ultraRendu or sMS-200Ultra?

[Reg19]

In a few days, I shall conduct a comparison of ultraRendu v/s SMS-200Ultra v/s Auralic Aries (Femto) - all powered by LPS.

 

Feeding from Roon or Roon / HQPlayer. Feeding into my RME ADI-2 DAC FS (version 2). 

[Reg19]

On 3/2/2021 at 1:18 PM, Reg19 said:

In a few days, I shall conduct a comparison of ultraRendu v/s SMS-200Ultra v/s Auralic Aries (Femto) - all powered by LPS.

 

Feeding from Roon or Roon / HQPlayer. Feeding into my RME ADI-2 DAC FS (version 2). 

 

Tried them all extensively for a couple of weeks.

 

First, let me compare the two that are the most similar in feature set - SMS-200Ultra vs ultraRendu:

 

Unlike the Auralic Aries (Femto), both of these can be used as a NAA for HQPlayer. Of course, they can also be used as Roon-ready endpoints. Advertised as 'similar level' but very different in sound.

 

ultraRendu is more like a analytical 'audiophile' player: distinctly lower noise floor of the two, cleaner sound, better separation between instruments, etc

 

SMS-200Ultra feels more musical and a bit warmer

 

My suggestion: If you have a warmer, more musical sounding speaker, I'd say go for the uR. Otherwise, like me, if you have a more analytical, revealing speaker, go for the SMS-200Ultra.

 

 

If you don't use HQPlayer, for the best feature-set, I'd recommend the Auralic Aries Femto. Great sound. Not only can you use it as a Roon-ready endpoint, you don't need a Roon subscription once you have this. I find its Lightning DS software really good. It can stream from Tidal, Qobuz or Spotify. It has parametric EQ. It can upsample. It can play your personal digital music collection.

 

I highly recommend upgrading to a Linear Power supply for all 3 of the above. I used SGC's for the uR, SBooster for the SMS-200Ultra and the Auralic LPS for the Aries (Femto) in this comparison.

 

I just paid for HQPlayer a few weeks ago. So, sadly, I'll be selling my Auralic Aries (Femto) and the Auralic LPS.