The "Official" Aurender Discussion Thread

[hellrider77]

I am glad that Aurender finally released a somewhat functional app for Android, I bought an iPad  only to be used with my Aurender but I can't wait to get rid of it.

 

Unfortunately the Android version is still lacking functionalities found in the iOS version:

 

1. In album view, it always defaults to album name sorting, normally it should be able to remember the user setting, in my case I prefer sort by artist and then by album year...I just cannot seem to find any use to sort a large library by album name alone

2. No option to save an favorite online radio station or add a custom radio station that is not included in the Shoutcast directory (it works on iOS)

3. Unable to delete playlists (I couldn't do it on iOS either). Playlist management is a PITA

 

There are still unsolved problems that are not related to Conductor app:

 

1. Inconsistency in compatibility across FW's.  I have an Yamaha CD-S3000. With the latest firmware (5.17.15) Aurender plays up to 192/24 but no DSD. The worst thing is that Aurender hangs when CD-S3000 powers down or goes into stand-by The only way to make it work again is to hard power off and restart of the Aurender. I ran some more tests and downgraded Aurender to factory firmware (5.9.27). In this case CD-S3000 is able to play up to DS64 and Aurender does not hang anymore when I power off or put the Yamaha in Stand-By. This means that somewhere along the firmware development of Aurender something went wrong in supporting odd DAC's, this also means that Aurender software development is not consistent which makes me really skeptic about  the future.

 

2. Few years back, I believe it was 5.5.76,  when I would play an online stream (online radio) I would get  the artist and track names displayed on the Aurender's display and in the Conductor app, it was really useful as it was a nice way to discover new artists or albums I didn't know of.  After one upgrade (i believe it was 5.10.16 but as well may be somewhere in between 5.5.76 and 5.10.16) only SHOUTCAST or ONLINE RADIO is displayed. Of course I checked and my favorite station is still sending artist name and track info (together with album cover but I do not expect Aurender to display that, even in the Conductor app). I sent this issue to Aurender support since November 2017, it is almost two years now and still no resolution. I mean how hard can it be to check what was lost from one SW version to the next and solve the darn thing?

 

Great machines flawed by software.

 

 

 

[hellrider77]

On 9/3/2019 at 10:21 AM, hellrider77 said:

I am glad that Aurender finally released a somewhat functional app for Android, I bought an iPad  only to be used with my Aurender but I can't wait to get rid of it.

 

Unfortunately the Android version is still lacking functionalities found in the iOS version:

 

1. In album view, it always defaults to album name sorting, normally it should be able to remember the user setting, in my case I prefer sort by artist and then by album year...I just cannot seem to find any use to sort a large library by album name alone

2. No option to save an favorite online radio station or add a custom radio station that is not included in the Shoutcast directory (it works on iOS)

3. Unable to delete playlists (I couldn't do it on iOS either). Playlist management is a PITA

 

There are still unsolved problems that are not related to Conductor app:

 

1. Inconsistency in compatibility across FW's.  I have an Yamaha CD-S3000. With the latest firmware (5.17.15) Aurender plays up to 192/24 but no DSD. The worst thing is that Aurender hangs when CD-S3000 powers down or goes into stand-by The only way to make it work again is to hard power off and restart of the Aurender. I ran some more tests and downgraded Aurender to factory firmware (5.9.27). In this case CD-S3000 is able to play up to DS64 and Aurender does not hang anymore when I power off or put the Yamaha in Stand-By. This means that somewhere along the firmware development of Aurender something went wrong in supporting odd DAC's, this also means that Aurender software development is not consistent which makes me really skeptic about  the future.

 

2. Few years back, I believe it was 5.5.76,  when I would play an online stream (online radio) I would get  the artist and track names displayed on the Aurender's display and in the Conductor app, it was really useful as it was a nice way to discover new artists or albums I didn't know of.  After one upgrade (i believe it was 5.10.16 but as well may be somewhere in between 5.5.76 and 5.10.16) only SHOUTCAST or ONLINE RADIO is displayed. Of course I checked and my favorite station is still sending artist name and track info (together with album cover but I do not expect Aurender to display that, even in the Conductor app). I sent this issue to Aurender support since November 2017, it is almost two years now and still no resolution. I mean how hard can it be to check what was lost from one SW version to the next and solve the darn thing?

 

Great machines flawed by software.

 

 

 

 

Good news for Android users, issues related to the Android app version have been solved in the yesterday update, number 3 might be user error (I still don't know how to delete playlist) .

Oh, and another good news is that they are working to bring back radio streams metadata display functionality. 

 

Unfortunately, for me, there is a bigger issue still unsolved - compatibility with Yamaha CD-S3000. The support guys remotely updated my machine to latest fw, sometimes it hangs when I put Yamaha in standby, sometimes it doesn't. I could somehow live with it as I rarely power off my dac, BUT , there is a bigger issue that I overlooked initially.

Drops, clicks, pops and strange overtones when playing. It gets worse as the resolution increases (lower intensity and less frequent drops and pops when playing back  44.1 material, higher intensity and quite often drops pops and overtones when playing back  24/192 material). If, with 5.10.16 FW (the version came factory installed) I could play DSD64 material (of course still flawed by the drops and clicks issues) with the latest FW, DSD64 no longer works. (DSD128 will never work via DoP  with my DAC as it only accepts native DSD - Aurender dropped native DSD support some time ago.  DoP will always be limited to max DAC sync rate , in my case, 192Khz, therefore no DSD128 for me, but I don't care as I do not have this kind of material in my library) 

 

On a funny note, even though I told support from the start that I tested several USB cables and the issue is the same, in the latest message they told me that they believe it is the USB cable and I should test with others,.... what can I say, I love Kafka.

 

As a long time Aurender user, I still have some previous fw release notes saved, this one gives me hope that my issue might still be solved somehow:

 

Quote

Current update Firmware 5.4.58 debut 2nd of May 2016

New features
1. Support for Qobuz
2. Smart Copy feature
Copying files and folders can now be done within the app.
You can copy music files from NAS or external USB drive without using PC/Mac.
Models with two internal HDDs - when target HDD is full, Aurender will copy to the second HDD automatically.
There is only a copy feature. Not delete or change name. They are in our future to-do list.
3. W20 supports on-the-fly DSD to PCM conversion up to DSD64.
N10 has had DSD to PCM conversion since the introduction. N10 supports up to DSD128.
Improvements
1. Improved DAC compatibility.
2. New DAC : Yamaha DACs which work with Yamaha Steinberg driver.
Yamaha DACs that require installing Yamaha Steinberg driver on PC will work with Aurender. You do not need to install drivers to Aurender.
3. AMM(Aurender Media Manager) Ver. 3.2 is easier to use.
Requirement to mount NAS drive before using the AMM has been eliminated.
You can mount drive within AMM.
For Mac: http://files.aurender.com/AurenderMe...er.app.320.zip
For Windows: http://files.aurender.com/AurenderMe...-Setup.320.exe
Bug Fix
1. Add-to-Next using TIDAL - now a song added goes not to the end of the queue
2. W20 stuck after trying to play DSD128 without a USB DAC.
3. Other bugs fixed and overall stability and usability improved.
If you have any problem with the new software, please send remote support using iPad Aurender Conductor App.(It’s under the Settings->Help)
if your iPad is not configured for email, please send email to [email protected] 

 

BTW,  @AriMargolis is really helpful in trying to get our complaints and messages across Aurender SW and  engineer teams, he is fighting the good battle for us.

[hellrider77]

Does anybody know whether MQA filters are still applied on non-MQA content in A10? Last word I've  heard was that Aurender removed option to choose filters but it is unclear to me if they are still applied by default or not.

 

 

[hellrider77]

3 hours ago, jon2020 said:

Hi all,

 

I am curious as to whether others here may have shared my experience that high quality isolation footers significantly improve the SQ of their units, even with the lowly N100H.

I currently use Harmonix by Combak footers but hope to hear from others about their choices and what work best for them. Also, to Ari and Chris, whether they do recommend any particular make/model.

 

Many thanks in advance. 

Jon. 

 

Yes, I used Omicron Magic Dream Energy with my former N100H, the improvement was not subtle, especially in the low register, I always felt that N100H had a wooly bass character ( but in a really nice way, I kind of miss it now) the Omicrons brought more slam.

 

I am now using the Omicrons with x100l and, apart from looking good, I don't hear any differences.

 

Interestingly, I didn't find any use for the Omicrons under any other component, they always mess something up, except for Aurenders.

[hellrider77]

Latest FW is messing up a lot of things. They don't even want to recognize problems. DSD is not working anymore with any of my devices.  First they said it is an legacy dac with odd driver, but it is not working on Audiophilleo 1 either, which is highly compatible.

 

Also support is silent since two weeks. It is definitely a matter of too many devices and subdimensionate dev and support team. 

 

[hellrider77]

Well, on X100L, A10 and N100H with FW version 5.10.16 (it might be working with newer FW but never tried, 5.10.16 is the only version that works with my DAC), attaching a drive via USB and inserting an audio CD would result in automatically ripping the disc on the Aurender's internal drive in the 

\\[your aurender name or IP]\music1\Etc\yyyy-mm-dd-HH-MM\[Artist Name]\ 

   folder (where yyyy=year, mm=month, dd=day, HH=hour, MM=minutes). I never tried ripping common CD's in order to check whether it also correctly identifies artist name, album and track name as I only used this function for discs that are "unobtainium", therefore, all I am getting is  "Unknown Artist" instead of [Artist Name].

 

The ripping function of Aurender used to be described in the online user manual, now there is no mention of that.

 

I don't see any reason ripping would not work with W20 as it does with A10, X100L and N100 (probably with N10 to but never tested personally). 

 

 

Forgot to mention that the process is completely silent and there is no progress indicator or visual confirmation, the only way to know whether the process is complete is to check if the disc is still spinning in the drive.

[hellrider77]

Hi Jesse, 

I remember you being very helpful with some issues I had back then with my first Aurender, it was also a case of some functionalities no longer available in newer firmwares.. I also remember that any support message stopped for a very long time. Only after six months or so someone replied to my email telling me that you were no longer working for Aurender and if they can be of any help. The first Aurender was long sold by then while I took the custom build pc route.

Some of those functionalities were added back only when Ari took over some of my complaints only last year in September when I bought again an Aurender due to my limited knowledge with software and pc and the poor results I had with RPI, NUC's and various software solutions.

Even if I appreciate my Aurender server and could not think of a better alternative for the price (if someone is asking me for advice for a streaming solution, I cannot think of any other advice to give except Aurender), I cannot look over the attitude of Aurender towards oddball DACs that used to work perfectly with older software and no longer work with newer Aurender firmwares.

When they are trying to advertise and sell their servers, they are  big company with  big R&D and support teams, with extensive knowledge and state of the art tech behind. When a customer is trying to regain his DAC compatibility back, Aurender is a small company with limited time and resources to be allocated to a single DAC not working (even if it worked before). At least, this is what they replied to me last year, I guess they should be making up their minds and let actual and potential users know what they are getting into. Of course, chances are, that for the vast majority of the users, especially those with newer and mainstream DACs, support will never be needed.

Also, chances are, that in the future, when new DACs will form a new majority, some of the older DACs that are working fine today, will not work anymore and those that didn't feel the need to upgrade to newer her will be served the small company speech.