Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackfield
Hi Stephen,
I decided to take Roon route recently as I got the impression that Roon has much higher adoption vs. Aurender.
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The two product offerings are very different products addressing different customer segments and respective requirements. One is a sofware solution and is focused on accessing and streaming content and then being able to deliver that content to many different zones and endpoints. The other is an all-out engineering assault on serving up the highest-possible audio quality using very sophisticated integrated hardware engineering and supporting control & content playback software. They're different solutions to meet different sets of customer requirements. And, I'm not sure what "adoption" per se, has to do with it, given they are very different product offerings that constitute different value propositions and address different customer requirements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackfield
I am concerned if Aurender has sustain ability to do high quality application development - however this is just a conjecture on my part, not my own experience since I never own Aurender. Still, Aurender is attractive since it does not charge monthly subscription.
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I would not under-estimate Aurender's ability to execute
anything with respect to audio at a very high level. In fact, Linn could take some chapters from Aurender's book on how to execute effectively and efficiently at a very high level. The Aurender guys have got it...
goin' on.
Quote:
I am curious if you can contrast Roon vs. Aurender in these areas:
1. Application side - how seamless the application is in browsing local music vs. streaming service e.g. Qobuz, providing recommendations, saving playlist, bookmarking, etc.
2. Sound quality - music server running Roon core + opticalRendu (as Roon endpoint) vs. Aurender N100 or N200 (closer to opticalRendu path as far as pricing vs. N20).
3. How frequent does Aurender update its app? Any experience with Android version as I don't own any Apple device?
4. Many people may not have the luxury to run both, if you have to pick one,  , which route would you pick?
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1. I don't know exactly what you mean by seamless, but once you are familiar with the interface and all of the functionality (of which I just discovered more of recently, thanks to John-Paul's excellent guidance) of the Aurender Conductor app, while its not exactly like Roon, the more features and functions of the Aurender app I discover, the more it's Roon-lke in it's ease-of-use in selecting content, making custom playlists, or as I do 95% of the time, play an entire recording.
I find this feature to an easy and compelling way to use the Aurender Conductor app to play an album
And selecting content from files on an internal hard drive or from a streaming service e.g. Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify, etc, is really easy, too. And...you can easily make custom playlists that are a mix of files from files resident on a drive or streamed via Qobuz, for example. The one thing that the Conductor app is missing that Roon has is Radio mode. OTOH, you can always stream music from the online "radio stations" with the Conductor app to discover new content.
2. I can't speak to the N100 or N200 as I have not heard them. The audio quality from the N20 is superb, amongst the very best I have ever heard. Better than my streaming setup with my SOtM SMS-200UltraNeo. And, for it's price...it should be. But, boy, it sure as hell delivers the "audio goods".
3. The Aurender updates it own internal software pretty frequently, seems like the N20s software updates itself every 6-8 weeks. As for the Conductor software, it hasn't changed much in the 4-5 months I've had the N20.
4. Hmmm...if I had to pick one, and if I could afford it...I'd get the Aurender. I used to think differently when I first got the Aurender in for review, but as I've spent more time with it, and discovered more features and functions of the N20 (e.g. the album art with access to tracks overlaid over the album art), and gotten more familiar with the Conductor software and how to use it in a way that works most effectively for me, and the fact I can add all of my ripped content to an internal hard drive and listen to content from that SSD, the audio quality from the Aurender is too superior to ignore.
When I discuss the Aurender with friends who use and like Roon they keep thinking that it's a one "road" or the other "road" decision and...it's not. Not by any stretch. I really think it's possible to both easily and affordably.
Here's a way...
1) Get an N100 or N200 or N20 (whichever is in your budget) and an SSD. Put all your ripped music content on the SSD. Sign up for your favorite streaming service in the Condutor app (which is a piece of cake, BTW).
2) If you want to also use Roon, get subscription to Roon, a Sonore microRendu for $399 (or a Raspberry Pi4 or an IFi Zen streamer for $399) and put together a Roon-ready streamer and NUC that functions as a music server if you want to stream from an HD while in Roon. You can use an exisiting computer or build an NUC for $600 or so. Or forego the NUC entirely, and just use the Radio mode in Roon to discover new music content.
3) Connect from the Aurender to your DAC via S/PDIF, as an example.
4) Connect to your microRendu to your DAC via USB.
When you want to listen to digital music content at the highest level of audio quality, use the Aurender. If you want to enjoy a very good-sounding solution while exploring new content in Roon Radio mode or need to stream to different nodes or zones, use the microRendu, IFI Zen, etc.
You can switch between them easily. In my case, it would simply involve pushing a button on the front panel of the Lampizator. So, why not have both? You can, easily.
Job done.
What's not to like?