[George Prentice]

Originally Posted by rnrmf1971

Did you stream with anything before the Auralic that you can make comparisons with?

The Aries G2 looks like an incredibly well designed piece of electronics.

Besides the software interface, which I think I like better on Aurender, I keep asking myself what performance the Aurender could offer over the Auralic?

I used to stream with a MacBook. That would not be a comparison. I have to agree with your assertion, “I keep asking myself what performance the Aurender could offer over the Auralic?” However, it has been my experience that doubling the cost of a component has virtually always resulted in noticeable and significant improvement in sound quality. On the other hand the Aurender has more stuff... like mechanical drives... which I really no not want. I have been an IT executive for my career. Disk drives are unreliable... period, have noisy motors etc... not something I want even near my audio system. That is why I was hoping to find someone that has done the comparison. There aren’t that many high end musi streamers without a DAC. I would think a lot of folks would have done this comparison. I enjoy listening to my system much more than evaluating equipment. I had hoped I was finished with it... but technology marches on. Streaming has an enormous space advantage in the home.


One other compare I just did was between the same album on the Auralic with a Tidal stream (44k) and a red book CD transport on the DACs. I could discern NO difference. This was quit surprising to me, I don’t think I have ever heard two different sources sound the same. This would support the threory that once you reach a certain level the bitstream becomes transparent and the DAC determines the character of the sound. If this bears out scrutiny I am going to be really happy. I like the Auralic, it is nicely built and will be the cheapest component in my system.