Aurender N100H vs. Aries + NAS

[udis]

Hello,

 

I currently have a dedicated Synology NAS (routed through dedicated vlan switched) feeding Aries via FMC tweak. I've tried wireless, but the sq seems brighter than via ethernet.

 

I am curious if anyone has experience with NAS + Aries and has switched or tested the Aurender N100H (internal storage).

 

Thanks,

Udi

[Axiom05]

Hello,

 

I currently have a dedicated Synology NAS (routed through dedicated vlan switched) feeding Aries via FMC tweak. I've tried wireless, but the sq seems brighter than via ethernet.

 

I am curious if anyone has experience with NAS + Aries and has switched or tested the Aurender N100H (internal storage).

 

Thanks,

Udi

 

 

Do you not like the Aries?

[udis]

Do you not like the Aries?

 

 

I do... to a degree.

[Axiom05]

I am considering buying an Aries so I would be interested in your opinion. The N100 is $900 more & I don't really get the point of the cache HD. Even an SSD has a finite life.

[udis]

I am considering buying an Aries so I would be interested in your opinion. The N100 is $900 more & I don't really get the point of the cache HD. Even an SSD has a finite life.

 

To my ears and based on my setup, going from a mac mini (SSD) to Aries was a massive jump. I did not mod the mac (which some members swear by it). However, after playing around with various tweaks, i'd like to simply my setup (remove NAS, switch, router, and 2 FMCs... and associated power). The N100 offers exactly what i need in 1 box, plus i've heard the sound is better than Aries (as a streamer alone).

 

Regarding Cache, to my understanding, cacheing reduces the processing load. Aurender's website claims "it eliminates music quality degradation"... that's likely related to noise traveling from the NAS. So if it is cached, no noise.

[Axiom05]

I can appreciate what your saying. I actually just added a NAS with fibre optic connection to my NUC w/ two FMC's so that I could remove the HDD from the NUC. (The spinning drive was faintly audible from listening chair.) I am leaning towards the Aries because I decided it would be easier to replace a bad HD in the NAS then in the N100H. To be honest, the NUC with MPD sounds so good that I am not in a rush to replace it. Thanks for your comments.

[r_w]

The cache HD is a key factor as to why the Aurender players work so well and sound sublime. They do not stream files over the network, they copy the file locally and stream it from SSD after copying has finished (circa 1 second for 44.1 FLAC).

 

The N100 is utterly fabulous for the coin.

 

:-)

 

 

I am considering buying an Aries so I would be interested in your opinion. The N100 is $900 more & I don't really get the point of the cache HD. Even an SSD has a finite life.

[Cebolla]

The cache HD is a key factor as to why the Aurender players work so well and sound sublime. They do not stream files over the network, they copy the file locally and stream it from SSD after copying has finished (circa 1 second for 44.1 FLAC).

Presumably that means you always have to wait before it starts playing files from a music file library stored on a NAS. How does Aurender handle an entire playlist, ie, do you have to wait for the whole playlist to be copied over first before it starts playing or does it start playing while it's still copying the rest of the playlist over the network?

 

If it's the latter, then I don't really see much difference between streaming and playing a whole playlist's worth of files directly over the network and playing them from a local storage drive while still transferring the rest of the playlist over the network to the local storage, to be honest. In fact most decent network audio players/renderers/ streamer's will probably have streamed the majority of the first file into memory, if not even some of the next file to cue it for gapless playback support, before even decoding the first file in order to play it.

[r_w]

No, they copy over to the internal SSD as you add the queue, you don't even notice it happening, the first track plays after 1 second and then it's seamless/gapless from there.

 

;-)

 

Presumably that means you always have to wait before it starts playing files from a music file library stored on a NAS. How does Aurender handle an entire playlist, ie, do you have to wait for the whole playlist to be copied over first before it starts playing or does it start playing while it's still copying the rest of the playlist over the network?

 

If it's the latter, then I don't really see much difference between streaming and playing a whole playlist's worth of files directly over the network and playing them from a local storage drive while still transferring the rest of the playlist over the network to the local storage, to be honest. In fact most decent network audio players/renderers/ streamer's will probably have streamed the majority of the first file into memory, if not even some of the next file to cue it for gapless playback support, before even decoding the first file in order to play it.

[rwwjr44]

Presumably that means you always have to wait before it starts playing files from a music file library stored on a NAS. How does Aurender handle an entire playlist, ie, do you have to wait for the whole playlist to be copied over first before it starts playing or does it start playing while it's still copying the rest of the playlist over the network?

 

If it's the latter, then I don't really see much difference between streaming and playing a whole playlist's worth of files directly over the network and playing them from a local storage drive while still transferring the rest of the playlist over the network to the local storage, to be honest. In fact most decent network audio players/renderers/ streamer's will probably have streamed the majority of the first file into memory, if not even some of the next file to cue it for gapless playback support, before even decoding the first file in order to play it.

 

The playlist resides on the Aurender. The files are moved to cache. You see a small indicator on the Aurender's display whenever a file is being cached and the part of the file that is cached is what is played. The caching process is very fast so you don't see the indicator often. This is my experience using the X100L and its internal disks. The process is transparent. Note: that the Aurender uses both a cache and memory for this process. I sounds great.

 

Someone using an N100 can speak to the speed of the process using a NAS.

[udis]

The playlist resides on the Aurender. The files are moved to cache. You see a small indicator on the Aurender's display whenever a file is being cached and the part of the file that is cached is what is played. The caching process is very fast so you don't see the indicator often. This is my experience using the X100L and its internal disks. The process is transparent. Note: that the Aurender uses both a cache and memory for this process. I sounds great.

 

Someone using an N100 can speak to the speed of the process using a NAS.

 

What are your thoughts, in terms of SQ, the difference between connecting to NAS vs. storing all music internally?

[r_w]

The files are copied to the cache disk, it's the same file from wherever it was copied from. Anyone that hears SQ difference is imagining it.

 

That is the key benefit of Aurender.

 

 

 

What are your thoughts, in terms of SQ, the difference between connecting to NAS vs. storing all music internally?

[rwwjr44]

What are your thoughts, in terms of SQ, the difference between connecting to NAS vs. storing all music internally?

 

Barring network problems, which I had at one time, they sound pretty much the same. Although sometimes I imagine that storing the music internally sounds a bit better.

[michaelD]

I agree with everything that is said above about the Aurender - If you load a new playlist you may see the small indicator a little more often but really not that often and even if you do there is no impact on the playing of the track at all. Not sure how it all does it but it works great as you would think there would be more activity - it just must be fast. In a playlist if you are pulling local tracks on the Aurender hard drive(s) and/or from your Nas its just seamless. In addition I have several Tidal tracks also mixed in and occasionally there is a slight pause bringing one of these up but not that often. So a playlist with local Aurender stored tracks, NAS tracks and Tidal over the internet works like a charm. I like listening to a playlist set to random of my favorite tracks that come from all three sources - unless you peak you don't know what is coming except that the next track is going to be great just not sure what!

[RichardA1]

Is there any disadvantage getting the n100h for use with a nas instead of the n100 ?

[rwwjr44]

Is there any disadvantage getting the n100h for use with a nas instead of the n100 ?

 

See new review at audiostream.com

[mjb]

To my ears and based on my setup, going from a mac mini (SSD) to Aries was a massive jump. I did not mod the mac (which some members swear by it). However, after playing around with various tweaks, i'd like to simply my setup (remove NAS, switch, router, and 2 FMCs... and associated power). The N100 offers exactly what i need in 1 box, plus i've heard the sound is better than Aries (as a streamer alone).

Why not try/have you tried an external SSD in a USB enclosure on the Aries?

[udis]

Why not try/have you tried an external SSD in a USB enclosure on the Aries?

 

I've tried that when I first hooked up the Aries. I was happy with the results, until I wanted to update, add files on the ssd. plus, I moved to nas so my files are available on my second system.