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6 minutes ago, Anonamemouse said:and have other people do what they do well (build websites for online banking/ build user interfaces). 


Agreed ............ and for all we know, that is what Aurender have done, employ a developer. The point is, by whatever means it has been derived, it is *Aurender’s* app, not jjriver’s, nor Roon’s nor anyone else’s, shared with other platforms, in which Aurender have little or no influence upon. 

Aurender W20 Music Server, Kii Three Active Speakers, Kii Digital Controller

Audioquest Diamond USB, Audioquest Niagara 7000 conditioner, Audioquest NRG-1000 HC mains leads

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Please spend 20-30 years developing real time embedded systems, on razor thin margins, before imposing your own engineering requirements.  The trade-offs between cost, complexity, functionality and actually meeting the original design requirements, may be tad more restrictive than imagined.

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I’ve been with Aurender for a long time and their app has developed nicely.  They do take suggestions and implement them and have all along.  My DAC can be a Roon endpoint but choose not too.  I tried Roon and just seemed complicated and also total lack of customer support.  When I tested with my N10 the sound quality was hit and miss now with the W20SE it’s glorious 

2 Channel: Bricasti M20, 21 & M28 SE /Aurender N30SA and MC10 Master clock Treatments: Acoustical panels(F, S & R walls) Misc.: SR Master Fuses

Speakers: Martin Logan CLX ART (Dark Cherry) w/30# weights / 2-ML 212's 

Grounding: QKore 1&6 / Networking: SOtM switch, clock and Pwr Supply / AQ Diamond /SR Router Power: Furutech GTX-DNCF / Oyaide inwall  wire

Nordost: 2-QB8 III, QV2's, QK1's, QSine, QWave, QX4, TC Kones, Sort Fut & LIft / Full OG Loom / 3-QSource & 12-QPoints, QNet, V2 Network

Misc.: iPad 6 /Custom Rack  Media Rm: ML: 13A's, 2-Descent i's, 6- Vanquish, Focus / 3-Parasound A23 / Legacy iV-3 Ultra / 77" LG 4k OLED / Anthem AVM90 / Pioneer Elite DVD Nordost: Odin/T2/H2, BC Kones, H2 Network, V2 HDMI

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@AnonamemouseI agree with you whole-heartedly there are many good collaborative  projects that yield good or great results.
 

Sounds like yours was one of them, and good engineers like you surely had a lot to do with that. 

 

But when you get the biz honchos pressing for their respective agendas, and you get tied together, you can become throttled by someone else's limitations (budget, talent, infrastructure).
 

You're right though, many times it can be better to let a dev house do dev, design do design, etc. so each handles their speciality. 


Even Apple, who does most of that in-house, used a manufacturing partner but I would bet a shiny apple that Apple calls the shots there.

 

I managed projects with them and they just tell you flat out: "That doesn't sound like Apple." Guess where that idea goes? Not in their software.

 

I like the Conductor software, but it isn't flawless. I have a beta installed and was doing some de-bugging recently. But it's OK...for me.
 

I enjoyed reading your comments about bank software dev. Lost one of my nine lives on that sword Cheers...

 

 

I'm MarkusBarkus and I approve this post.10C78B47-4B41-4675-BB84-885019B72A8B.thumb.png.adc3586c8cc9851ecc7960401af05782.png

 

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The Conductor app functions just fine for its intended use (to play music). 
I use dbPoweramp on my windows computer to do all my own custom tagging and folder management and only use conductor for playback (through an iPad and recently also with the new iPhone app). 
One thing that I feel has been missing and I would really like to see in future Conductor updates is the ability to get online “Liner Notes” and artist and album info and reviews. 
I know the ability to see info via Wikipedia exists (it never actually works for me since I often custom title albums since I typically have many different releases and different ripped sources of the same album and need to be able to tell which is which), I’ve learned that if I create my own album title in the album tagging field, Wikipedia won’t open a page for it. 
The are many online resources dedicated to music / albums that would be much better for this vs. Wikipedia (AllMusic as an example). 
Hopefully one day we will see this ability added and then Conductor will be more similar to Roon in its features. 

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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. 

An annoying noise annoys an oyster

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39 minutes ago, Anonamemouse said:

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. 

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.

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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?

An annoying noise annoys an oyster

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On 12/3/2020 at 4:49 PM, michaelD said:

Ponzi I agree totally with your assessment of the W20SE.  I too started with the N10 and loved that unit then moved on the W20 and now the W20SE.  Both large steps up from the N10 each time.  I've more recently been listening to it in the Critical Listening mode and find that that adds just a bit more resolution.  However I did try the upscaling that the reviewer in TAS did and rave about but did not hear much difference so I'm back to no upscaling.  Be interested in hearing your comments on these options.

 

As far as the Conductor app I agree with merge03 and some others its designed to be less complicated so yes there maybe some things you can't do but just because you could was it necessary?  the iPhone app is flawless so far for me also by the way.

Very interesting.

Could you pls elaborate a bit deeper the differences between W20 and the new top of the line W20 SE?

I am very satisfied with the functionality and the sound of my W20 which I have for 7 or 8 years, one ot the first W20 delivered to Poland. Very stable as a server , I do not have NAS.

I was told by the local dealer that he has not W20SE for audition , he does not offer the replacement option either. I did not find any comparison or review of W20 SE in the net, apart from the recent Robert Harley test.

 

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/aurender-w20se-music-server/?page=2

 

Does the W 20 SE still has the option to turn off the power in usb audio board?

My preferred connection to Pacific SE DAC is an unpowered usb cable , Pacific has the self powered Amanero board , as an option I have a better  clocks installed by Lampizator staff.

Robert Harley is using Berkeley Ref   DAC without usb input so he is obliged to use a separate usb/ spdif converter which is suboptimal imho.

Aurender W20 -> AudioAero La Fontaine, Lampizator  Pacific SE->Ayon Crossfire III or  Circle Labs A100 >Avantgarde Acoustic Trio LE 26 with 4x REL Carbon Special

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12 hours ago, RevelFan said:

Anyone have some hands on time/experience with the N20 and want to share thoughts.  My finger is hovering over the BUY ME NOW button.  my other hand is trying to hide my wallet.  cheers all

Not yet, unfortunately. But I did notice that the main boards of the new W20SE and N20 are almost identical, which bodes well for an uplift in SQ compared to the N10. However, the price is also increased substantially.

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5 hours ago, marslo said:

Very interesting.

Could you pls elaborate a bit deeper the differences between W20 and the new top of the line W20 SE?

I am very satisfied with the functionality and the sound of my W20 which I have for 7 or 8 years, one ot the first W20 delivered to Poland. Very stable as a server , I do not have NAS.

I was told by the local dealer that he has not W20SE for audition , he does not offer the replacement option either. I did not find any comparison or review of W20 SE in the net, apart from the recent Robert Harley test.

 

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/aurender-w20se-music-server/?page=2

 

Does the W 20 SE still has the option to turn off the power in usb audio board?

My preferred connection to Pacific SE DAC is an unpowered usb cable , Pacific has the self powered Amanero board , as an option I have a better  clocks installed by Lampizator staff.

Robert Harley is using Berkeley Ref   DAC without usb input so he is obliged to use a separate usb/ spdif converter which is suboptimal imho.

I would be curious too to hear the W20 and W20SE side by side, but haven't been able to. But maybe this might be of help for you to increase its SQ further: I have recently tested a lot with audiophile switches and quality Ethernet cables. It's VERY clear that the old W20 is very sensitive to Ethernet and common mode issues. In other words: a very good audiophile switch simply elevates it into another league, as do high-spec Ethernet cables. I ended up with a Melco S100 switch with Nuprime LPS. Recently upgraded the Ethernet cable from a Shunyata Sigma (great cable for the money) to a Crystal Cable Absolute Dream, which is even way better in all audible respects.

I'm telling you this especially since the new W20SE has a double isolated Ethernet port and this feature will likely raise it to a much higher SQ level by itself. Checking and upgrading your Ethernet hardware for the old W20 pays off in ways I really couldn't have imagined. Ripped cd's sound almost as good now as played through the transport of the Vivaldi One, whereas before they sounded quite small and muffled in comparison.

Might be helpful. Just try it out and be as amazed as I was. ☺

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I share your opinion about  LAN cables Vincent.

I am using Jcat ref LAN cable for W20  and their LAN/usb grounding  device for Pacific and W20.

 

 

2FAA867B-D033-4354-BC88-09418D6F288F.png

Aurender W20 -> AudioAero La Fontaine, Lampizator  Pacific SE->Ayon Crossfire III or  Circle Labs A100 >Avantgarde Acoustic Trio LE 26 with 4x REL Carbon Special

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1 hour ago, marslo said:

I share your opinion about  LAN cables Vincent.

I am using Jcat ref LAN cable for W20  and their LAN/usb grounding  device for Pacific and W20.

 

 

2FAA867B-D033-4354-BC88-09418D6F288F.png

Looks good! 👍🏻 Are you also using an audiophile switch? The Silent Angel Bonn N8 is very affordable (EUR 400) as is the Silent Angel LPS Forrester 1 upgrade option (same price); both are great upgrades and very much worth the money. The Melco S100 is much better still, actually making the W20 sound faultlessly quiet, open and analogue (especially with an LPS), but it's also in a different price bracket. Looking at your great system however I think you will be stunned by the improvements it makes, also regarding price-performance ratio. Certainly worth a try. 👍🏻

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32 minutes ago, Vincent1234 said:

Looks good! 👍🏻 Are you also using an audiophile switch? The Silent Angel Bonn N8 is very affordable (EUR 400) as is the Silent Angel LPS Forrester 1 upgrade option (same price); both are great upgrades and very much worth the money. The Melco S100 is much better still, actually making the W20 sound faultlessly quiet, open and analogue (especially with an LPS), but it's also in a different price bracket. Looking at your great system however I think you will be stunned by the improvements it makes, also regarding price-performance ratio. Certainly worth a try. 👍🏻

As I don’t have a NAS I do not need a switch either, I play the music stored localy on 2 W20 HDDs and then sent to SSD for the playback.

When I tried RJ45 playback with my Pacific and  LDMS with a switch , it was promissing but not better than the unpowered usb connection.

I buy hires SM  PCM and native DSD albums and store them on Aurender as a server with the external backup on usb HDDs.

I play native files  without transcoding or upsampling. Tidal is  only to audition  new albums before I buy them with Qobuz, Nativedsd, Hyperion, eclassical or HDTT. 

I listen to the whole albums , usually even do not create playlists.

 

Aurender W20 -> AudioAero La Fontaine, Lampizator  Pacific SE->Ayon Crossfire III or  Circle Labs A100 >Avantgarde Acoustic Trio LE 26 with 4x REL Carbon Special

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1 hour ago, marslo said:

As I don’t have a NAS I do not need a switch either, I play the music stored localy on 2 W20 HDDs and then sent to SSD for the playback.

When I tried RJ45 playback with my Pacific and  LDMS with a switch , it was promissing but not better than the unpowered usb connection.

I buy hires SM  PCM and native DSD albums and store them on Aurender as a server with the external backup on usb HDDs.

I play native files  without transcoding or upsampling. Tidal is  only to audition  new albums before I buy them with Qobuz, Nativedsd, Hyperion, eclassical or HDTT. 

I listen to the whole albums , usually even do not create playlists.

 

Hi marslo, thanks for the update. Triggered by your mentioning Jcat I looked up this review: https://audiobacon.net/2019/11/02/the-jcat-signature-lan-a-1000-ethernet-cable/?amp=1

From the review: "This is presumably the reason why an Ethernet cable will change the sound of your system. In fact, even if you’re not streaming music through an Ethernet cable – as long as it’s connected to your music server – it’ll change the sound of your music files stored on disk."

Please read at least the first page as I think it might be enlightning to you and hopefully to others too. Basically it's (very correctly!) saying that Ethernet cables and switches do not only impact streaming over Ethernet, but also impact the sound quality of your local files. The simple reason is that EMI, RFI and common mode noise introduced through Ethernet/LAN cabling do not care about the location of the file being played (be it local on the W20 HDD's, NAS, Qobuz etc.). They simply can and will screw up the sound and output of your W20 in every case. Especially common mode noise is killing for SQ, as it moves through all components right through to your DAC via USB. This is exactly what I have found to be the case. My local files benefitted as much as streaming from Qobuz and Tidal. Obviously I don't know all the details of your setup and you seem to have very good Ethernet hardware already, but I would still highly recommend to try a good switch, as the impact is likely to amaze you as well as it did me. It is a common misunderstanding that only streamed files are affected. The exact same goes for all the files stored locally on your and my W20.

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1 hour ago, michaelD said:

Guys Vincent1234 and Marslo maybe I can be of some help.

 

I got one of the first black N10's strictly because it have multiple outputs beyond USB.  I however did try some USB as my dealer insisted for me to try his very high quality cables that he had.  I then tried an average XLR and heard really no difference.  I then went out and purchased a very high end XLR and could immediately hear a nice increase of SQ.  I know some DAC's are only USB and also some DAC's sound better with USB mine is neither it likes the XLR connection.  Also if you note in the latest W20SE update they tweaked something to make the XLR connection even better.  I wrote to find out more in detail but really did not learn much more but that is a interesting fact that I will certainly bring up at the next audio show to get a better description of just exactly what they did and why.  For those using USB and if you have a XLR input see if you can get a loaner cable and give it a try you might be surprised!

 

I posted months ago when I first got the W20SE that for those that had a N10 that then moved to the W20 the increase in SQ is very much the same as moving from the W20 to the SE model.  Its that dramatic.  Aurender does a lot of things right but I think they did themselves a misjustice in the naming of this product.  Yes from 10' away you can't tell them apart but internally there was a lot of new updates added infact I think the only thing that stayed exactly the same is the housing and batteries.  They should of named it a W30 or something as the SE part makes it you think that they did a minor tweak when infact they did not.  The price also went up 4k in the US so that to seems to beg that the changes are much more then what a SE label would at first glance think.

 

Also a comment on network cable.  About 6 months after getting the W20 I upgraded by network totally.  Initially had a AQ Vodka then Nordost H2 network cable which by the way was better.  Decided to upgrade to a SoTm switch with its dedicated power supply and AQ Diamond network cables since Nordost has nothing higher then H2.  This was a major upgrade in SQ.  I was really blown away how much that did help.  I then moved on to the W20SE and now another big jump like I said previously.  This has lead me to my most recently update on power panel and ground update but that is a subject for another day.

 

Let me just say the other thing I kind of missed with the W20SE is I would of thought that it would of had a A30 display.  I was actually missing that a lot but I got to believe that Aurender had to do this on purpose so there must be some underlying reason SQ wise that they did not.  However more recently I have found a way to make my own so to speak A30 screen.  I listen in critical listening mode and then put my iPad in front of the display.  I then us my phone app as needed as I mostly listen in random mode.  

IMG_7004.jpg

Love the iPad solution! 😁

(Be careful of EMI and RFI, though 😉.)

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After installing the latest iPad Conductor update last night, the front screen on my N100H has gone completely black. 
Has anyone else experienced anything like this? 
I think it has some relationship to the Front Display control in the app? In the settings, you can select Front Display on or off, which display you want (info or blue or yellow meters), and brightness level. 
If I stand directly in front and a few inches from the screen, if I turn the brightness to its highest, I can barely see very dim letters and if I turn it down even a little it goes completely black. 
I have requested tech support help but I haven’t heard back from Aurender yet. 
If anyone else experiences this or has any suggestions on how to fix it, please let me know. 
@AriMargolis

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@Vincent1234 and

@michaelD

 

Thank you for your insight.

As you both stress the importance  ot the audiophile switch even if the files are  stored locally I need to install one.

As Vincent underline  it should  reduce the EMI/RMI distortions of LAN connection and thus improve the SQ.

Aurender W20 -> AudioAero La Fontaine, Lampizator  Pacific SE->Ayon Crossfire III or  Circle Labs A100 >Avantgarde Acoustic Trio LE 26 with 4x REL Carbon Special

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4 hours ago, marslo said:

@Vincent1234 and

@michaelD

 

Thank you for your insight.

As you both stress the importance  ot the audiophile switch even if the files are  stored locally I need to install one.

As Vincent underline  it should  reduce the EMI/RMI distortions of LAN connection and thus improve the SQ.

You're very welcome. The Jcat grounding device you already own will certainly help mitigate common mode noise. But still I will be very curious to hear about your findings when using an audiophile switch. Appreciate it if you keep us posted!

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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.

An annoying noise annoys an oyster

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