The "Official" Aurender Discussion Thread

[russellbobby]

Been loving the A10 for almost 2 years now. Rock solid with excellent SQ.  stepped up from a N100S and an Oppo Modwright dac with Regens,seperate power supplies ,etc and the A10 kills it. As mentioned I am sure it has to do with the lack of USB or other interface between the dac and player. Maybe not the absolute best but a pretty darn satisfying piece of equipment. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, russellbobby said:

a pretty darn satisfying piece of equipment. 

That’s what it’s all about. 

[biosailor]

2 hours ago, russellbobby said:

Been loving the A10 for almost 2 years now. Rock solid with excellent SQ.  stepped up from a N100S and an Oppo Modwright dac with Regens,seperate power supplies ,etc and the A10 kills it. As mentioned I am sure it has to do with the lack of USB or other interface between the dac and player. Maybe not the absolute best but a pretty darn satisfying piece of equipment. 

Is the A10 good enough to be fed directly into a power amp without going via a pre-amp?

[Vincent1234]

32 minutes ago, biosailor said:

Is the A10 good enough to be fed directly into a power amp without going via a pre-amp?

Fully depends on the quality of the preamp you are using, IMO. I myself have rather bad experiences in bypassing a high-end preamp (ARC Ref5 SE) and connecting my DAC straight into the amp (Ayre VX-5 Twenty). But many in these quarters are happy doing it, so YMMV.

[russellbobby]

I am a firm believer in a preamp in the system. I like Tubes somewhere in the chain as I have a MicroZotl 2.0s. I have tried the Aurender as a standalone and it is very good, just not as good as with the preamp.  Of course by the time I added the preamp, set of Au24sx interconnects , upgraded power  cord and fuse it added 3500 bucks to the system cost so it should sound better 

the A10 really benefits from isolation and upgraded power cord. I installed a Synergistic Blue fuse but really didn't notice much of a difference 

[Mazza]

36 minutes ago, russellbobby said:

I am a firm believer in a preamp in the system. I like Tubes somewhere in the chain as I have a MicroZotl 2.0s. I have tried the Aurender as a standalone and it is very good, just not as good as with the preamp.  

 

Adding anything to the audio chain, particularly after the DAC is just adding some coloration of some form or another, tubes are well known for that ..... not as radical as the speakers of course!

[russellbobby]

Just not a fan of most volume controls in most dacs. I can leave the Aurender at 100 knowing I am not losing any resolution. 

 

[Mazza]

43 minutes ago, russellbobby said:

Just not a fan of most volume controls in most dacs. I can leave the Aurender at 100 knowing I am not losing any resolution. 

 

 

ahhhh ...ok ..... didn't realise the A10 had a variable output, the W20 doesn't of course.

 

I agree with your point, quite a few digital volume controls aren't good at low outputs because of the way they achieve this. A good article on this at https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/features-menu/general-interest-interviews-menu/311-what-s-wrong-with-digital-volume-controls

[biosailor]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback! The reason I asked is that I am thinking of replacing my pre-amp. The idea of reducing my box count with, say, an A10 going straight into a power amp, is an attractive one, for sure! Whichever forum I addressed, the answer is more or less the same: nothing beats a good pre-amp with an elaborate analogue volume control. Obviously, digital volume control needs to go a long way before becoming competitive to analogue control, is that it?

 

So, I‘ll be looking pretty soon into Benchmark‘s new HPA4 headphone/linestage preamp. Will be interesting!

[agladstone]

@Mazza - seems like your W20 and Kii Three combo are a perfect match! 

Ive heard nothing but great things about the Kii Three’s. 

I suspect an A10 paired with Kef LS50 wireless OR Dynaudio Xcite Series would create a similar simple yet still Audiophile system too. 

Can you still use an external DAC with the Kii Threes if you want to and bypass the internal? 

[Mazza]

I’d definitely recommend the Kii’s and the W20 and together they are a match made in heaven.

 

Yes, you can still use a separate external DAC with the Kii’s. but what happens is that the resultant analogue signal that is fed to them is first converted into the digital domain using an ADC and then passed to internal DACS  [each speaker has 6 of them!] which service each speaker amp and driver [again, 6 of them]. The idea behind this is that each DAC is tuned for each amp and driver. If you feed it a digital signal instead of analogue the ADC is bypassed but the signal is upsampled before being passed to the individual DACS.

 

Using an external DAC to feed analogue to the Kii’s allegedly keeps the audio ‘signature’ & character of the external DAC through this conversion process but I have not tried it. 

 

I auditioned the Kef’s at the same time as the Kii’s and they are a very fine speaker, definitely worth a listen.

 

I hope the above helps

[marslo]

Hi guys,

 

Since a few weeks my W20 offers the funcionality of Ravenna software which is necessary to use Merging DAC’s via RJ45 connection.

Did anyone try this already?

 

[bmichels]

Do you plan to change your Big7 for a Merging's DAC ?? Why ?   I believe the Lampi should sound better than a Merging DAC ? 

[marslo]

No , my plan is to change B7 for ... Pacific:)

Mr Lampizator will come in person with his beloved baby next Tuesday to my place.

But there are opinions around that RJ 45 is by its nature better connection than usb audio and if

Aurender offers this option for Nadac gear it would be silly not to compare before  the final decision about Pacific.

 

[Vincent1234]

2 hours ago, marslo said:

No , my plan is to change B7 for ... Pacific:)

Mr Lampizator will come in person with his beloved baby next Tuesday to my place.

But there are opinions around that RJ 45 is by its nature better connection than usb audio and if

Aurender offers this option for Nadac gear it would be silly not to compare before  the final decision about Pacific.

 

I've auditioned the Nadac in a great 5.1 surround Ethernet/Ravenna setup using only Spectral amps and Vivid Audio Giya speakers. It was a spectacular demo, especially considering the very reasonable price of the (multi-channel) Nadac. But it does use off-the-shelf ESS chips and it doesn't have the SQ level of e.g. the dCS Rossini, which is way more expensive but pricewise at the same level as your possible new Lampizator Pacific. My experience is that the intrinsic SQ of any musical component is much more important than the type of interface being used (assuming similar level of cabling quality!). My W20 is connected to the Rossini through an ultra high-end USB cable (Crystal Cable Dreamline Plus) which is sounding spectacularly good and its SQ is absolutely on par with dual AES - the latter however is much, much more costly using the same cabling quality. All in all: I bet the Lampizator, although lacking Ethernet will easily beat the Nadac, and actually it should looking at the price difference. ?

[Vincent1234]

8 minutes ago, Vincent1234 said:

Whoops, double post. Sorry.. ?

 

[marslo]

11 hours ago, Vincent1234 said:

I've auditioned the Nadac in a great 5.1 surround Ethernet/Ravenna setup using only Spectral amps and Vivid Audio Giya speakers. It was a spectacular demo, especially considering the very reasonable price of the (multi-channel) Nadac. But it does use off-the-shelf ESS chips and it doesn't have the SQ level of e.g. the dCS Rossini, which is way more expensive but pricewise at the same level as your possible new Lampizator Pacific. My experience is that the intrinsic SQ of any musical component is much more important than the type of interface being used (assuming similar level of cabling quality!). My W20 is connected to the Rossini through an ultra high-end USB cable (Crystal Cable Dreamline Plus) which is sounding spectacularly good and its SQ is absolutely on par with dual AES - the latter however is much, much more costly using the same cabling quality. All in all: I bet the Lampizator, although lacking Ethernet will easily beat the Nadac, and actually it should looking at the price difference. ?

Thank you very much for this valuable opinion.

I use myself also very good boutique usb Apricity cable grounded to Minimus , it’s an unpowered one and I also switched off the power in usb connection at W20 side.

 

http://6moons.com/audioreviews2/stavessence/2.html

[Vincent1234]

4 hours ago, marslo said:

Thank you very much for this valuable opinion.

I use myself also very good boutique usb Apricity cable grounded to Minimus , it’s an unpowered one and I also switched off the power in usb connection at W20 side.

 

http://6moons.com/audioreviews2/stavessence/2.html

You're welcome!

I have also switched off USB power in the W20. This option has been removed from the Apple Conductor app and I've read that therefore some needed to ask Aurender support to remotely switch off USB power in their W20. However, I think some may not be aware of the Android Aurender app which still offers this specific option. How did you yourself go about switching off USB power? Just curious..

[Vincent1234]

6 hours ago, Vincent1234 said:

You're welcome!

I have also switched off USB power in the W20. This option has been removed from the Apple Conductor app and I've read that therefore some needed to ask Aurender support to remotely switch off USB power in their W20. However, I think some may not be aware of the Android Aurender app which still offers this specific option. How did you yourself go about switching off USB power? Just curious..

Correction: unfortunately this option seems to have been removed from the Android app now too..

[isquirrel]

New software available for all Aurender users. Upgraded mine just now and the system software to 4.13.31app software is now 2.9.7 (122) will advise of any changes to SQ etc.

[isquirrel]

See here for changes 

 

https://www.aurender.com/blog/new-software-release-note-4/post/system-sw-4-5-13-31-app-2-9-7-122-197

[isquirrel]

I can report that finally for me, streaming from Tidal is working with zero issues, beforehand I could not get my W20 + Tidal to stream.

[marslo]

@Vincent1234,

I switched off before the option was removed.

Now one has to write to the support, they  can do it remotely.

[Vincent1234]

3 hours ago, marslo said:

@Vincent1234,

I switched off before the option was removed.

Now one has to write to the support, they  can do it remotely.

Thanks!

[Hipper]

I'm investigating the W20.

 

Is it possible to add DSP (Digital Signal Processing) software - something like Acourate (although that is Windows based) -  to the W20? In other words, can it act like a computer in that respect, with the appropriate other connections - sound card, microphone pre-amp etc.. Alternatively can I add software that applies filters after I have measured and made filters using other measuring software on a laptop, as I currently do.

 

At the moment I use a CD Transport, which goes through a digital equaliser, then a DAC, but this means I can only use single AES connections. I could avoid the extra box, and connections, and use the dual AES facility on the D/70. An equaliser/DSP is important to me as I use it to complete room sonics after positioning and room treatment. I wouldn't be without it.

 

The DAC, by the way, is a TEAC D/70 which has dual AES connection and a word clock output. Currently I only play CDs and have ripped these to WAV. In the future, perhaps, I might get a more modern DAC