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The "Official" Aurender Discussion Thread


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1 hour ago, Custodian said:

 

I used to use Siltech Signature AES/EBU.

 

i replaced with Furutech top of the rang spdif but I also evaluated MIT Magnum. Both gave a faster, more detailed image than AES. 

 

We repeated this with a friends system system who found similar results.

 

thanks a lot. I will investigate those 2 brands.   

 

But I wonder: may be the superiority of coax over AES that you noticed is also depending on the DAC you are using ? Some DACs may have a better AES input while other DACs vice versa may have a better coax input ? 

 

Anyway, In 2 days I will go listening to a W20 that is proposed to me for sale used.  I will report...

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I agree. I am very confident that the W20 will be a very substantial upgrade to my Auralic Aries V1 fento that I have used with joy for 3 years.

 

In fact the decision I have to make is either buying this used W20 or staying with Auralic and getting a new Aries G2, for almost half the price of the used W20.

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Great news (for me). I finally bought a used W20, and it is at my home already.   ?

 

I already tried it with my friends NAGRA HD DAC and with my own Denafrips Terminator R2R DAC.   With booth the W20 sound much better than my previous server (Auralic Aries).  So I am a new happy member of the family now.

 

My tests were done with USB, and also a cheap coax, but now I look for a good AES or Coax cable since I understood it could sound better than USB.  It looks like the most raved digital cables are now Transparent Reference and Shunyata SIGMA ! correct ? 

 

 but... should I use COAX or AES/EBU with my Aurender W20 ?  (of course I can try booth, but... where I am it will be hard to get booth on loan, so if someone has compared Coax and AES/EBU with his Aurender, I will be happy to hear the results).

 

PS: during my initial tests, I had the impression that I could play DSD Ok with USB but not with the Coax connection !  is it normal or did I configured something wrong ? 

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Thanks.  So may be I was playing DSD 2x instead of DSD64 ! I will check.

 

based on multiple recommendations, I will also try to test the SHUNYATA Sigma AES/EBU cable.  Re USB cables, what can you recommend ? 

 

btw, Few weeks ago, I was hoping for a W20 successor, but now that I have bought a W20... I hope the successor will not come soon !  funny isn't it  ?

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Ok and thanks for all thoes recommendations for  Shunyata Sigma. it looks the Sigma serie is a winner ! 

 

But then before I will need to choose between AES and Coax !  I am not sure I can get booth just to try !  I will ask....

 

BTW: I do not see  any recomendation for Shunyata Sigma USB cable !  only for Coax and AES ! is the USB Sigma already available ? 

 

lot of cable to try...lot of fun !   

 

 

And... please do not make fun about the wodden top of the W20:  in addition to the original top, the vendor also supplied me with this strange « wood top » made by Mr. Rudolf (A Capella) that is supposed to provide Optimization with Woodcolumn in Holes in the top which are standing on some Parts of the Elekttonik and on the Column Wood compensator, all to Reduce Vibration and Mikrophonie. Everything is easily removebal whithout any damage and the Original top can Mount. (see picture. It looks funny isn’t it ;-). —> Have you heard of this strange top optimized ?

1169217639_Terminator-AurenderW20.thumb.jpg.8bb4b26a04e11aff161f1b55427ee9a3.jpg

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Well, now the Aurender W20 is installed at home above the Denafrips Terminator R2R DAC and under the BHSE amp & the EC445 Amp. I installed them on cones made of lava to decouple them from the furniture which is definitively not a dedicated HiFi rack. A new home made power filter/distributor is also used. Ah... I also removed the strange W20's wooden top to replace it by the factory top  ?

I ordered on loan 3 digital cables from the same company (Hificables.fr) so that next week I will be able to compare USB, EAS and Coax connections and decide which is best...

--> What best super TOL USB or AES cable can you recommend ?

Some High quality power cables are also coming soon to test 
(some home made and some from Hificables.fr).

IMG_5523.jpg
 

 

 

10179377.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...
OK, I have completed my tests for best connexion between my Aurender W20 and my Denafrips Terminator R2R DAC.
 
- First I compared the 3 connections ( AES, Coax and USB) with 3 cables from the same manufacturer (HifiCables.fr) using the same topology/technology.
 
attachThumb2571657
 
Against all odds, the USB was the winner !  sound stage was wider than with coax nor AES.  This is un-expected since Aurender recommend AES rather than USB (the result can be very different with another Source/DAC combinaison) 
 
 
 
- Then, since USB was apparently the best connection (for my set-up) I tested 3 different USB cables :  the "Aucharm" a low cost very good Chineese cable (50$), the HifiCable's  "Super Ultimate USB" (290 €), and a very expensive Synergetic research Galileo LE USB ( 2500 $) that use a separate transformer and other (marketing ??) gimics.
 
attachThumb2571658  attachThumb2571659  attachThumb2571660
 
Again, the results were quite surprising:  I found that the HifiCable lacked some musicality (it was precise, but something was missing reducing the possibility to "get lost into the music") while the 2 others provided a very engaging experience and... I had a very hard time to differentiate them.  I guess that with a HP system the difference will have been obvious but with headphone the 50€ is super close to the 2500€ cable !  this may be due because a « headphone  » system do not offer the « spatial » criteria that can make the difference between a good cable and a very good cable.  So, I returned the 2500 € cable and... kept the 50 € cable.  
 
 
 
- next step:  I will test soon the "Curious cable" and also I will have made for me a specific Coax cable to give the SPDIF Coax connection a second chance against USB.
 
attachThumb2571662
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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

I also have a W20, so the usage of an ACS  in conjonction to a W20 is quite interesting... if the sonic improvement is really not marginal !  Indeed the added cost of the ACS to the W20 which is already quite expensive must be justified.

 

--> Has someone else experimented the sonic benefit of the ACS in conjonction to another Aurender ? 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...

I upgraded to conductor 3.0 for my W20.

 

New interface looks good, but... I am disapointed: Last year in September 2018, I has a mail exchange with Aurender's Technical Support Manager , about the Lyrics being displayed like ROON does, and the answer was

 

"Currently, no, there is no provision for vieing lyrics within the Conductor app. However, Conductor 3.0 is currently under development. It is a complete overhaul that will maintain foundation of the simple Aurender user experience but will incorporate more of the automatic metadata retrieval and implementation that Roon has made essential. A solution for retrieving and displaying song lyrics is included in the long list of features that will be enabled. It is still too soon to talk about any kind of release date, but it is coming...... By “automatic metadata retrieval” I mean download/retrieval from the internet. So, no, you won’t have to manually tag lyrics to all your songs!

In the interest of setting your expectations properly, I have to add that since we are a small company, it will be some time before 3.0 is ready for universal release. But we are committed to building an app/user experience that competes with Roon. As music lovers, we really respect the discovery and metadata implementation/retrieval functionality that Roon has developed."

 

And this conversation convinced me to purchase the W20 instead of a ROON Server.

 

Today, I see that lyrics are still not implemented.  and I am disapointed by those promises not holded...  :-(

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  • 2 months later...
I recently got a very strange message visible on the on the left display of my Aurender W20 (NOT in the iPAD, on the Aurender’s display itself).   A « computer like » message right in the display of my Aurender ! looks strange !
 
See attached shoot of the display.
 
 
- Can you tell what this mean ?  what should I do ? 
 
- Sometime, I need to reboot the Aurender to have it find by my iPad’s Conductor App !  Sometime I have noise in the sound, and I need to turn OF/ON the DAC, which is connected via USB to the Aurender, to get rid of this noise.  Can this has something to do with the error message mentioned ? 
 
 
 
Thanks in advance for your suggestions,
Bertrand MICHELS

 

Aurender W20 error message.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
19 hours ago, Custodian said:

I agree that footers make a significant difference. Also damping plates on top of the Aurender can help sound  quality. I use HRS support (equipment rack plus feet) and the HRS damping plates. All make a worthwhile difference for my W20.

 

very interesting since I also owe a W20. 

- Can you please tell which version (which size) of the HRS dampling plate you use ?

- and also what HRS support you use. Is it the hrs isolation base ? which version ? 

 

What is the most important if you should choose only one ? the Damping plate or the support  ?

 

thanks in advance. 

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On 10/27/2019 at 4:52 AM, Custodian said:

Thanks for your interest.

 

i use two of the large single thickness damping plates side by side. The w20 sits on the m3x platform.

 

i use same arrangement under each dcs component and BVA master clock and Ayre KXR preamp.

 

each Halcr monoblocks sits on an m3 platform.

 

the effects on the w20 are additive so I don’t have any info on effect of single dampinb plate without m3 base.

 

hope that helps

david

 

thanks a lot for this reply. 

 

can you elaborate on "the effects on the w20 are additive" ? What type of change in the sound you experienced with the addition of the Base+Damplin plates ?  based on your writing can I guess the change is not subtil...

 

thanks in advance

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On 10/26/2019 at 3:31 PM, rwwjr44 said:

I use Symposium Fat Padz and a multi-element Adona Audio shelf. Each improved the sound noticeably with the Fat Padz helping the most.

 

I would like to investigate those also because the Symposium Fat Padz are much cheaper than the HRS stuff.

 

Did you positioned the Symposium Fat Padz UNDER or ABOVE the W20 ? It seems they can be used booth way: as decoupler and as dampers !  how many Symposium Fat Padz do you use for the W20 ? 

 

I also read about Symposium Ultra Padz, have you considered them ?

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On 11/5/2019 at 12:31 AM, bmichels said:

I believe I have the same issue with my W20:  I have added some QOBUZ titles to my library, and then later, I want to remove them from my library.... but they stay visible in my library.   Am I doing something wrong, or it is a bug ? 

 

 Aurender's support agreed that it is a bug that they need to fix, and in the mean time they were  very profesionnal and helpful to remove those titles remotly on my W20.  Thanks Aurender.

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