The "Official" Aurender Discussion Thread

[daredevil_kk]

15 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Hi KK - You are correct. I hope Aurender models all decode MQA for other DACs to render. I don't believe there's a hardware or software limitation, most likely it's a time limitation on the part of staff. 

Hi Chris,

 

I just done the update and I think the N10 is decoding the 1st layer. I was playing some of David Bowie's MQA songs and it was showing 48Hz...

 

Cheers,

KK

[merge03]

I doubt that Aurender has any say in software based MQA decoding.  There is a lot of discussion of software based and hardware based MQA decoding on the web.  It's an issue of licensing, copyrights, royalties, and technology partnerships.  Nothing new for this industry.

[The Computer Audiophile]

8 hours ago, daredevil_kk said:

Hi Chris,

 

I just done the update and I think the N10 is decoding the 1st layer. I was playing some of David Bowie's MQA songs and it was showing 48Hz...

 

Cheers,

KK

 

 

Unfortunately, it isn't decoding the first part. 44.1 and 48 are the base sample rates that would be unfolded to something higher for most albums, likely 24/96. 

 

 

 

 

 

8 minutes ago, merge03 said:

I doubt that Aurender has any say in software based MQA decoding.  There is a lot of discussion of software based and hardware based MQA decoding on the web.  It's an issue of licensing, copyrights, royalties, and technology partnerships.  Nothing new for this industry.

 

It's actually nothing like this at all. Aurender is a technology partner / licensee of MQA technology. Both the record labels and MQA want to license as much as possible. All the copyrights and royalty business is between MQA and the labels. That's all done for the most part. Audirvana, Tidal, and soon Roon have MQA software decoding for the first part. I'm sure others will follow.

 

 

 

 

[steinburg]

Hi Aurender users,

Regarding MQA and Aurender.

MQA is fairly new and we are all learning.

It is correct that discussions are underway to accommodate additional methods of decoding and playing MQA files in the future. And yes licensing agreements is part of the scope of things but not as much as you might think where MQA is concerned. Remember, MQA is not just about providing a method that allows HiRez music files to be reduced in size and easily streamed to users. It is also about two other goals - providing the listener for the first time ever with authenticated audio quality as authenticated by the people who master, engineer, and produce music plus - providing a way to reduce a file size that not only causes no audio degradation but most importantly fixes some of the key issues responsible for digital audio not sounding as good as it is capable (timing issues etc).

I think all that is worth doing well and currently the MQA decoding which they call "unfolding" is done in the DAC for very specific reasons.

Your Tidal MQA file is just a a MQA encoded FLAC file.

Part of what MQA offers is the ability of an MQA file to play on any system. No MQA benefits when a non-MQA DAC is in use and with all the MQA benefits when an MQA enabled DAC is in use.

So what you are hearing from your Tidal MQA music via your Aurender N10 (and your Non-MQA DAC) is the base music file only. Currently you must use an MQA enabled DAC to reap the full benefits MQA offers.

And I use an Aurender N100-H into a MyTek Brooklyn MQA enabled DAC and WOW is the result on hi rez files. Digital sounding more real again - finally.

So the job of Tidal or any music player (like all Aurender models except the A10) is to provide the MQA music file as is. And it can be played back on non-MQA enabled equipment (without the benefits MQA provides) or on MQA equipped components to derive those benefits. 

It is the job of the DAC to unfold the MQA FLAC based music file and to "authenticate" that file as well - much like a DAC has to provide the ability to decode all the file resolutions we want to listen to ( 16bit/44.1, 24bit/96, 24bit/192, DSD, etc) and indicate on its front panel which one is in use.

As Neil Young has been promoting - the authentication process is very important. The goal is to have you hear more exactly how the music sounded when it was recorded and mastered. Authentication is a big part of what MQA is all about. For me, it is the most important aspect.

Note: Since the Aurender A10 is a combined player/DAC/preamp and its DAC is MQA enabled - no problem playing MQA files in full MQA quality.

 

I hope this helps a bit.

B Steinburg-working in Digital processor manufacturing and former recording studio professional.

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, steinburg said:

So the job of Tidal or any music player (like all Aurender models except the A10) is to provide the MQA music file as is. And it can be played back on non-MQA enabled equipment (without the benefits MQA provides) or on MQA equipped components to derive those benefits. 

 

Hi B Steinburg - Thanks for taking time to post, but you stated some misinformation. I've linked to my article about how it all works.

 

The Tidal app is capable of passing bit perfect MQA or partially decoded MQA. The user can then benefit from MQA as is or send this on to an MQA renderer for full decoding. This is why people are asking about Aurender decoding the first unfold in software on its non-DAC products. 

 

 

 

[dminches]

Has anyone replaced the drives in a W20? Is this plug and play or does one have to get Aurender involved?

 

The W20 I purchased has 2 x 3 TB drives and I'd like to upgrade at least one of them to 6 or 8 TB, depending on what is supported.

 

[classeaddict]

For the sake of discussion you should be able to replace the hard drives in your W20.  However...what it will take to do that could be a different issue since the W20 isolates the hard drives in shielded boxes.  I would suggest you contact Aurender and see if your W20 is ok to change drives, it should be but you never know what the boards inside the unit allow for max size, I have the most current W20 which has 2 8TB drives...I think.

 

Steve

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, dminches said:

Has anyone replaced the drives in a W20? Is this plug and play or does one have to get Aurender involved?

 

The W20 I purchased has 2 x 3 TB drives and I'd like to upgrade at least one of them to 6 or 8 TB, depending on what is supported.

 

 

There may be an issue with power if you change the drives. I'd contact your dealer. 

[dminches]

On 3/6/2017 at 4:23 PM, Taxman said:

Bad news... I got the following reply from Aurender:

 

Regarding your question, it is not a bug since we changed the way the scanner software detects albums. This is reflected in our release notes on our website: “The rule for detecting albums has changed. The folder (directory) is the boundary for an album, so that tracks (music files) for an album should be located all together under the same (direct) folder. Music files duplicated over the folders are no longer treated as the same album.”We had many end user requests for this for multi-CD sets and box set content. If you would like multi-CD content to be presented as one album, you can locate the files in the same containing folder and they will appear as one album.

 

They seriously suggest that I should reorganize my music library to comply with how they now think it should be organized to get it to work the way it did before! I understand that they want to support box sets - hey, I want that too! - but why not do that in some kind of smart way - for example by using additional tags, providing flexibility to the user.

 

I'm very close to give up and sell this wonderfully sounding piece of hardware, only because the software isn't given any attention and hasn't been improved for the 2,5 years I've had the box unless of course your #1 priority is streaming. Really sad, but true

 

I agree with you.  The whole point of metadata is that it doesn't care where the files are.  Limiting an album to a folder makes NO sense.

 

[agladstone]

The few audiophile internet radio stations I have tried all showed 44/24 on my DAC , is it possible this is not an accurate bit rate?

Also, Aurender really needs to now figure out how to display what songs are playing!!

I heard a few songs I really liked and I could not figure out how to find the playlists for the stations. I did many google searches and could not find a website or playlist for either of the two stations, I suspect the display name in Shoutcast was not the actual name of the internet radio station?

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, agladstone said:

The few audiophile internet radio stations I have tried all showed 44/24 on my DAC , is it possible this is not an accurate bit rate?

 

Neither is actually the bit rate that really matters. Internet radio is all 44.1 or under, just like iTunes sells all 44.1 content. 44.1 can be incredibly lossy. The 24 bit word length is interesting, but I struggle to see this as a true indicator. Perhaps your DAC is getting 24 bit from the Aurender automatically. The true bit rate is likely something like 256 Kbps or 320 Kbps.

[AudioDoctor]

26 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Neither is actually the bit rate that really matters. Internet radio is all 44.1 or under, just like iTunes sells all 44.1 content. 44.1 can be incredibly lossy. The 24 bit word length is interesting, but I struggle to see this as a true indicator. Perhaps your DAC is getting 24 bit from the Aurender automatically. The true bit rate is likely something like 256 Kbps or 320 Kbps.

 

This.  44.1 is the sample rate, 24 bit is the bit depth, and the 256/320/ or 1441 (in the case of an uncompressed 16/44 file) kbps is the BitRate...  Your Aurender is adding zero's to pad the 16 bit file to 24 bits for your DAC.

 

 

[JS21]

With internet radio, does your Aurender display which station is playing or just "Internet Radio"?

[dminches]

Aurender support responded to my drive replacement question promptly as they always do.

 

You can upgrade the W20 to 2 6TB or 8TB drives through your dealer or distributor. If you are located in the U.S., our office in Anaheim can perform the upgrade for a $300 service charge which includes a diagnostic of the unit before we send it back to you. This does not include the price of the hard disks, which we ask you to supply (the WD Red series drives are currently the only drives that work from a mounting pattern and power requirement standpoint). It also does not include shipping to and from our Anaheim office. We can also support your dealer for the upgrade.

 

So, if I replace both drives with 6 TB drives it would cost me $500 for the drives, $500 for round trip shipping and $300 for service, or a total of $1300 which seems like a lot.

 

It seems like I am best trying this on my own first.  if things don't go well I can always ship the unit.

 

[isquirrel]

10 hours ago, dminches said:

 

I agree with you.  The whole point of metadata is that it doesn't care where the files are.  Limiting an album to a folder makes NO sense.

 

Re using the Folder as an Album container, thank you for that information, it has helped me a lot.

[Morten]

Hallo all

 

I do not know if it has been disused elsewhere, if so my apologies.

 

But I am wondering, there is a lot of positive feedback about the AQVox switch.

 

http://www.myhifishop.de/Devices/AQ-SWITCH-8-Audiophile-High-End-Network-Switch::75.html?XTCsid=6hcj0ptnru83e3db8vvje35h33

 

what do you think will it also give an upgrade with a Aurender?

 

I use Tidal 99% of the time, I have investigated the network traffic on my router, I can see that Aurender receives all the data the first 10 seconds (approximately) of the track when I start a new playlist—hence no data is sent to remaining time.

 

Kind regards Morten

[agladstone]

On 4/12/2017 at 7:57 PM, dminches said:

Aurender support responded to my drive replacement question promptly as they always do.

 

You can upgrade the W20 to 2 6TB or 8TB drives through your dealer or distributor. If you are located in the U.S., our office in Anaheim can perform the upgrade for a $300 service charge which includes a diagnostic of the unit before we send it back to you. This does not include the price of the hard disks, which we ask you to supply (the WD Red series drives are currently the only drives that work from a mounting pattern and power requirement standpoint). It also does not include shipping to and from our Anaheim office. We can also support your dealer for the upgrade.

 

So, if I replace both drives with 6 TB drives it would cost me $500 for the drives, $500 for round trip shipping and $300 for service, or a total of $1300 which seems like a lot.

 

It seems like I am best trying this on my own first.  if things don't go well I can always ship the unit.

 

Keep us posted regarding your ability to upgrade the HD's yourself! I have been interested in doing this also. 

When I purchased my N100H, I was told it can be done yourself and then Aurrender could dial into the unit remotely and perform the formatting for you. 

When I inquired, they responded to me with the same ( must be done either by an authorized dealer or by them in Anaheim facility. 

Apparently authorized dealers have a special version of the conductor app that allows for HD formatting that is end users do not have in our version of the conductor app. 

I believe that Aurrender uses a proprietary Linux based formatting (or something similar) and that this is what is required? I have read a lot of threads about upgrading/ replacing an HD on a Sony PS/3 or an Xbox which has the same situation (you can swap the physical drive yourself, but won't be able to format it). 

Also if you do a clone of the existing HD, apparently you'll just have the same exact capacity as before, only it will be "sitting" on a larger HD. (i.e. only 2TB HD capacity, "sitting" on a 6TB HD). 

My suspicion has always been that perhaps a Linux programmer with the right HW, SW capabilities may be able to hack it or know how to do it??? 

I personally have now such sort of capability:( 

My thoughts have been (for my N100H) that if I could swap the 2TB HD with a 2TB SSD and also swap the 128GB Cache with either a 250GB or 512GB that the overall performance (and probably HD longevity) would be better! 

Anyone else that has any ideas on how to do this ourselves or what the performance improvements may be, please chime in! 

I bought my Aurrender from an authorized deal in DC Metro and I live in Philadelphia, so it's not so easy for me to have them do it for me (I'd prefer not to risk shipping it back and forth). 

There is a local dealer near me, but I did not purchase my unit from them. 

 

[dminches]

I am in Cherry Hill so I would use the same dealer.  There is a dealer in Newton Square, PA.  I have written them to see if they can do the upgrade.

 

I am resigned to the fact that I can't do the upgrade myself.  If I can find a place to drive the unit to I will be fine with that.

 

Regarding your N100H I don't know what you would gain by replacing the 2 TB drive with an SSD.  Doesn't your unit already have an SSD on which the music is cached and played from?  I can see upgrading the 2 TB drive to 4 TB but the I don't understand the benefit of the SSD.

[agladstone]

14 minutes ago, dminches said:

I am in Cherry Hill so I would use the same dealer.  There is a dealer in Newton Square, PA.  I have written them to see if they can do the upgrade.

 

I am resigned to the fact that I can't do the upgrade myself.  If I can find a place to drive the unit to I will be fine with that.

 

Regarding your N100H I don't know what you would gain by replacing the 2 TB drive with an SSD.  Doesn't your unit already have an SSD on which the music is cached and played from?  I can see upgrading the 2 TB drive to 4 TB but the I don't understand the benefit of the SSD.

I think that the biggest upgrade would be a larger cache (from 128GB to 256GB - this is what the N10 and W20 have), in regards to 2TB HD to a 2TB (or 4TB) SSD, I was think more so that it would give the N100H more longevity (SSD vs HD) and perhaps make the system very slightly less noisy (no spinning disk)? 

In regards to a local dealer to us, I was actually speaking of Overature AV in Wilmington, DE. 

 

[rwwjr44]

Two weeks now with my N10 and I must say that the improvement over the X100L is significant. I have been dithering over this for at least a year now and couldn't quite get the funds together BUT due to a very fortunate set of circumstances I now have one. Sublime.

[bpw]

As noted above, the hard drives in an Aurender can be replaced, but because the formatting needs to be done either by Aurender or an Aurender dealer, I suggest it's best to not open the unit but simply hand it off to the dealer along with the new drive(s) -- WD Red -- for installation and formatting. One way of restoring the music from your current drive(s) is to put them one at a time into a USB enclosure and plug that into the back of the Aurender to copy the contents to the internal drives.

[dminches]

1 minute ago, bpw said:

As noted above, the hard drives in an Aurender can be replaced, but because the formatting needs to be done either by Aurender or an Aurender dealer, I suggest it's best to not open the unit but simply hand it off to the dealer along with the new drive(s) -- WD Red -- for installation and formatting. One way of restoring the music from your current drive(s) is to put them one at a time into a USB enclosure and plug that into the back of the Aurender to copy the contents to the internal drives.

 

I have resigned myself to the fact that I will have to send the unit to Aurender since none of the dealers local to me want to do the work.  I am not sure why Aurender can't do this remotely if I put the new drives in but at this point I have no choice.

 

[bpw]

24 minutes ago, dminches said:

 

I have resigned myself to the fact that I will have to send the unit to Aurender since none of the dealers local to me want to do the work.  I am not sure why Aurender can't do this remotely if I put the new drives in but at this point I have no choice.

 

No, of course they don't want you to open the unit, which voids the warranty. But some dealers should be willing and able to do the work for the original purchaser.

[dminches]

6 minutes ago, bpw said:

No, of course they don't want you to open the unit, which voids the warranty. But some dealers should be willing and able to do the work for the original purchaser.

 

I understand, but the unit is over 2 years old so it is no longer under warranty.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

11 minutes ago, dminches said:

 

I understand, but the unit is over 2 years old so it is no longer under warranty.

 

 

What dealer sold you the unit?