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Originally Posted by PlanarSpeakerFan
Can anyone outline the differences between the Aurender W20 and N10? I'm in the market for a music server.
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Ken.......I'll give it a whirl but may not touch on all the differences that perhaps an Aurender design engineer could reveal.
The W20 comes with 12TB of hard drive capacity. The N10 comes with 4TB of hard drive capacity but can be ordered with 8TB.
The W20 has a totally different and unique DC power supply that uses three separate banks of batteries. Two of the three banks of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries occupy a large part of the W20 interior. They provide clean, silent power to the audio output circuits, essentially keeping them immune to power supply noise and utility power fluctuations. One set of the two large bank of batteries is being charged as the other is being used. The third battery bank protects the W20 from power loss. Should the W20 experience utility power outage, this third battery bank acts as an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and will automatically power down the music server in a safe manner to protect the stored data. The Aurender N10 has two separate isolated linear power supplies that independently power the digital and analog sections of the music server. There are no battery provisions in the N10
Both the W20 and the N10 use an amazingly accurate OCXO (oven controlled crystal oscillator) with a field programmable gate array phase locked loop system. Together this arrangement reduces jitter to near immeasurable levels. Both music servers use the Aurender Conductor app via an iPad for wireless control and access to the music library and Tidal if you subscribe to that streaming service. Both music servers use a 240GB solid state drive to cache data from the hard drives for playback.
The W20 supports external word clocks and master clocks. The N10 does not have this provision. The W20 provides dual-wire AES/EBU mode that allows separate left and right channels to be fed to independent mono DAC's. The N10 has a single AES/EBU digital output that only supports dual channel operation. Both the W20 and the N10 have two coaxial digital outputs, one Toslink digital output, and one USB 2.0 output.
Both the W20 and the N10 provide support for connection of a network attached storage. This requires use of AMM (Aurender Media Manager) software. Both the W20 and the N10 provide remote Internet technical support through the Conductor App that allows Aurender's engineers to quickly diagnose and fix problems over the Internet.
Both the W20 and the N10 use the same aluminum enclosure and display with identical control functions. Both the W20 and the N10 can be ordered in silver or black.
If there are any main board or digital output circuit differences it will take an engineer to make those explanations but I believe I have touched on the primary differences. I hope this proves useful in helping you make a decision.