system, so it should be ok in that regard.

 

I think the line between musicality and too much detail is very thin with the A10 because of the utterly transparent and detailed character of it. So I am now at 90%, still have some slight harshness in the voice region. But i think that is a matter of cable matching and further tweaking. I use Xindak FA-gold interlinks and Lovecable speaker interface (the latter very good by the way). The Xindaks are to be replaced. The quality of these cables is very good, especially for the money, but not on par with the rest of the system.

 

Good suggestion about the footers! I have some Ayre myrtle blocks around, and will try them. But since I use  2 inch massive wooden shelves I dont think these will do a lot.

[edje]

BTW, can you describe in what area the stillpoints made a difference?

[edje]

I have a lot of trouble to connect to the Aurender A10 with my new W10 laptop. The  laptop is migrated from W7 to W10, and since then I cannot see the A10 at all or make a network connection to it.

I really dont understand whats going on.

 

What I did so far:

connect to the A10 from another W10 laptop within the same network => ok

connect to other devices from my laptop (NAS, printer etc) => ok

 

I try to connect to the A10 with a network share (windows button+r, the \\ip-adress A10) or map network drive to the A10.

 

Nothing works, and the only reply from my laptop is "\\A10 is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network source... The account is not authorized to log in from this station".

 

The only device which gives e trouble to connect to is the A10.

 

What can possibly be wrong? I googled and tried solutions for 2 hours but with no success. 

btw: I can ping the A10 without any problem.

 

Does anyone have the golden tip?

[edje]

Yes, there is the password in the Aurender itself if that is what you mean.

[edje]

18 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

When you try to map the drive using the Windows GUI (not the run command), have you entered the correct credentials so it doesn’t try to pass your windows credentials?

I tried this, and ticked the "connect using different credentials". I do get a login screen, and the forementioned  warning about the A10 is not accessible etc.

[edje]

I finally figured out what the problem was after a lot of internet surfing: There are several suggestions about this problem pointing to the registry. From a certain W10 build Windows insists on an authenticated SMB login. You can disable this by changing the registry:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters\AllowInsecureGuestAuth

 

Set the value to 1 or create the entry, it should work straight away then according to several sources. But this still didn't work for me.

 

What did work was also change the following registry entry:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters\RequireSecuritySignature from 1 to 0. That finally solved my problem.

 

So for everyone who has the same problems this can be a (very hard to find) solution.

 

Thanks everyone for participating in my connection troubles!

 

 

[edje]

Am I the only one who does not have the filter options anymore? They were there, but somewhere the filters dissapeared with a software update. I have the A10 with software version 5.10.34

[edje]

I updated my home network this weekend. Installed a security appliance (meraki MX64) between my LAN and the WAN router. After that I was unable to let  the Ipad make a connection to the A10. The Aurender does get an IP adress, but the conductor app is not able to connect to it. I try to make a new connection to the IP adress which I read off the display of the A10.

All the conductor app is replying is that it is not an Aurender.

 

I can ping the aurender from the Ipad, everything else on the network is as before, except the connection between the Ipad and A10.

 

After all I removed the Meraki from the network and created the situation as before, but still no connection with the message that the IP adress is not an Aurender.

I also cannot  see the Aurender when I make a network connection to the IP-adress from my laptop, but pinging  is no problem.

I also removed the conductor app and installed it fresh. Offcourse restarted the Aurender.

 

It looks like the A10 is corrupted. Anyone experienced something like this? I already logged a call by Aurender, but probably someone recognises the problem.

 

[edje]

I have a lot of experience with other music clients, mainly based on MPD (wich is also the base of Aurender). There are several apps for the Ipad as well as for the Iphone/android. It is very handy to be able to control the music server by phone or even windows laptop beside the Ipad. These are the devices I have on hand mostly, so it would be very helpfull to have other options as the ipad (I dont have any Android devices). I hope Aurender will make other options available in the future.

[edje]

14 hours ago, mjb said:

There‘s a small Conductor App update available: version 2.9.4.1.

Is there a way to force the conductor update? I can see the version nr. But cannot update it.

[edje]

I have a problem with my A10 Aurender. When playing DSD files from my NAS sometimes there is during playback of music a very loud hum in stead of the music. Only solution to stop the hum is to select another track and all is fine then. After some listening the problem occurs again randomly. When I import the same album to the Aurender it does not occur and plays the whole album without problems.

 

Does this sound familliar?

[edje]

There is one option I miss very bad in the Aurender interface, and that is a stop button beside the pause/play button. I often play an album, but are not able to finish the whole playlist at ance. Only option to stop the music is to clear the album, but I actually wish to just stop the music with the playlist still selected and play the same list the other day again.

 

Is that something other users recognise?

 

[edje]

23 hours ago, michaelD said:

I have never played a whole album but I know in a playlist you can hit pause and then shut down the Aurender through the software.  Then the next time I can get right back to that same track.  It will not keep where you stopped in that track but will bring up the track you paused and then you can start from there.  I bring in a playlist then shuffle all the time and because the playlist is long I never finish it but its nice to start the next time where you left off.

I keep the A10 on all the time, so no shutdown here. So when I hit the pause button the Aurender will not go to sleep and will stay active. To keep the machine on, and with the playlist in memory the only option is to select the last track and drag the cursor to the end of it, so the track will play for only a couple of seconds.

Or is a shutdown via the app the same as the sleep mode the machine select itself?

[edje]

Anybody tried the new conductor app? It is launched today in the App store!

[edje]

I have another issue with my A10: sometimes when playing an album It plays the first second of the track and then starts over and over again for about 10-20 seconds. After that it will play the whole album without issues. Anyone have had this?

[edje]

I cannot help with the tidal issue, since I not use Tidal.

But do you also have the impression that the sound quality of the A10 is improved the last updates? I cannot recall when exactly it improved, but it definitely sounds better then a couple of months ago. Better attack and decay, and space is improved big way.

[edje]

In the settings menu (right side at the bottom of the app) you select the second tab. Scroll down, and tap the first blue line which will come up. There you can select every language you want.

[edje]

39 minutes ago, marslo said:

I did , it didn't help.  First I tried Polish, than after having checked int the App Stroe that there are only two languages available ( Korean and English ) I switched to English but I have still Korean description.

The screen remains like on the picture.

I think you are right. I had selected the Dutch language, but all is in English. Then I selected an unreadable language, but still English. With Polish I also have the English interface. But it is a mistery why you have the Korean language in your environment. Can it be a setting on your phone?

[edje]

Last time the conductor app typically starts in the settings menu. Does this sound familliar? Is this a bug, or a setting I missed?

[edje]

9 minutes ago, AriMargolis said:

@edje @rwwjr44 this is an anomaly with the current app version. It will be fixed in the forthcoming app update.

 

Wow, that is super Ari. I like a self healing system!

[edje]

I am very curious which DAC you use with the N20. I now own an A10, and wonder if switching to an N20 with, for example, a Chord Qutest DAC would give a significant upgrade.

Or would the Qutest form a mismatch in terms of sound quality, and would it be a better option to go to a X100 with a better DAC like the DCS Bartok?

[edje]

Do you think that the Bartók with x100 will be a serious upgrade over the A10? I am not looking 

for a small update off course with this kind of money involved.

[edje]

12 hours ago, Vincent1234 said:

As indicated by Ken: the Bartók is one hell of a DAC. So yes, it will be a huge upgrade. Considering the X100: if your budget allows you could consider listening to an N10 too (maybe a used one!) or even an N20. The N10 does sound considerably better than the X100 (which uses an SMPS instead of an LPS). But again, it's about budget. The N10/N20 would be a great match with the Bartók, but you could also be happy with an X100.

Thanks Vincent.

What I am struggling with is the balance between the contribution of the dac and the streamer. There is such a huge step in costs between the N100 and N20, there is nothing in between. My budget is not sufficient for an N20 and a Bartok. I have always understood that the DAC is the biggest contributor. What does the N20 add to an N100 if there is a Bartok behind it in relation to the sound quality. I think it is a difficult consideration.