The "Official" Aurender Discussion Thread

[mjb]

17 hours ago, Fsonicsmith said:

 

Well it turns out I was wrong. My 24 yr old "I know it all and you know nothing" son advised me that my problem was the lack of a LAN connection but I knew the ATT tech had not gone into my dedicated listening room and assumed the tech had simply unhooked the LAN from the old router in the basement and left it dangling so to speak. But once I went down to the basement-after my rant above-I found that the tech had in fact connected the other end of the LAN to an extender of some sort. I therefore no longer think the LAN is the problem. My problem is that my new MBP will not connect to my Aurender N100H. My new MBP replaces an old one that completely died on me. The new MBP "sees" the Aurender under "shared devices" in "Finder" and when I double click on the Aurender or hit Command-K to connect to it, I am invited to put in my password as a registered user and my username already appears but no password (and I know my passwords) works. They all bounce. I then try to connect as a "guest" and get this message; ""The share does not exist on the server. Please check the share name and then try again." Nothing I try seems to work to get beyond this message. What does it mean to "check the share name"? The only shared device under "Finder" is my Aurender N100H which appears to be listed correctly. And furthermore, changing the name of the Aurender does not help and I certainly see no option to fix the problem of "the share does not exist on the server". Does anyone have any idea what is going on here?

 

Try chosing “connect to server” from the finders “go” menu, and enter either the aurenders IP address or name. Perhaps your 24 year old can help you with that, lol

[mjb]

On 2/11/2018 at 1:48 PM, Ponzi said:

Yes.  Many times.  It gives me the same message.  "The server may not exist or is unavailable at this time."  I have the MAC connected by hard wire the the router into which the Arender is also hard wired.  Do I need to make this connection differently?  Is that the problem?

Try restarting the Mac, and if that doesn‘t fix it, restart your Aurender (press+hold „play“, select „restart“)

[mjb]

Well, this is perhaps the first instance of a manufacturer charging for MQA as an add on. I don‘t think I‘ll bite. What next? An „in app purchase“ for 24/96 FLAC?

[mjb]

11 hours ago, JS21 said:

Does anyone else have a issues switching stations on the internet radio with the new SW update?

While I’m glad that the display now shows the station that’s playing, switching stations now sometimes takes 30 seconds. 

Not sure how many users stream fm, but I do quite a bit. 

Same here... sometimes switching stations is instantaneous, sometimes it takes up to 30 seconds.

[mjb]

4 hours ago, rickca said:

I'm surprised by the number of people who are willing to pay for MQA core decoding on Aurender.  I don't know of any other manufacturer that has explicitly charged a separate fee for it.

I am too, especially with the number of MQA sceptical threads on CA. It's also setting a worrying precedent

[mjb]

9 minutes ago, marslo said:

Very happy with the upgrade.

:

It’ s is not the same like  hires and native DSD from HDD but still a real audiophile quality.

Well done Aurender!

 

How can a lossy format be "real audiophile quality" ? A rhetorical question.....

[mjb]

6 hours ago, jon2020 said:

And as mentioned previously, I cannot be certain if the MQA download would mess up my non-MQA hires files stored in the internal hard drive, played through my non-MQA dac.

I don’t think this upgrade will change your data stored on the hard drive, it may inadvertently change the data presented to your DAC, though I’m sure thats not the intention.

[mjb]

3 hours ago, Ponzi said:

When ripping CD's, iTunes stores the album art in a different folder and so the conductor app cannot see it.  I can't figure out how to unscramble this and get the album art to show on the conductor app.  Any help would be appreciated.

 

Also, there are other apps out there for ripping and storing music, which I understand may be better than  iTunes.  I use the lossless format when using iTunes. Would anyone care to recommend some other method or app.  Would others solve this rather quirky album art issue with iTunes?  

Not only is iTunes album art pretty well hidden, it also uses a proprietary .itc format. An easy solution is to Google the artwork, rename to folder.jpg, and copy it to the albums folder. After importing a new scan, the Conductor will then display it.

 

I have been iTunes free for several years, and use XLD (Mac) to rip, dBpoweramp is also good, both will find and embed album artwork.To embed artwork later, or to iTunes ripped albums, use a tag editor such as Metadatics (Mac) or MP3TAG.

[mjb]

1 hour ago, Ponzi said:

I tried what mjb suggested, but the conductor app just says the new folder is "not recognized as an audio file". 

Rename the album image file you found  “folder.jpg”, and move it to the relevant folder containing the music files. A minute or so later the Aurender scanner will find and index it. Shortly after, a new database is pushed to the conductor app. You should then see the artwork in album view. 

[mjb]

@Ponzi glad it worked.

[mjb]

11 minutes ago, Ponzi said:

I cannot delete iTunes.  From my research, it appears that the new Mac updates foreclose this possibility.  

:

I down loaded "XLD" but the Mac  said it "can't be opened because it is from an identified developer."

Correct, you can‘t delete iTunes - but you can ignor it.

 

Right click XLD, choose „open“ from the popup menu, and agree to the warning. You only need to do this once.

[mjb]

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

[mjb]

Another small Conductor app update is out: v 2.9.4 with bug fixes (no new features).

[mjb]

Can a Mac user recommend a backup method/strategy/program? Since the new SW 5.11.36 with an "Update to SAMBA supporting SMBv2 for security reasons and with improved connectivity" simply copying in the finder fails too often to be useful.

[mjb]

1 hour ago, Vincent1234 said:

True, that's a very nice W20 feature. The previous W20 owner, who's a friend of mine, tried that extensively (through double AES) against a top-spec USB connection and since the latter sounded equally good and is much less expensive I ended up with that connection too. Obviously USB doesn't require any synching with the dCS clock, since it's asynchronous. 

Yes, I think it can get a bit academic, especially trying to extract the last pico-ounce of goodness. Well implemented async-USB is good enough for me too.

[mjb]

12 minutes ago, Vincent1234 said:

Welcome! I don't have a Mac myself, so I don't know of a Mac alternative. Others are invited to chime in.

 

Yate or Metadatics

 

Both extremely good, though Metadatics is my personal favorite. 

[mjb]

On 4/8/2018 at 1:55 PM, Mazza said:

If you go to Qobuz on Conductor and select the ‘my music’ tab & all your purchases are there. You can then add them to library which I was told will upload them though I have always downloaded them and mounted manually on the HDD

And if/when you cancel your subscription, will they stop playing or automagically disappear from the library?

[mjb]

2 hours ago, agladstone said:

I do all think WAV files have a slight edge vs. the same files converted to FLAC.  

Should I convert my FLAC collection back to WAV then?

[mjb]

Well, this is a worrying development - I’ve religiously ripped everything to FLAC, now I learn WAV sounds better. And with no scientific basis.  Will simply transcoding magically lift my experience?

[mjb]

9 minutes ago, Emerald Core said:

 

so how does the N100C coax potentially sound better than USB ? 

I assume it was released to based on their research that Coax could bring a better sound quality. Otherwise why bother re-release an already good product with one extra output? someone correct me if i was mistaken. 

 

 

I can’t comment on „better“ or not, and I’m sure it could be argued for pages as some pre-amps sound better with one input type, others with another - but I think it was released on the premis that several potential customers don‘t have a USB input on their pre-amp (legacy DAC‘s), or as an option to find which input you do have sounds better.

[mjb]

Why argue about the options a company decides to offer or not? I'm sure they can justify their reasons. However, for example, if you have a large capacity X100, your options to add SPDIF is to buy a cheap(ish) adapter or an expensive replacement. The choice is yours :-)

[mjb]

2 hours ago, mabe said:

...I couldn`t resist .....just bought a N10.

Congratulations! This is where I’m aiming for too, but I need a bigger piggy bank....

[mjb]

10 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

I use AIFF because I find they sound better than either ALAC or FLAC, and I lose nothing regarding tagging.

Do you/your ears find that FLAC converted externally to AIFF, and saved back to the Aurender for playback, sound better as well? I just can’t face re-ripping everything, but manually converting my favorite stuff might be an option. 

[mjb]

11 minutes ago, Vincent1234 said:

Nothing wrong with using AIFF, but as mentioned here before: WAV also supports metadata for years already and your Aurender will show them perfectly.

AIFF is perhaps more Apple and tag friendly, though otherwise I don’t think there’s a reason to choose one over the other. Aurender will display and play either. Personally, I’d choose AIFF simply because it has nothing to do with Microsoft. 

[mjb]

26 minutes ago, rwwjr44 said:

Will someone explain the recent move by Aurender to join the Ravenna community?

 

Thanks

http://www.merging.com/news/news-stories/aurender-joins-ravenna-community

 

Looks like an easy way for Aurender to offer multi-room with audio over IP.