My Aurender N10 bites the dust

Good choice. Esoteric inherited the legacy of Teac high end. Unlike the N20, N-03T is a pure streamer which I see as an advantage. Esoteric equipment is feature rich, but simple to use. The power supply used in the N-03T is enough for a serious power amp, and is well designed. People say is has quite a high end sound (as opposed to HiFi). Like others, I look forward to hearing about your experience. All the best.

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The sense I’m getting about apps is everybody likes theirs, with a general exception. If you’re into metadata, and an app doesn’t do what you want in that regard, it’s a fail. If you don’t care about metadata handling/editing, they’re mostly all good.

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One thing that is fairly unique about Aurender’s Conductor app is its ability to display back cover art as well as the front. Have any other apps implemented this yet? This screenshot is of the display on an iPad mini. (It’s possible in the app to zoom in to see small text too).

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Get Innuos… doesn’t get as much love as some others but it sure is in the top 3 of music servers/streamers.

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Word. However, pretty much everyone says that about what they own.

My question is - how many who write, “Mine sounds Great” and “the App is great” have had anything else in their systems? Even at this comparatively late date (many years in) in terms of Server/Streamer development, it seems to be relatively rare.

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I’ve owned seven from five different companies.

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Awesome. Thoughts on comparative brand sonics and apps?

And how did you rack up all that experience yet avoid Conductor? Roon?

I always thought Aurender’s pricing structure was not in line with the features they offered and then just never found a deal on one that appealed to me to try one used. Their newer models are even pricier still. In it’s layout and design the Conductor app looks the closest in appearance to Lightning but that’s a guess. A dealer friend of mine in Central Florida did a shootout in his store between Lumin, Aurender, Nucleus +, Esoteric and Innuos and he said the listening group preferred the sonics of the Conductor app over the others. He is a dealer for all of the units but Innuos and had it in from the distributor for a test run.

As to Roon, I got into streaming for the simplicity, while still owning over 2500 albums and roughly 1000 cd’s even after weeding out several times ,so if I needed to add extra hardware, software and cables other than what was needed for the streamer itself then I would have just stuck with the other formats. While I was not a big fan of the Oppo software or Mcontrol I am perfectly satisfied with the sound and function of Lightning DS and the Lumin app as those two are the software involved with five of the streamers. I know how to look things up in All Music for myself and don’t to pay a subscription for software to automatically do it for me.

Other big option would have been Innuous and I had all intentions of buying one Spring of last year but when I talked to the US Distributor who I have known for years there was a three to four month wait and I guess I’m not that patient as they wanted money up front to hold your place in line. Was told the new app was any day back then and it still has appeared though iPeng seems to be great app based on a long tradition and stable.

For now I am happy to stay in the Auralic camp as they provide the full set of output options and a software suite I prefer. If something were to happen to them I would probably switch to Lumin as I like their app and their streamer only models also also offer the full set of outputs. At the moment all four of the streamers in use in both of our locations are either Auralic or Lumin software based and I have used both long enough that I can switch back and forth pretty easily.

For now I am going to sit where I am with the Aries G1 in the main system until we finish consolidating two houses into one which will require somewhat of a temporary purge. A G2.1 is likely after all is done.

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I am using this and it sounds great! No power conditioner or regenerator necessary, just maintain tension!

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Preferred wire? :stuck_out_tongue:

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RAL but you’ll have to wait a couple of months.

Hemp.

Some call it satisfaction, others call it complacency! Whatever it is, like many others, I found learning to live with people, things and circumstances boosts happiness hormone levels! :smile:

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Hi Elk, Don’t start the internal storage discussion again​:wink::zipper_mouth_face:

Aurender goes up to 8 TB SSD (~$20k)
Innuos up to 4 TB SSD (~$4.5k)
Auralic 2 TB SSD (~$5.5k)
PS Audio 1TB SSD (~$6k)

What I don’t get is @Phil explaining that even the EUS/EBU cable and the Nucleus Roon Metadata server make a “clear” identifiable difference, but companies claiming that adding external storage does open Pandora’s box from a connection cable and power supply perspective of the external storage.

Hence my serious reluctance of paying any money for servers without or limited internal storage.

In many European countries dealers, importers and or manufacturers do not get away with leaving you with a €8k priced device that is “kaput” after 5 years.

Unless you or somebody else in your household tilted and dropped the unit while the hard disks (HDD) were turning that thing should work flawless.

I agree with @dawkinsj that you should have the HDD’s checked and get it repaired. The firmware of the unit most likely performs a hardware check at power up, if it detects that the HDD’s or some electronics fail to respond it won’t let you even log in anymore. It really sounds like HDD failure. If not I’d send Auralic a link to this thread and explain to them that many Audiophiles read this.

Or lesson no 1, even if slow spinning HDD’s may sound better than SSD, quote @jazznut, they are surely not worth the trouble in handling.

I don’t know how you all keep the rack clean but at my home we need to lift the gear up once in a while to clear the dust beneath it. I surely don’t want to worry about any HDD anymore.

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It could be the HDD, but I’m giving the Aurender N10 to my brother to play with it. He’ll check the hard drive and if not the hard drive, he will send it in and get it fixed. He will be floored when he get the Aurender N10 running in his system! The Mac Mini he is using is not even in the same ball park in SQ!! Even my DMP can’t do what this Aurender N10 can do!! Meanwhile I will try the Esoteric N03T when it arrives! I only hope the Esotetic is up to that standard!!

You will have a happy brother. Somebody said that the Esoteric is another Lumin in a different enclosure.

That might be true to some extend and is a positive thing as Lumin is a good digital platform. The pitch of Esoteric Is certainly in the power supply area. I do think it is a wonderful unit.

If you go the Esoteric path, I trust the K-03XD SACD with native DSD DAC is a perfect match. With playing discs I do trust the mechanics matter regardless the “digital lens” ie. digital buffer. The Esoteric Atlas drive is of a different league than the Oppo drive in the DMP and the Esoteric build in DAC is comparable to the Direct Stream DAC but without the extra cable.

Perhaps your next upgrade.

The streaming platform and software are Lumin. The casework, power supplies, etc. are Esoteric. Same arrangement with the Teac streamers.

Indeed he will be! I know how good the Aurender N10 is. I don’t know how good a Lumin is, but there are different models. The higher end models generally are better sounding than the lower end models. that is true with the Aurender and so should it be with Lumin. Esoteric sould be like a top end Lumin and maybe will sound pretty good. Finger crossed. Anyway, I know Esoteric is in the forefront of digital development, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

Hi Jack I trust you on that and it is not a bad thing is it? It is certainly nice to be able to choose different platforms, but the bigger a platform the more reliable it normally is. I trust that the Esoteric power supply will add the desired improvement in SQ.