The "Official" Aurender Discussion Thread

[The Computer Audiophile]

8 minutes ago, DancingSea said:

Aurender finally relented

Do you have inside information that nobody else has?

[The Computer Audiophile]

10 minutes ago, DancingSea said:

 

Only what has been posted here and on AudioShark.  I have no particular personal inside scoop.  It is my understanding that part of the shift to Intel was to allow for the Roon option.

 

As part of some reverse logic, the possible Roon integration has been discussed quite a bit on this thread as of late and Ari has never shot it down with the traditional Aurender maxims about how they have no plans to integrate Roon because of sound quality and product control.  While not proof, it is a worthwhile observation.

 

Also, on AudioShark, one of the active members in that future of Roon thread is a guy named Mike who is an Aurender dealer and he has been talking like Roon integration is a foregone conclusion.

 

However, all of that likely would not pass the Supreme Court's restrictions on hearsay.  Fair point counselor 😂 

 

I should've typed more, but just walked in the door from the vet with my tiny chihuahua and had my hands full :~)

 

I think we should be careful with language. Using the term relent, as in Aurender relented, presupposes information that we don't have. It could very well be the case, but it's speculation. 

 

Perhaps there is finally enough customer demand or a management change or any number of reasons. I've covered this company since its inception and have used nearly every product it has ever produced, and one or two that never made it to production. Perhaps my sensitivity to accuracy over speculation is a bit heightened. 

 

All good though, nothing personal. 

 

I was just thinking this morning about Roon and Aurender. I'm sure I will eventually try it, but I don't think I'll use it much. it would feel awkward, like oil and water. the two approaches have traditionally been so different. Plus, my Roon usage over all has taken a nose dive. When it first came out I was all-in, but have since cooled quite a bit. 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, DancingSea said:

In the future, for each sentence  I'll be sure to proved three verb options

Ha!

 

2 minutes ago, DancingSea said:

Yes, something far more important than all of this madness.  Hope the little one is ok.

 

Fingers crossed he's all good. He was pretty nervous though. The telltale tongue curl in full effect. 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

9 minutes ago, GJo said:

I'm interested to know folks' experience with external word clocks and their Aurender devices, particularly Mutec word clocks. The Mutec REF10 looks interesting to me based on comments I've read elsewhere.

 

Aurender's word clock is too expensive, so it's not under consideration. 

 

I have done a topic search and haven't found much activity on this.

 

Anyone tried a Mutec word clock?

 

 

The important point is to keep in mind is that a single clock is a good thing, in a system with multiple devices. From there, it's a matter of which clock will work best with one's system and within one's budget. 

 

I have the amazing Aurender MC20 clock and love it, but I also realize it isn't cheap. I've also used dCS clocks with a W20SE and Rossini DAC. 

 

I have good reason to believe the Mutec REF10, that @Superdad is now representing here in the US, would be an excellent choice to pair with an Aurender.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, GJo said:

Thanks.

 

My DAC - Bricasti M1 Series 2 - does not have a word clock input. Would that reduce the efficacy of an external clock to the extent that the benefit of a Mutec REF10 would be marginal?

 

That's more debatable than a straight forward "everything is clockable" type setup. If you use a connection like AES or S/PDIF, that depend heavily on a good clock, there's room for improvement. If you use USB, where the clock is in the DAC, we get into a technical vs personal experience type of situation. As usual, it goes oth ways, with people on both sides of this one. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

If I wanted Conductor to be like Roon, I’d just use Roon. Same for JRiver, Audirvana, etc… I’m happy we have different options. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

23 minutes ago, DancingSea said:

 

Conductor need not be exactly like Roon.  But, in my opinion, Aurender charges enormous prices for their products and Conductor is simply dated, B-grade programming.  Conductor was good in 2014.  Is long in the tooth for 2024.

 

Go ahead, knock themselves out, Aurender could create their own modernized version of Conductor that's different than Roon.  But I assume they won't, because they lack the programming chops to do so.

 

So, so many things are done in a wonky, inefficient manner on Conductor.  It need not be like Roon, but at these hardware prices, one can only hope that Conductor at least be competitive.  And it's simply not.

 

I love Aurender.  But Conductor is an embarrassment compared to the programming acumen that is Roon.

 

Roon raised the bar and adjusted what consumers expect from library management software.  I assume Aurender is implementing Roon because they've come to the conclusion that they do not have the ability to create a competitive product from a library management perspective.

 

Heck, even iTunes is running circles around Conductor.

 

In my opinion that is 😇

I assume you haven’t used iTunes in a looooong time because it isn’t even named that anymore. I use it daily and it’s terrible. 
 

The thing about Conductor is that it works. Many people love the simplicity as well. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 hours ago, DancingSea said:

I've found that often if one expresses a criticism of a product on these type of forums, like clockwork, there will be a faction who will blindly come to defend it.  Brand loyalty runs deep and often overrides a dispassionate, neutral evaluation

I’ve found this to work both ways. Those expressing criticism often don’t have the experience that the others do, with the app being criticized. It’s often this lack of experience that shows and causes others to jump in and express displeasure. 
 

Those criticizing often use very general terms that can only be responded to in generalities as well. It’s much more helpful to suggest something like, I dislike how the add to queue feature works, here’s why and here’s what I would do to make it better. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 hours ago, DancingSea said:

I have no desire to convince them otherwise.

Smart man. No matter the topic or opinion, it never goes well. 
 

I do find it helps to be as specific as possible when talking about things that people are likely to take issue with. It just cuts down on so many arguments. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Aurender support can connect for you and make the change, or you'll need to connect to the Music 2 folder using a tool that can view hidden files and folders. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, SirAtilla said:

 

ok, so its very easy in a macOS finder window to toggle hidden files on/off.  They are off by default which is why you don't see them and nor does PerfectTUNES.  The scanner in the Aurender obviously does see them.

 

Navigate to the Music/Various Artists folder on your Mac with Finder.

 

You should be viewing all the normal non-hidden folders like normal.  I attached my screenshot of a test for this post.

 

 

When in this view use the key sequence Shift + Command ⌘ + [.] Period keys simultaneously and now Finder will show hidden files as well.  See attached screenshot I prepared as a test with a folder in place prefixed by three dots.

 

Click on the hidden folder and change the name.  Ignore the the other icon will disappear after you change folder name.  Use the same key sequence to toggle hidden files back on.

 

After changing filename.

 

 

Now run PerfectTUNES and add the image you want.

 

You can do this easily via command line as well but based on your description figured this approach would be more straight forward.

 

Cheers

I totally forgot about that move! I usually use the Nova app I have open, for working on this site, to browse hidden files and folders. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, GJo said:

15 hours later, PerfectTunes has Fixed all my album artwork, and is shows correctly within the PerfectTunes application.

 

Now, all my albums on the N30SA via Conductor4 have the artwork of one album. The same album cover on 450+ albums.

 

Super fun.

 

Days like this, I wish I hadn't sold my vinyl 10 years ago.

Did you do a rescan of your library, clean scan or otherwise?

[The Computer Audiophile]

23 minutes ago, GJo said:

Rescan, Clean Scan.

 

Deleted my SSD on the Aurender and performed a clean copy from my USB drive.

 

I have FLAC and AIFF versions of all my files on the USB drive.

 

Copied over the FLAC files. All the tracks showed the same album art (one album). Even though Perfect Tunes shows all correct artwork when scanning the files in the USB drive, and "fixing" album art.

 

Deleted the SSD drive. Did a clean scan.

 

Copied the AIFF files. Artwork is 97% correct.

 

 

Does PerfectTunes embed the album art into the file and leave a copy of the art as folder.jpg in the same folder as the tracks? I have PerfectTunes but it has been a long time since I used it. My guess is it can be configured for both. 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, GJo said:

Embed and Export Option.

 

Shown are the currently selected options for the FLAC and AIFF folders/files.

 

 

 

And, just to make sure, you checked a couple of the files and folders, and the album art was correct, but Conductor displayed it wrong? I just want to make sure something crazy didn't happen where the same thing was really copied into all the albums :~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

I’ve been using an ACS10 very heavily for the last several days. This includes using the ACS Manager app that has built-in metadata editing. While not PerfectTunes or Yate, it is nice for quick fixes that one notices while browsing / listening. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

29 minutes ago, SirAtilla said:

changes made using the ACS manager were not written to the files themselves

Correct. Thats how it currently works. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

The AP20 is in my big system!

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, terry78 said:

Hi everyone,   does the N150 require a 5v power signal on the USB cable to handshake with the DAC?  
 

I’d like to try an AudioWise SRC-DX USB-to-coax digital converter to input the N150 signal into my Chord MScaler/Qutest combo.  People on a MScaler forum say that eliminating USB chip noise makes an improvement. And at least one of them used an Aurender into the SRC-DX and MScaler but he had a 100h as I recall. 

The requirement comes from the DAC side. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

38 minutes ago, GJo said:

Yes. The tick occurs when the new sample rate is detected by the DAC. I’ve heard this on a few DACs.

 

I believe one solution is to convert all sample rates to the sample rate. For example, convert all sample rates to 88.2. Or, upsample all sample rates to 192.

 

This requires software other than Conductor 4 (I believe). Roon has this capability.

The option exists on the AP20. 
 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just a note to say I forgot how awesome it is to use an Aurender with all local solid state storage. 

 

I'm working on my review of the AP20 and have it connected to an ACS10 over the network (16TB of HDD storage) and I have a small SSD inside the AP20. The ACS10 is fantastic for serving music to the Aurender units I have, but it takes a bit for the drives to spin up when I add music to the queue. The local SSD storage on the AP20 is instant. I'd forgotten how nice this is :~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Guys, my review of the Aurender AP20 is up. What an amazing product!

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, Robifabs said:

Hi ! I need help !!! :)

 

I have been using an ACS10 for a few years now. Just acquired a 2nd hand W20. I managed to connect them via my house network (wifi) very easily, libraries where merged successfully. It's working well for reading content stored on the ACS10 from the W20 (now the player on my main system) and vice-versa.

Problem is: I can't have access from the W20 to the very long playlists I have built over time on the ACS10. Does anyone have a clue on how to fix this?

 

Thanks a lot !

Can you be more specific about what doesn’t work?

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, Robifabs said:

 

@ComputerAudiophile & @Ponzi,  Thank you for offering to help, and sorry if I was not clear.

 

Set-up:  W20 (main system) & ACS10 (second system) are connected via WIFI Mesh domestic network (the two systems are on two different floors: no possible direct hard wired RJ45 connection).

 

What works well: I can see and read all content (tunes, albums, files, ratings...)stored on both Aurenders regardless of wether I am connected to W20 or ACS10 on Conductor app (v4 beta). That includes all metadata (names, covers, etc)

 

What doesn't work:

I have built several very dense Playlists over time using the ACS10. I can still use them as usual when connected to the ACS10, they appear in the backup file on ACS Manager or computer..., no problem here. I would love to keep on using this unique & central set of playlists (listening & editing) when using the W20. Problem is the Playlists don't appear when I select the Playlists menu on the W20...

 

What I have noticed (no clue if relevant or not...):

 - When connected to W20 on Conductor app, in the Settings/Library & storage information/ACS connection: My ACS10 appears clearly as "linked"

- On the other hand, on ACS10 Manager, in Settings/Connected Aurenders, I have a "No connected Aurenders" status...

 

Hope this is clearer and thanks for your time and attention !!

 

Ok, this helps. 
 

The issue is - how to get play lists created on a content server to show up on connected servers. 
 

I will test this on my setup to see if there’s a way. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

I have a question into the Aurender team about viewing ACS playlists on a connected / linked server.

[The Computer Audiophile]

23 hours ago, Robifabs said:

Perfect synthesis ! Thanks for your help !!

ACS playlists on a linked Aurender isn't currently supported. I wouldn't be surprised if this feature is available at a later date.