After years of frustration with the Bridge I, I’ve decided to get an Aries Streamer. The upgraded version has a linear PSU and Femto clocks, but cost an additional $600. I’ll be using USB into the DS. Given the DS’s excellent jitter reduction, can anyone comment as to whether the upgraded Aries would provide reasonable improvement in SQ? I have my audio kit on a dedicated circuit and haven’t found upgraded PSU’s to make a huge difference in the past.
RichardS said
After years of frustration with the Bridge I, I've decided to get an Aries Streamer. The upgraded version has a linear PSU and Femto clocks, but cost an additional $600. I'll be using USB into the DS. Given the DS's excellent jitter reduction, can anyone comment as to whether the upgraded Aries would provide reasonable improvement in SQ? I have my audio kit on a dedicated circuit and haven't found upgraded PSU's to make a huge difference in the past.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
I don’t have an Aries to compare but for $640 plus a ps you can get the new microRendu, some users on the Sonore forum report they prefer it.
RichardS said
After years of frustration with the Bridge I, I've decided to get an Aries Streamer. The upgraded version has a linear PSU and Femto clocks, but cost an additional $600. I'll be using USB into the DS. Given the DS's excellent jitter reduction, can anyone comment as to whether the upgraded Aries would provide reasonable improvement in SQ? I have my audio kit on a dedicated circuit and haven't found upgraded PSU's to make a huge difference in the past.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
I don’t have an Aries to compare but for $640 plus a ps you can get the new microRendu, some users on the Sonore forum report they prefer it.
I have the Aries and also the uRendu (amongst other streamers).
I sold my BI with my PWD and have not tried the BII with my DS, so I cannot comment on any BII sonic improvements. Being an early adopter the BII came too late and was too limited wrt. performance and features.
Rogerdn, thanks for your thoughts on the uRendu, but I’m pretty sold on the Aries. I have the Aries Mini Streamer for music around my house. It’s intergration with Tidal and Roon is great and it streams flawlessly from my NAS. And my wife and kids can use Airplay to stream music from their phones. Also Auralic is making great software improvements. I’m particularly interested room correction, which they will reportedly be including in the future.
After so many years of frustration with Bridge I (I was a beta tester for the original controller app), I have zero tolerance for finicky solutions. I want something that just works. Consequently I have no interest in BII, especially given how much more capable the folks at Auralic are terms of developing advanced streaming capabilities. I love PS Audio hardware, but will not go down the software route with them again.
So my question remains: Given the DS’s jitter reduction capability is it worth the extra $600 to get Extreme with the Femto clocks and linear PSU (I’ll be connecting to the DS through USB). I’m kind of think not, since upgraded PSU’s have not made a big difference in my system.
I think the BI with the PWD was ahead of its time, so kudos to PS Audio for this integrated solution. The trouble is that the BII don’t seem to bring any groundbreaking features to the table. The trouble (?) with digital (audio) is that the development pace is so high that if time to market becomes too long the product is old fashioned when it hits the market. A Roon ready BII is a step in the right direction, though.
Hi… I am a new user of my new Aries with the LPS… It work perfectly together with my DSD DAC almost for a month…I been used with OPPO 105 for almost 3 years with PS… So far the performance is excellent I called… But I only can give about… 60 points I gave to OPPO 105 if compare after added on Aries…I will give 101 points to my new girl friend Aries…I do also upgraded a Audiophile Fuse cost me 80 US even changed a OCCO 8N cable to replacing the original one…Please do go ahead no say…
I have had an Aries with LPS in the system for a while now. I’ve had it connected both via USB and AES/EBU to the DirectStream and it sounds great. It’s integration with Roon and Tidal are also great. i don’t think you’ll be disappointed in getting one.