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The "Official" Aurender Discussion Thread


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5 minutes ago, rwwjr44 said:

 

You can sort by "Sort by album year" Find the line that contains the number of albums (just under the list to select format "All   DSD  Etc.  FLAC  Misc") to the right of that is a small widget that allows you to sort by album, artist or album year. Probably gleaned from meta-data.

I would actually LOVE a "shuffle" or "random" option for sorting the album list. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
6 hours ago, kilroy said:

@AriMargolis Ari, we all appreciate your help, my only help request was a while back and you were on top of it.

Are you in a position to speak about the app design, or is there anyone else. That's my sole complaint, in that it seems fairly basic and has not too many options for the music interface itself. I'm coming from using JRiver for many years and to Aurender just this year, but what I've given up in the JRiver app for options and flexibility pains me. In Conductor, for example, there's not even a basic ability to look at a file tag. Just having that would be a big benefit. And the user control, all in the top square inch of space, the fast forward is unusable and the other controls are tiny, why can't this be improved for easier use? There's more, but I'm not trying to pile it on. And not trying to put you on the spot at all, just my thoughts. Maybe you could pass this along, or have someone else get in touch if they're interested. Any other users that agree please chime in as well.

I do think it is "interesting" how Aurender builds such phenomenal streamers but expects us to control them with such crappy apps. I honestly don't understand why companies like Aurender continues to be dead set on designing their own apps, when apps like JRiver exist and with some adaptations can easily be used to operate anything. We spend thousands of dollars on this gear, how hard can it be to pick up the phone, call JRiver Inc (+1 612 677 8200) and make things happen... 

As mentioned yesterday my N100SC arrived yesterday. I do not own an iPad and am now suffering through the Android version of the app, which I really think is a total abomination, there is no excuse for it whatsoever. I can't even manually add a path to my NAS! 

Even the bluesound app is better than the Aurender one... 

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3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I like JRiver Media Center. I like Aurender Conductor. I wouldn’t like JRMC running on an Aurender server. 

So do I.

I want the functionality of JRiver, but not the mysery of having it running as a server on my streamer (or anywhere else). What I would like to see is that Aurender takes care of the hardware (because I LOVE the sound of my new toy, even though I had to slide in an SSD to get some music from it, I cannot connect to the NAS through the Android app), and then have a company with over 40 years of experience in this field to design the software running and controlling it.

For some reason every company is dead set on re-inventing the wheel, and more often than not the new wheel is triangular... 

 

 

3 hours ago, Mazza said:

+1

 

if I want to edit meta data, I use a dedicated app. I use audirvana on my pc for playback and it would never even occur to me to use it for meta data manipulation and I don’t remember that being raised as an issue by its users.
 

Please aurender, keep it focused, like it currently is! That’s my vote!

Metadata editing is not something this app should do, that is what software like Tag&Rename is for. But a normal functioning app for Android would be really really nice. I don't want to spend another few 100 on a fruit tablet which I won't use for anything else.

 

 

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29 minutes ago, Mazza said:

 

@markusbarkus ..... absolutely spot-on 

 

IIRC this was the fundamental reason given by Aurender for the development of Conductor; ie not being tied to someone else's technology as a minority stakeholder and the associated loss of control of the impact/influence on Aurender's product's!

 

Albeit, those Aurender comments were made in the context of 'why not Roon?'; but it gives some insight as to why-not. 

There is quite a difference between a "hostile Roon takeover" and asking another company to develop and design an integral part of the end product according to your set specifications. There are very few loudspeaker builders that actually manufacture their own woofers, mid units or tweeters. Those usually are built by a third party to specifications. 

 

I was an internet developer for little over a decade. I worked on the very first version of the online banking site for the Bank of Canada. They told us what they wanted, we built it, they tested it, we tweaked it (repeat quite a few times), and in the end released a site they were happy with and which worked pretty well given the early stages of doing things like online banking. 

There really isn't much difference here. Stick to what you do well (banking // build streamers), and have other people do what they do well (build websites for online banking // build user interfaces). 

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I do have to state that so far my experience is with the Android version of the app, which really is just sad. 

My first streamer was a rotel which had a text based control, the second was a bluesound node2 which literally went up in smoke, the third a borrowed Lumin which I quite liked, and now I have a N100SC. 

I thought long and hard about what I wanted, what I wanted it to sound like and what options it should have or were not needed. 

As it turned out my N100SC "plays a song" when using the Android app, but basically this is it. I cannot manually enter the path to my NAS. The play/pause/stop/etc controls are all 2 "clicks" deep. Sorting is a mess. I installed an SSD (I actually took apart a portable harddisk to put the drive in the player) just to get it to play. 

 

I do not own a fruit tablet, and never expected the difference between the fruit and the Android so humongous. Which is why I am quite frustrated. 

I really don't want to buy a 500 dollar tablet to only use as a remote. 

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6 hours ago, Vincent1234 said:

Sorry, but I really don't know what is 'sad' about the Android version. I'm using it daily and it does what it's supposed to do. 

Aurender doesn't want an app that does it all, just as they don't want to support Roon. Both choices would require more processing power, which often leads to more EMI and RFI and a decrease in SQ. I myself will choose SQ over features anyday.

Did you actually read my entire post or did you stop after the first line?

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@AriMargolis, I use a Benchmark DAC3 B which does native DSD conversion. (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0321/7609/files/DAC3_B_Manual_Rev_A.pdf, page 16, page 30)

According to my N100SC it doesn't? I tried to change this in the settings, but it refuses and claims my DAC3 isn't capable.  I have turned the N100SC off, made sure that the USB on the Benchmark DAC3 is set to 2.0, turned the N100SC back on, but no game...

Also the display shows that it is connected to a DAC2, which is incorrect.

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2 minutes ago, AriMargolis said:

From the manual you linked:

 

”Note: To provide full backward and forward compatibility, the DAC3 uses the DAC2 USB drivers. This prevents the need to install two different sets of drivers. Please note that the DAC3 USB input will be identified as "Benchmark DAC2" in your computer control panels. This is intentional.”

 

re: Native DSD, most DACs that claim native DSD input compatibility work only with drivers for windows sources. But, a lot can also be made to work with Linux as well. I posted about this a few pages back. Please send a remote support email from the app so that our guys can check for Native DSD input compatibility with this DAC. Thanks!

Ah, I missed that... one issue taken care of. 

I will send a support request. 

Thank you! 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/6/2020 at 7:10 PM, AriMargolis said:

re: Native DSD, most DACs that claim native DSD input compatibility work only with drivers for windows sources. But, a lot can also be made to work with Linux as well. I posted about this a few pages back. Please send a remote support email from the app so that our guys can check for Native DSD input compatibility with this DAC. Thanks!

Hello @AriMargolis,

 

It's been over 2 weeks since I sent a support request... No reply whatsoever though...

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  • 4 weeks later...

I just discovered that my N100SC apparently does not automatically upgrade its system software, it is still on the previous version. Checking for upgrades via the app states there are no new upgrades, which according to the Aurender site is incorrect. Is there a way to download it and do it manually?

 

Also, is a temperature of 50 celcius normal? There are no moving parts whatsoever in it. 

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28 minutes ago, AriMargolis said:

@edje @rwwjr44

 

@Anonamemouse in some network environments we have become aware of an issue reaching our update server. Please send a remote support request email (Settings>Help>Send Remote Support Email) and we can update your Aurender manually. I don't expect you will encounter this issue again after that. Regarding the temperature, we can check the temperature logs as well and advise. Thanks!

An email was sent! Please also go back in the inbox, I replied to your email on December 27.

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  • 4 weeks later...
5 hours ago, ken6217 said:

Just received my N20 and ACS100. I'll hook it up tomorrow. For ripping CD's is there any benefit or negative of WAV versus FLAC in terms of audio quality or album art? I do know that WAV files do take up more space.

Congrats on the new toys!

 

I personally have never heard any difference between WAV and FLAC (if ripped properly), I have compared both on a system so frighteningly revealing that you could hear what brand of jeans the drummer was wearing. There are people that will swear X is humongously better than Y, but those people also always knew what they were listening to, or they were comparing different masterings of the same album.

 

FLAC has the great benefit of metadata tagging, something WAV somewhat allows, but it is not in the official specifications for the format. If you are worried about the compression FLAC applies, you can rip to FLAC without compression (set compression to zero). That way you get uncompressed WAV with a FLAC shell.

 

In the end you are the one listening to your music, let your own ears decide what you think is best.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
6 minutes ago, robmoores1 said:

Good afternoon. 

 

I suspect this question has been asked before but I thought I would ask it again. I am looking to pick up an Aurender N100H and my only concern is potential mechanical noise from the HDD. 

 

I used to have an Innuos Zen Mini and my biggest frustration - and the reason I ended up selling it - was the noise from the unit as it seems to need to access the HDD constantly. 

 

I know that Aurender units use an SSD to cache music ready to play but whilst it is going through this process is it particularly noisy? 

 

Thanks. 

A solid state drive produces no sound whatsoever and barely any heat. It also is MUCH faster than a regular hard disk. 

Unfortunately they are also quite a bit more expensive.

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13 minutes ago, Ponzi said:

Every once in while, I purchase a CD, only to rip it and find that it has no meta data (this happens more often than not with CD's recommended by Absolute Sound -- why I don't know).  Using the ASC tools, I can easily add the name of the composer, the genre, etc.  But not the album art.  I have two questions:  Why would a producer of CDs not include the mete data?  Second, can I add it some how, using the ASC 10, and without having to haul out a lap top?  

Meta data is not in the redbook specifications. So technically, if a cd contains meta data, it was not made according to industry standards.

 

About the album art, there are sites where you can download many album covers which can be added. 

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5 hours ago, agladstone said:

When I was giving the semi colon example, the one tag I notice this the most is for genre! 
So in my experience, I have like 1,000 different genres within Conductor because when I enter multiple genres separated by semi colons, it creates a new genre ! 
Second, I like you have many many albums where I have 5-10+ different versions or releases or media it was ripped from, so I always create my own custom Album Title Miles Davis - Bitches Brew - (1970) - (1999 Sony SACD) - [DSD64] as an example (this is the album title format I use for all my albums!!) 

This does work in that Conductor does show each version as a separate Album under Artist and not as 6 albums all with the same name. 
I do like Conductor despite some of the custom tagging limitations. I suspect Aurender could easily add the ability to utilize all possible tags including custom ones so long as they’re part of the meta data, I suspect it’s a matter of flipping on a virtual switch as to which fields and tags are displayed?  
The Aurender’s and Conductor sound quality is exceptional and the use of the app is easy and intuitive. 
If you like Roon, the one thing you may miss is that Conductor doesn’t really have any liner notes for albums or bios for artists, etc. That is something I would love to see added someday! 

Just curious, did you actually report any of this as bugs/wishes or are you just waiting for someone from Aurender to come over to your house with a questionnaire?

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  • 1 month later...
6 hours ago, lmf22 said:

Does anyone know if there's a way to make the N100C's power light dimmer when it's on standby? 

Currently, the power light dims only when the Front Display setting in the Conductor app is set to Display Off during playback. 

But when on the unit goes into standby, the power light brightens up again. 

 

The first photo shows the dim light when music is playing (display off). The second photo shows the bright light when the unit is in standby. 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately this cannot be changed right now, but I have requested it as an option.

It can dim to 75% when the display is off and to 25% when the unit is turned off, so it would be really nice if we would be able to dim it through an option in the menu. 

Send a message through  support, the more requests the better!

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  • 1 month later...
6 hours ago, udis said:

Thank you for this. To clarify, in order for me to control the first 10 folders (order of listing), do I need to create a child directory with the remaining folders? Say I want a folder “Live albums”, if I create it in current flat structure, it will not be in first 10. Am I missing something?

That is indeed how it works. I have requested to make it possible to turn it off for people that don't use this. 

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5 hours ago, PrTv said:

A couple days back, I encountered a problem in which my N100 skipped a number of Tidal songs. It could play some tracks but most of the times, it would skip tracks. I checked with my friend's A10 and he had the same issue. Till today, the problem still persists.

 

@AriMargolis Please kindly check what happened.

If your friend has the same issue on a different system, the problem is not with Aurender. 

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  • 3 months later...
2 hours ago, JS21 said:

Looking seriously into the N200 to replace my A10. Really interested in your findings. I remember my A10 sounding much better after the 300 hr break-in mark. Keep us posted…

Interesting... Specially since human memory for sound is about 20 seconds, at best. 

A - B comparison only works if you can literally flick a switch. 

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50 minutes ago, scoc said:

Aurender installed a fix on my demo N200 unit to resolve the issue with not showing any internet radio meta data info. That is now resolved. In the mean time I’m trying to break-in the demo N200 unit to 200 hours before testing again.

Now here's an interesting experiment. Are you actually "breaking in" a new piece of electronics, or are you just getting used to the way it sounds? When you reach the 500 hour mark, get another N200, brand new from an unopened box and do an A - B comparison. Hear if it actually does sound different. 

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