Article: AURALiC ARIES MINI and Lightning DS Review

[ednaz]

Bought an Aries Mini with much trepidation. We have an Exasound E22 in our main media space and it's stunning. I needed something for my studio space, which was still basically streaming to a Logitech Transporter, which while it didn't sound bad with everything, sounded way worse than the Exasound for anything that was not compressed, but still sounded as good as or better with compressed files. However... my studio sound system's weakest link was the Transporter. I tried a Bluesound Node2 but weirdly, it was half the volume of the other components connected to the integrated amp, and tech support at Bluesound had now answers (and I was not alone... four other people posting.) Got my refund on that and then bought the Aries Mini.

 

Based on reviews, I also bought the Aries power supply, initially ran it with the wall wart supply. I don't find the Lightning DS app to be so intuitive, but I know that may be because I've got years of using JRiver's JRemote, and habit is a powerful thing. The unit I bought was tagged as an "open box" which caused issues... when you initially set up the Mini, it asks for your email and a password, and since my unit had been set up once, it took me a week before someone at Auralic reset the system.

 

No surprise, it's not as awesome as the Exasound e22. But, it's really, really good. Better than any of the Logitech systems I still have, better than the Bluesound Node2 (although with the low level output I had to turn the integrated amp WAY WAY up). Better sounding than the DAC in my multichannel preamp, better than a few low cost DACs I've heard in other situations.

 

I find the Lightning app to be ok. Not intuitive, but really, a huge part of that is probably my familiarity with JRemote. Every interface behaves differently, and I struggled to not play one song ad infinitum, then to not have the same album show up no matter what else I wanted to play. But once I figured out the basics (the documentation is, um, well, great if you developed the UI... but for someone who's on his third or fourth streaming UI, kind of weak) I was happy to enjoy the sound.

 

It sounds really good with the wall wart power supply. Then I added in the Auralic linear supply - having unpacked it very carefully, so I could return it without objection if it wasn't a big jump in sound. Took me less than 5 minutes to decide to ditch the packing material. The Aries Mini sounds totally different with the linear supply, different meaning deeper, wider, clearer. Made me wonder if I should have acquired the Auralic Altair, which includes a linear power supply plus networking plus DAC, and Auralic says isn't an Aries DAC plus networking. Dunno. I'd love to see an analysis of the Altair vs the Mini with power supply. I have one more location where I need to replace older streaming gear, and that's my dilemma now - Altair or Mini + power supply.

 

I think Auralic did a great job with the Mini. I'm very happy with it. Other than when I am going to turn the lights down to barely on and listen deep into music (for which I use the Exasound DAC, about 6x the price), I need something that sounds good enough to make me happy and productive when working, but not necessarily low lights deep listening quality. I think it's going to be everything I want to listen to when I'm not only listening.

 

BTW, the price in the US includes a year of Tidal. I was rolling my eyes on that until I started using Tidal. The Aries Mini is exceptionally good with Redbook quality, and therefore with Tidal. I realized that it's given me a "free" Tidal subscription because I'd placed zero value on that aspect of the purchase. At least in the US... it's impossible to imagine a $300-$400 streaming DAC (in other words net of the Tidal subscription) what would sound this good.