Auralic Aries Mini

[davide256]

Tweak Geek has started pre-selling the Aries Mini. I've decided to give it a go as a streamer with DAC

for my headphone listening station. Skeptical that the 8/3/15 availability date is right but will see.

 

Auralic Aries Mini

[davide256]

So mid October then, 90 days. Who knows, maybe just long enough for Auralic to finally put Lightning DS out for iPhone vs. the diminishing iPad market?

[davide256]

It's the simplest things that get you... as I understand it, to use an Aries wirelessly you have to use Lightning DS at least once to access the control panel so that you can input and save your Wifi password. Otherwise Kinsky should do all I need.

[davide256]

hmm, looks like this was a false start as Tweek Geek just refunded my order. Will stay in touch with them for when I can order as this seems the right answer to feed a headphone amp.

[davide256]

Tweak Geek is now taking pre orders again, reordered

[davide256]

Just saw this, looks like the US retail price of the Aries Mini has been set to $549

 

Positive Feedback

[davide256]

Found some links that suggest the voltage is 15V DC but nothing official. Tweek geek is advertising an Aries LPS upgrade for the Mini at $299 added cost, and stating release date is now 10/31. Will measure the voltage once my pre-order shows up and share

[davide256]

Pre-orders are a bit murky to me, like speculating on the stock market. I wanted this, so payed the difference, with some concession between market launch price and pre-order price. Can't apply commodity thinking to custom goods.

[davide256]

Here's hoping mine shows up soon. Vinyl has regained its clutch on me :<)

[davide256]

Thanks Johan.

 

So to sum up, you think I may not have the rebuffering issue with the Mini because of the improvements you mentioned? Have you or anyone else experienced rebuffering with the larger Aries?

 

The noise may still be a problem?

 

Thanks

 

I suggest you bone up on the wifi speed support differences of the Touch and the Aries. Anything will buffer if your network speed sucks

[davide256]

I suggest you educate yourself on the different wifi protocols and their speeds. You may find that you need a wifi router upgrade if the fastest your router supports

is 802.11b

[davide256]

I'll just comment that after this experience, I doubt I'll ever again tie up dollars for prelaunch purchase. I still have no date when mine will arrive and Auralic's launch appears tenuous at best.

[davide256]

Received an email from Tweekgeek, sounds like next week for their Auralic preorder stock to arrive.

[davide256]

I'd look at BubbleUPNP used as open home proxy for the problem. Why can't you use Kinsky directly with Minimserver?

[davide256]

@Misterpete - assume you are using Lightning DS as opposed to Minimserver, correct?

 

That performance sounds about right for your setup.

 

Interesting... so basically if you want fast performance out of Lightning DS when adding new music the drive needs to be internal for rescan? Vs if

you don't use Lightning, its done at the speed of the media server app resident on the NAS?

[davide256]

I suppose if you had an Ethernet port on your controller device one could operate entirely as a wired network. But thats so 2000...

[davide256]

Hurrah, my Mini arrived today! Arrgh though, couldn't do the install setup with Android Lightning DS, had to run out and buy an Ipad. Sounded awful straight out of the box but within 30 minutes of play it became acceptable and now after 2 hours of play it's very listenable using the Mini's DAC to Microzotl 2 and headphones. Can't wait till the weekend when I can reclaim my listening room and use main system DAC setup.

[davide256]

This is "my" use case: use the aries mini as a fully standalone device to listen to music, in a place where wifi is not available, for example in my place at the sea.

Believe it or not, there is a number of places where wifi is usually not available.

I understand this is not currently possible, unless you use an external wifi hotspot device (eg Airport Express or similar) which is in fact not difficult or too expensive, just an extra thing to do....

Thanks

I suppose you could tote along a wifi range extender and use it as wireless access point for the controller... you only need LAN connectivity, not Internet connectivity to use the mini.

[davide256]

Ditto on what Dzetye said for Tweek Geek presell order deliveries, mine arrived 11/23. Their site now says out of stock until January.

 

Still settling in with mine, very nice. Definitely needs better than stock power supply to reach full potential, I'm using it with an inexpensive Chinese LPS; the Mini's DAC section sounded raw without it. Running AQ Diamond coax from Mini to Metrum Octave I DAC now; found that the Gustard U12 and REGEN were rounding off high frequencies in combination with the Mini's USB out so the REGEN will sit on the sidelines until some future USB DAC upgrade. Difference between the Mini's DAC section and the Metrum Octave I is that the Mini doesn't sound quite right on solo piano and doesn't go as convincingly deep for bass overtones but otherwise they are close so the built in DAC is quite a bargain.

 

Next step is to try an SSD in the Mini to see how that compares to external NAS source

[davide256]

I'll post that after I test with the SSD... the unit only has 1A at 15V DC which may be a little light for use with an internal drive.

[davide256]

Tested with internal SSD installed, worked fine with this inexpensive LPS (~$80 with shipping from China). An HD might not as they draw more power than an SSD. Actually preferring internal SSD using Lightning Server over external NAS with SSD running Minimserver.

 

HiFi Linear Power DC 1 Usbp DAC External Power Supply with Digital Display | eBay

[davide256]

After trying SSD internally in the Mini I've returned to using NAS as source running Lightning server. I found that using internal SSD with Mini caused some of the same results I experienced using media player and SSD source on same PC. High frequencies were sharpened for clarity but mid range was diluted for tonal color richness. Which is not to say internal SSD was bad, just that I am acutely sensitive to mid range tone color correctness. Without a doubt internal SSD is the way to start if you don't already have a quality NAS>

[davide256]

Received mine with the linear psu a few days ago. Intial setup was pc, dedicated usb card, jitterbug, ipower usb, ilink, oyade coax, nad m51, primare pre + power 30, sonus faber grand piano domus & rel t7. Started with mini trough coax direct to nad, then tried with usb out trough ilink, to finally realize the aries mini dac sounds better than the nad m51. So than I tested the mini outs to the primare pre vs direct to the power amp. The final being the best sounding. Conlusion: simple is better and the mini is a great device.

 

I am curious about this one. My past experience with Prima Luna integrated was that DAC controlled volume sounded better direct to amp than through the pre section of the Prima Luna. However with separate pre like CJ PV10A or the Microzotl 2 more musical detail was extracted using separate pre. I always pegged this as a separate pre was electronically designed to do the job whereas an input device had lesser engineering, only a steady state condition to design for. WIll give this a shot and see if I prefer direct vs the Microzotl 2 as pre.

[davide256]

One thing I miss in using Lightning server vs Minimserver is that with Minimserver you could stream DSD converted to PCM... necessary since my DAC is PCM only. Doesn't look like the DSD over PCM option on Aries Mini does that for digital out, just produces hiss with very faint music.

[davide256]

Just to clarify, DSD-over-PCM (DoP) is DSD, not PCM conversion. Not sure what you meant by seeing if DoP allows you to use your PCM dac. DSD to PCM transcoding/downsampling is entirely different subject than using DoP as a DSD vehicle.

 

Thanks, your right that what I want is transcoding. That said if DSD over PCM is 352khz streaming, doesn't sound terribly useful, few DAC's that support that bit rate.