The "Official" Aurender Discussion Thread

[Taxman]

32 minutes ago, Foxman50 said:

I think the issue for companies like Aurender, is they can't please everyone.

 

I'm glad that you are so happy with your N100, but I disagree with your conclusion that it isn't possible to please everyone. Well, 100% customer satisfaction is of course difficult and maybe not possible, but with some clever programming it's really not that difficult to support more use-cases than they do today without making it more complicated.

[Taxman]

Pat, I suggest you complain and/or file a support case with Aurender even if it won't make any difference short term. I don't think they will sort out the mess unless enough of us complain - I mean, they claim that it's an "improvement" and that it was mentioned in the release notes 

[Taxman]

24 minutes ago, Ecki said:

Has anybody figured out how to display a PDF (linernotes) in the Conductor app?

 

I didn't think that was possible - I thought only front- and back cover was supported?

[Taxman]

On 2017-03-26 at 10:55 PM, agladstone said:

Ecki:

thanks for the "review" and your helpful tips in regards to backing up to NAS and Cloud. 

Thanks to your post, I'm going to get an Amazon Cloud backup account ASAP!

Do you know if similar can be done as you describe using an external USB HD connected to PC / MAC in place of a NAS and then sync Local external HD with Amazon Cloud (in place of a NAS within your description)? 

At the moment I only have external USB HD's for local backup and do not own a NAS (I do have my Aurender mapped as a local network drive in my PC). 

Thanks!

agladstone

 

Not sure if you got a reply on this, but I can't see why it shouldn't work with a local HD. I have my music library master on a local hard drive connected to my desktop mac since I feel it's most convienient when ripping (XLD) and tagging (Mp3tag). I then use an rsync-script to update the Aurender and another backup disc connected to another computer in another location as my "private cloud". In addition, I also use time machine to have a complete backup with everything i touch on my mac... I feel pretty safe 

[Taxman]

2 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

 

That Aurender supports internal storage may make their ability to support Roon more difficult.  To just be a Roon Ready endpoint would not be enough as Roon Server would still need to be run somewhere - and this would need to access the music stored internally on an Aurender.  Roon Server would thus have to run on the Aurender server - a more difficult thing to pull off as it might necessitate changes to the way Aurender does things internally to support Conductor.  

 

This is just pure speculation on my part.

 

Good point. As I understand it, an Aurender is in essence a Linux-box and the file storage is an ordinary file system that you can mount from another computer so it feels quite straight forward. I do think that there is a risk though that at least the older Aurenders, like the S10, are a bit weak to run a complete Roon core. But having an Aurender without a disc acting as a Roon endpoint should definitely be possible.

[Taxman]

I don't think the technical reasons are the problem sinne they already support streaming and remote storage. It's probably all about control and reluctance to pay license fees. Sad of course since there really is a niche for high-end endpoints that Aurender could fit in.

[Taxman]

4 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Nothing to do with license fees. With Roon the end user pays the license fee ($120 /yr or $500 /lifetime).

 

Is it official that it's "free" to build/sell a Roon endpoint?

 

I know about the end user license since I have a lifetime subscription, but thought that I had heard about a partner license as well, but  maybe that was "alternate facts" 

[Taxman]

44 minutes ago, rwwjr44 said:

Hello All,

If you are so inclined, please add your equipment list to your signature. This may enable assistance if you are having problems.

Sure 

[Taxman]

2 hours ago, Bolts said:

I had an issue where the Aurender lost IP address and I had no end of problems trying to get the router to pick it up.

 

In the end I turned everything off and I mean everything.  I updated the router software and I factory reset the Netgear powerlines.  I then turned everything back on starting with the ISP router and finally the PC and NAS drives. I finally power cycled the Aurender.   Once I had the Aurender back connected and could find it on the PC I then mapped it onto a new network drive.  

 

I've had that problem too. Is there a way to lock a fixed IP to the Aurender? I think that could be very useful!

[Taxman]

19 minutes ago, merge03 said:

Yes, it's simple.  DHCP IPaddress reservation on your router.

Just create an association with the Aurender MAC address and a valid IP address in your assignable range.

I would recommend doing this for every single device in your home that is "permanent".  Use the routers "dhcp status" screen to show which mac address - ip address leases are already effective.  That's one way to get the Aurender MAC.  I think it is on one of the Settings screens too in the Conductor app.

You learn something new everyday! Normally, I do this from the other end, i.e. disable DHCP in the device itself and set a fixed IP. Thanks!

[Taxman]

10 hours ago, rwwjr44 said:

Well if you can't live with it, it has got to go. There may be something out there for you. Take care.

Thanks! I'm about to install Bridge II in my PS Audio DSD. If that degrades the SQ compared to my S10 connected directly to the DSD, I will test dCS Network Bridge, Rossini and Vivaldi. According to testimonials from people who have tested a network connected Rossini or Vivaldi, both solutions outperforms a direct connected Aurender W20, so there seems to be a path for getting the top of the line usability/flexibility with Roon without degraded SQ. Time will tell if I agree 

[Taxman]

3 hours ago, agladstone said:

(Content removed at the request of Aurender. - CC)
 

 

[Taxman]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

If one person has the information, it's no longer secret. I'm sure people will be able to obtain it if they want. I just don't want to publish the info that a manufacturer kindly asked me to remove because it was "inside" information. 

 

It's not really about the information, but more how Aurender as a company choose to act. I have been following this thread for some time and provided some comments and thoughts around my S10, but I have never seen or heard any "official comments" from Aurender then, but when someone provides useful information about disc upgrade, they requested it to be removed. The only "inside information" I saw in that information was regarding how to format the drive. IF Aurender would be a customer oriented company, they could easily provide a format functionality in the conductor app, allowing computer savvy users means to improve their Aurenders.

 

 

[Taxman]

16 minutes ago, dminches said:

This is one area that Aurender needs to devote development of the app.  It needs to allow the use to customize the display of the music and allow for all the metadata to be considered in sorting.

 

Yes I fully agree, simple things like that and sorting artists by last name are what you should expect from a modern solution, but in the years I have had my S10, noting has changed/improved in this area. It feels like all focus is on streaming and not customers with a large music library.

[Taxman]

3 minutes ago, dminches said:

The sorting by first name kills me.  I have over 8 TBs of music and I have found a way to sort by last name on my NAS.  Certainly Aurender can figure that one out.

 

Can - yes! Want? Probably not

 

When I first got my S10 back in 2014, I asked support about the sorting issue, and got the following reply from Eric Shim:

 

Quote

For the sorting issue, at this moment we don’t use artistsort field in tags. We just use artist field, however we are considering this feature. Once, we finish our priority task, this will be one of task we will focus.

 

After that - nothing. It's because of this slow/lack of app development progress that have forced me to look in other directions for different options.

[Taxman]

9 minutes ago, dminches said:

 

Stand alone players like jriver are full-featured.  I don't know if the all-in-one systems like Aurender or Lumin are very flexible and all for user configuration to that extent.

 

 

Thanks. I'm ccurrently setting up a Roon-based solution with a Nuc/ROCK server driving the Bridge-card in my PS Audio DSD. I would say that It's definitely as good sounding as my S10, but of course with a superior user experience.

[Taxman]

1 hour ago, Deyorew said:

Okay so second question ...does the software allow for artist and album artist? Like in iTunes? Or just one artist field....

i was seriously about to order the n100h after using a Mac mini for 10 years. But album artist and sort by year have become must haves for me.

 

Yes it does support both those tags so for example all my compilation albums with album artist set to Various Artists will be grouped together after Van Morrison in the Album *Sort by artist-view. It doesn't care about the Compilation-tag though.

 

Another stupid thing regarding artist/album artist tags and sorting is that there is no way that I have found to completely ignore leading "The" in artist names. This means that The Beatles and The Beach Boys will end up before Camel but after Buddy Holly in the listing. Really strange behavior since I would expect The Beatles to be sorted as Beatles etc.

 

The recommendation you always tend to get when complaining about things like this is "Why don't you just change artist to Beatles and Ferry, Brian?", but in my world computers are quick and smart - it's just a matter of listening to what your customers want and some clever programming 

[Taxman]

52 minutes ago, r_w said:

The Aurender app will get better...

 

Is that a guess or do you have some inside information? 

[Taxman]

On 2017-07-05 at 1:30 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

History is the best predictor of the future. The app has consistently improved over the years. 

 

I have obviously missed all improvements in the app during the three years I have used it!? Except from Tidal/streaming, that I'm not that interested in since my focus is my own music library, at least I haven't really seen any improvements worth mentioning.

[Taxman]

1 hour ago, srms said:

Same problems here with iOS11. It has caused lots of issues for people and you can't roll back to 10.3 any longer. I also use the Android app which still needs some development but doesn't crash like the Apple version does. 

 

Have you asked Aurender support?

 

A professional app developer will be able to get beta-versions of upcoming versions of iOS well in advance of roll-out to customers, giving them plenty of time to ensure the app is working as it should and in most cases also release a new version compatible with the new release and also backward compatible with earlier releases. 

If the app developer are experiencing severe problems that aren't able to fix in time for the production release, you would at least expect them to provide information to customers that they should avoid upgrading until a maintenance release is available. Three good ways to communicate with customers are 

• Provide a newsletter that you can subscribe to (not just marketing/sales info!!!)
• News/support bulletins published on the corporate website (not just marketing/sales info!!!)
• Provide a discussion forum or being active on forums like computeraudiophile

I have learnt the hard way that you really shouldn't be an early adopter in some cases 

[Taxman]

Apple can't possibly test millions of apps, so of course it's the responsibility of the app developer to test their own app using beta-releases of iOS well in advance of release to market. I quote myself from a couple of weeks back:

 

On 2017-10-10 at 9:40 AM, Taxman said:

A professional app developer will be able to get beta-versions of upcoming versions of iOS well in advance of roll-out to customers, giving them plenty of time to ensure the app is working as it should and in most cases also release a new version compatible with the new release and also backward compatible with earlier releases. 

If the app developer are experiencing severe problems that aren't able to fix in time for the production release, you would at least expect them to provide information to customers that they should avoid upgrading until a maintenance release is available.

 

...

 

I have learnt the hard way that you really shouldn't be an early adopter in some cases 

[Taxman]

21 hours ago, agladstone said:

Has anyone tried using Roon Server combined with Roon Remote on iPad with the Aurender? 

Surprisingly (to me at least) I was trying to set up a SOtM SMS-200 Ultra using roon server on a Mac with roon remote on an iPad last night. 

I tried for hours but could not get it to work, however I had added my Aurender using the info for NAS Share so I could use it as the NAS / music database and although I could not get the SOtM ultra to work (or even show up as a zone / output device) it had my Aurender listed. 

So I selected the Aurender as zone out of curiosity and I was able to use Roon via the Autender with no issues ??  

I had always assumed that you could not use Roon with Aurender ?? 

Anyone with any more knowledge than me on this have any input?? 

FYI, this was just straight Roon, no HQPLAYER, I never got that far, and when I did an A/B between Aurender internal HD to USB out vs. Roon, the Aurender w/ conductor / USB sounded MUCH better, but as I understand it, you need HQPLAYER and DSD upsampling with Roon for it to sound it’s best ? 

 

Really? Is there a Roon endpoint (or even bridge) built into the Aurender? That was a surprise!

What Aurender are you using?

[Taxman]

6 hours ago, bmichels said:

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...  :-(

 

You should never trust a software developer when it comes to promises about features and timelines 😀

 

I communicated  with Aurender 2015 regarding some improvements around tagging/sorting since I felt the app did a rather poor job in this area. Based on the replies, the impression I got was that improvements in that area were planned. Four years and many conductor-releases later, nothing has happened in this area. Luckily, i moved on to other solutions that suited me better, so my suggestion is that you should make your buying decisions on what the solution provides today - not what you hope it will provide in the future.

[Taxman]

17 minutes ago, biosailor said:

 

Same here with N100H! I tried Roon, even have a lifetime license, but sonically, Roon just isn't as good as the N100H. I had Roon installed on my Mac Mini, afterwards on a Nucleus, and yet, I just prefer the sound of my N100H. So I'll stick for quite a while with the Conductor app. Great sound!

 

The key to get the most from Roon is to separate the server from the rendering hardware (endpoint) i.e. you should not connect a Mac Mini or a Nucleus directly to your DAC. 

[Taxman]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

but they are completely different animals in so many ways. I use both

 

For what purpose would a "normal" use more than one high-quality platform?