The "Official" Aurender Discussion Thread

[TubeLover]

Seeing how so many others seem to think MQA sounds incredible, any thoughts on if the reason we don't has something to do with The Aurender / Conductor app??

Perhaps also it has something to do with the Aurender just sounding so good to begin with and most others are listening and making A/B comparisons via a computer which could have lower sound quality and more noise to begin with?

 

The number of people that I have heard or read, including key people in audio who find no difference in listening to MQA far outnumber the people who find it better! Read through more of the previous MQA discussions here at CA.

 

JC

[Pat Case]

The number of people that I have heard or read, including key people in audio who find no difference in listening to MQA far outnumber the people who find it better! Read through more of the previous MQA discussions here at CA.

 

JC

 

 

I haven't read those discussions, perhaps I will. Given the extraordinary advances in audio and the outstandingly revelatory equipment that we use these days, I imagine that some parts of the industry have to work with exceptional vigour in order to part audiophiles from their money. All that I know is that, when I sit in the Paris Philhamonie and listen to Bach and then I listen to the same piece played by the same orchestra working with the same conductor, as I should, I can hear the difference in venue but in terms of sound quality, with a system as revealing as mine, I am more than merely satisfied with the sense of 'almost being there'. Two summers ago, my wife and I sat less than 20 feet from Paul Lewis as he played Bach's last three piano sonatas. As soon as I got home, I played the same sonatas in hi res at concert hall volumes. We were in that little church again. I'm looking for more highly skilled musicians and recording engineers who care such as those from ECM, CORO, Harmonia Mundi, Blue Note etc. I'm happy to pay for their work but, when the next shoe drops, as it will, I'm going to resist replacing my Audio Research DAC8 with an MQA enabled machine.

[agladstone]

The number of people that I have heard or read, including key people in audio who find no difference in listening to MQA far outnumber the people who find it better! Read through more of the previous MQA discussions here at CA.

 

JC

I've actually started to go back and look at the CA profiles and the listed listening systems of those who have been singing praises of MQA, and I've noticed many have computer based systems (as opposed to an Aurender or other dedicated audio server) and the majority seem to be listening to Tidal MQA from either a headphone or desktop powered monitor based system. Also, another theme I noticed is that most of the people that are praising the Tidal MQA versions are comparingthem to the non MQA versions on Tidal. Whereas I'm comparing them vs my own red book rips (from mostly late '80's / early '90's CDs that don't have Dynamic Range Compression) or the DSD I ripped from a MoFi SACD, or an HDTracks 24/192 or DVD-A ripped into 24/96, etc.

And all of the above ripped files I'm using as comparison being played from my isolated dedicated power and LAN lines in a dedicated listening room Aurender N100 into an Intona, into a W4S RUR with its own dedicated LPS-1 power supply, top of line DSD and MQA DAC, into tube line stage, into Amps, and then into Martin Logan Summit X electrostatic speakers.

I'm not ar all trying to brag about my system!!!

The point I'm trying to make isnthat the MQA praise thus far could likely be from those who are not capable of comparing them and evaluating them vs what I am

able to.

As a reference point, MP3's, free Spotify and Pandora sounds just fine to me on my wireless portable UE Bluetooth speaker I have in my bedroom

[agladstone]

I've actually started to go back and look at the CA profiles and the listed listening systems of those who have been singing praises of MQA, and I've noticed many have computer based systems (as opposed to an Aurender or other dedicated audio server) and the majority seem to be listening to Tidal MQA from either a headphone or desktop powered monitor based system. Also, another theme I noticed is that most of the people that are praising the Tidal MQA versions are comparingthem to the non MQA versions on Tidal. Whereas I'm comparing them vs my own red book rips (from mostly late '80's / early '90's CDs that don't have Dynamic Range Compression) or the DSD I ripped from a MoFi SACD, or an HDTracks 24/192 or DVD-A ripped into 24/96, etc.

And all of the above ripped files I'm using as comparison being played from my isolated dedicated power and LAN lines in a dedicated listening room Aurender N100 into an Intona, into a W4S RUR with its own dedicated LPS-1 power supply, top of line DSD and MQA DAC, into tube line stage, into Amps, and then into Martin Logan Summit X electrostatic speakers.

I'm not ar all trying to brag about my system!!!

The point I'm trying to make isnthat the MQA praise thus far could likely be from those who are not capable of comparing them and evaluating them vs what I am

able to.

As a reference point, MP3's, free Spotify and Pandora sounds just fine to me on my wireless portable UE Bluetooth speaker I have in my bedroom

 

UPDATE:

Im always the first to admit when I'm wrong (and in this case perhaps also "jumped the gun" a bit too quickly), so after another long Tidal MQA listening session this Morning (while simultaneously ingesting far too much coffee:) ), these are my updated conclusions:

First, as opposed to the Rock and Pop selections I listened to yesterday that I felt sounded pretty awful, I started out this morning listening to all of the Jazz and Classical Tidal MQA albums, and I must admit, they sounded pretty damn good to me! (Especially the Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, and Coleman albums in addition to the 2L recordings and the Bartok String Quartets).

So, I must make the conclusion, that the culprit in regards to the awful sounding Tidal MQA albums I sampled yesterday, must have been my new nemesis, formally known as Dynamic Range Compression!! I suppose the masters MQA selected for those albums yesterday must have been newer versions with heavy Dynamic Range Compression and as I had suspected prior to starting my listening session today, Jazz and Classical titles would have been much less likely to have been "poisoned" by the loudness war!

Additionally, I sampled a few more rock albums and found some that did sound very good and better than my own 16/44 FLAC rips. Specifically: All of the Smiths albums (although my rips are all from original 1980's released CD's, I have been told the new remasters from the smiths complete box set did sound better, these must be from those masters?)

Also the Chicago Transit Authority, Chicago II and Fleetwood Mac Rumors all sounded a little better than my 16/44 FLAC rips, but all three sounded worse than my DSD / SACD rips.

Thus, I will stand corrected and apologize for my hasty remarks made yesterday and conclude that just the same as my experience with downloads from HDTracks, just because something is 24/192, or DSD or MQA does not alone equal that the album will sound good, some will sound fantastic, and others will have heavy dynamic range Compression and sound awful!

[russellbobby]

UPDATE:

Im always the first to admit when I'm wrong (and in this case perhaps also "jumped the gun" a bit too quickly), so after another long Tidal MQA listening session this Morning (while simultaneously ingesting far too much coffee:) ), these are my updated conclusions:

First, as opposed to the Rock and Pop selections I listened to yesterday that I felt sounded pretty awful, I started out this morning listening to all of the Jazz and Classical Tidal MQA albums, and I must admit, they sounded pretty damn good to me! (Especially the Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, and Coleman albums in addition to the 2L recordings and the Bartok String Quartets).

So, I must make the conclusion, that the culprit in regards to the awful sounding Tidal MQA albums I sampled yesterday, must have been my new nemesis, formally known as Dynamic Range Compression!! I suppose the masters MQA selected for those albums yesterday must have been newer versions with heavy Dynamic Range Compression and as I had suspected prior to starting my listening session today, Jazz and Classical titles would have been much less likely to have been "poisoned" by the loudness war!

Additionally, I sampled a few more rock albums and found some that did sound very good and better than my own 16/44 FLAC rips. Specifically: All of the Smiths albums (although my rips are all from original 1980's released CD's, I have been told the new remasters from the smiths complete box set did sound better, these must be from those masters?)

Also the Chicago Transit Authority, Chicago II and Fleetwood Mac Rumors all sounded a little better than my 16/44 FLAC rips, but all three sounded worse than my DSD / SACD rips.

Thus, I will stand corrected and apologize for my hasty remarks made yesterday and conclude that just the same as my experience with downloads from HDTracks, just because something is 24/192, or DSD or MQA does not alone equal that the album will sound good, some will sound fantastic, and others will have heavy dynamic range Compression and sound awful!

 

Need to hold off judgement on my A10 and MQA until Aurender finalizes the software. The A10 streams Tidal beautifully, and when paired with a Microzotl2.0S the sound is sublime.. This is a fantastic compo for 7K don't see how you can beat it for a front end of a fairly high end system.

[Yippedidou]

Please take any review with a grain of salt if is used as a stand alone. I have an A10 and just received a microZOTL 2.OS which is replacing a Modwright 9.0 Anniversary linestage and the SQ is fantastic. The A10 must be used with a decent>high quality pre-amp. IF you are going to spend 5-5,000 on this unit you HAVE to mate it with a pre. You will be short changing your self how good this unit really is.

Happy New Year,

Russ

I admit I was sceptical about this post... I thought the pre in the A10 did a very fine job - and in fact it does. But I should have known better after all those experiments with many set ups, lots of them with separate pre. Today, I had the chance to add a separate pre in my set up, a Unison Research Unico Pre. And yes, I agree with Russ. A good separate pre takes the sound to another level, its just like the notes float in the room. Very very good.

 

So... The A10 does a good job. I have it for one month now - about 120 hours on it. A fantastic server that works flawlessly, a very capable dac which is right up there with some of the best in comparative price range (tried Mirus, Hugo TT, Moon and Naim), to my ears at least - sold my Hugo TT - and the pre does the job. But yes, if you want to push it to another level, a separate pre will give you that extra. Do you absolutely need a separate pre? Nope. But if you want to push it to another level and have already a good amp, speakers and cables, this is the place to work.

[kennyb123]

A fantastic server that works flawlessly, a very capable dac which is right up there with some of the best in comparative price range (tried Mirus, Hugo TT, Moon and Naim), to my ears at least - sold my Hugo TT - and the pre does the job.

 

Which music server had you been using with the Hugo TT? Since the A10 is essentially a fantastic server + DAC in one box, the server should be factored in when considering the relative performance of those other DACs.

 

I just purchased a Hugo TT last month. My server is the microRendu in Roon Ready mode. Since I'm hooked on Roon, the A10 wouldn't have been an option for me. But I'm still nonetheless curious about the relative performance of other DACs in its price range.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[Yippedidou]

Which music server had you been using with the Hugo TT? Since the A10 is essentially a fantastic server + DAC in one box, the server should be factored in when considering the relative performance of those other DACs.

 

I just purchased a Hugo TT last month. My server is the microRendu in Roon Ready mode. Since I'm hooked on Roon, the A10 wouldn't have been an option for me. But I'm still nonetheless curious about the relative performance of other DACs in its price range.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

 

I had the X100L. And yes, maybe the server is better in the A10 partly because of the full linear PS vs the SMPS in the X100L . I believe the Hugo TT is a very good dac, I loved my time with it. Appreciate its battery power and it is a very nice HP amp as well. Cant go wrong with Chord in dac's.

[markrubin]

I have been listening to Tidal MQA from a Chrome browser using a Mytek Brooklyn DAC, waiting for the Tidal update so I can play MQA from the A10:

 

The audio quality is all over the place: some of it sounds great: some not so much. The blue logo in the photo shows it is processing MQA (I set Tidal desktop settings for external MQA processing)

One thing I notice when I came back to the Aurender A10 app: all of the MQA albums I set as favorites in the Chrome browser now appear as unidentified albums in artists/favorites on the app: they just appear as unidentified disc symbols: you cannot play them

[russellbobby]

On my A10 they went from the desktop to Tidal favs and play normal. Not sure resolution as the Aurender just reads Tidal Hi-fi. Do a restart of the app and reboot the A10, usually everything falls into place.

[markrubin]

On my A10 they went from the desktop to Tidal favs and play normal. Not sure resolution as the Aurender just reads Tidal Hi-fi. Do a restart of the app and reboot the A10, usually everything falls into place.

 

thanks: that fixed the Aurender app issue

[biosailor]

Hello All,

 

this is my first post in the forum. I bought an Aurender N100H about three weeks ago and I thoroughly enjoy it. I have a medium sized library ranging from CD quality to 24/192 high res files. When listening to my local albums, I thoroughly enjoy the N100H. One caveat though, and I read that here in the forum, the N100H has the tendency of putting a layer of bass that I did not hear when playing the same files from my MacBook Pro via Audirvana+/Roon. The extra layer of bass is not unpleasant, as I am a headphone person, using a headphone amp that is said to be on the bright side (GSX-Mk2). Also, my main headphone, HD800, is also a bit bass shy. So the extra bass layer does come in pleasantly!

However, it gets unbearable when streaming. Tidal Master files. First, I mark them as favs in Tidal's desktop app, and then they are visible as favs in Aurender conductor app. However, listening to Master files on the N100H is just bass layer, very syrupy! In contrast, on Tidal desktop, the very same files are marvellous, airy, lots of space between instruments, and a joy to listen to! Has anyone made the same observations? Is there a way of alleviating this distorting layer of bass in Tidal master files? Thanks for any input!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[russellbobby]

This is the latest from Aurender when asked about the volume control possibly truncating bits when used with a preamp.

Hello Russ,

No, the Aurender’s digital volume control is being performed in an FPGA and does not lose resolution when used.

However, depending on your system electronics and the relationship between your amplification equipment, you may have better results using the volume attenuation in your preamplifier. Our next software release will have a button to easily set a fixed output from the A10 when used with a separate preamplifier.

 

So this is great news if you have a pre without a remote. You can adjust the volume either in the app or the Aurenders remote volume without losing any info..

[rwwjr44]

Hello All,

 

this is my first post in the forum. I bought an Aurender N100H about three weeks ago and I thoroughly enjoy it. I have a medium sized library ranging from CD quality to 24/192 high res files. When listening to my local albums, I thoroughly enjoy the N100H. One caveat though, and I read that here in the forum, the N100H has the tendency of putting a layer of bass that I did not hear when playing the same files from my MacBook Pro via Audirvana+/Roon. The extra layer of bass is not unpleasant, as I am a headphone person, using a headphone amp that is said to be on the bright side (GSX-Mk2). Also, my main headphone, HD800, is also a bit bass shy. So the extra bass layer does come in pleasantly!

However, it gets unbearable when streaming. Tidal Master files. First, I mark them as favs in Tidal's desktop app, and then they are visible as favs in Aurender conductor app. However, listening to Master files on the N100H is just bass layer, very syrupy! In contrast, on Tidal desktop, the very same files are marvellous, airy, lots of space between instruments, and a joy to listen to! Has anyone made the same observations? Is there a way of alleviating this distorting layer of bass in Tidal master files? Thanks for any input!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

 

If your preamp has tone controls, check them. Sounds silly but something similar happened to me many years ago.

[biosailor]

If your preamp has tone controls, check them. Sounds silly but something similar happened to me many years ago.

 

Thanks for replying! No, the preamp is switched off and it has no tone controls whatsoever. I suspect that the Aurender has difficulties recognising the Master format. The Aurender tells me it sees a FLAC file, but I don't remember what sampling rate it displays. I'll check that and get back to you.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[The Computer Audiophile]

Thanks for replying! No, the preamp is switched off and it has no tone controls whatsoever. I suspect that the Aurender has difficulties recognising the Master format. The Aurender tells me it sees a FLAC file, but I don't remember what sampling rate it displays. I'll check that and get back to you.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

 

Your Aurender should be passing the master format bit perfect to your DAC. There is no need to recognize anything in your current setup.

[agladstone]

If your preamp has tone controls, check them. Sounds silly but something similar happened to me many years ago.

Have you tried listening to a large verity of MQA albums to ensure the Aurender is bloating the bass equally in all of them?

I have found after some experimentation, that some of the MQA albums sound amazing and others sound awful!!

I believe it must come down to which version the studios are using to convert to MQA and that the ones that sound awful must be from newer remaster's with heavy Dynamic Range Compression applied to them.

I have also done a comparison of MacBook Pro / Tidal desktop app into DAC vs through Aurrender and I agree that the same albums sound different, yet to me, the MQA albums that sound really good, all sound much better played through the Aurrender (N100H).

Tidal (and Aurrender / Conductor) needs to come up with a better way to identify which album version is MQA and a better way to sort through them and view / discover them, what a pain it is searching through Tidal App and then favoriting them all and then back into conductor app to find them and play them!!!

I discovered yesterday that they continue to keep adding more MQA albums each day!!

[markrubin]

I know Tidal MQA is not available to Aurender streamers yet....but when I bought my A10 I recall the Aurender web site saying it was MQA capable: now I don't see any mention of MQA

 

am I missing something?

[The Computer Audiophile]

I know Tidal MQA is not available to Aurender streamers yet....but when I bought my A10 I recall the Aurender web site saying it was MQA capable: now I don't see any mention of MQA

 

am I missing something?

 

I just received the A10 and I am streaming MQA to it from Tidal and it's fully decoded. I believe an A10 update is coming soon.

[russellbobby]

I just received the A10 and I am streaming MQA to it from Tidal and it's fully decoded. I believe an A10 update is coming soon.

 

Good to hear. Please do your review with and without a preamp.

[TubeLover]

I just received the A10 and I am streaming MQA to it from Tidal and it's fully decoded. I believe an A10 update is coming soon.

 

Chris, are you accomplishing this without a PC in the system? I have been unaware of the Aurender app currently allowing any MQA streaming.

 

JC

[russellbobby]

This is the latest from Aurender when asked about the volume control possibly truncating bits when used with a preamp.

Hello Russ,

No, the Aurender’s digital volume control is being performed in an FPGA and does not lose resolution when used.

However, depending on your system electronics and the relationship between your amplification equipment, you may have better results using the volume attenuation in your preamplifier. Our next software release will have a button to easily set a fixed output from the A10 when used with a separate preamplifier.

 

So this is great news if you have a pre without a remote. You can adjust the volume either in the app or the Aurenders remote volume without losing any info..

 

"Please disregard the prior information that the volume control for the A10 is performed in the FPGA for the A10, as it is actually a function of the AK4490 DAC chip for the left and right channels. Further information on technical aspects of the volume control can be referred to [email protected], where we will do our best to help with your questions”.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Chris, are you accomplishing this without a PC in the system? I have been unaware of the Aurender app currently allowing any MQA streaming.

 

JC

 

Straight A10 only and full MQA.

[russellbobby]

Straight A10 only and full MQA.

 

I know that baby is going to sound real good with the Constellation linestage. Hopefully on the DAC side its 95 percent of the Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC RS and EMM Labs DA2 you have.

Is 24/192 the best you are seeing on the Aurender?

[The Computer Audiophile]

I know that baby is going to sound real good with the Constellation linestage. Hopefully on the DAC side its 95 percent of the Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC RS and EMM Labs DA2 you have.

Is 24/192 the best you are seeing on the Aurender?

 

I've got 352.8 kHz MQA on the A10 right now.