Please help me choose the right and best streamer

[orosie]

Auralic Aries G2

[Formerly YB-2]

The Auralic Mini with linear power supply looks very interesting. The Auralic website Mini spec's lists:
"Streaming File Format"
Lossless: AIFF, ALAC, APE, DIFF, DSF, FLAC, OGG, WAV and WV
Lossy: AAC, MP3, MQA and WMA
and,
"Audio Inputs"
Streaming Inputs: Network shared folder, USB Drive, Internal Music Storage**, uPnP/DLNA Media Server, native TIDAL and Qobuz Sublime+ streaming, Internet Radio, Spotify Connect, AirPlay, Bluetooth, Songcast, RoonReady.

Do wonder if it decodes MQA files and what RoonReady means? Will it actually run Roon? If yes to both, looks like the size/performance I'm looking for.

[orosie]

Originally Posted by Formerly YB-2

The Auralic Mini with linear power supply looks very interesting. The Auralic website Mini spec's lists:
"Streaming File Format"
Lossless: AIFF, ALAC, APE, DIFF, DSF, FLAC, OGG, WAV and WV
Lossy: AAC, MP3, MQA and WMA
and,
"Audio Inputs"
Streaming Inputs: Network shared folder, USB Drive, Internal Music Storage**, uPnP/DLNA Media Server, native TIDAL and Qobuz Sublime+ streaming, Internet Radio, Spotify Connect, AirPlay, Bluetooth, Songcast, RoonReady.

Do wonder if it decodes MQA files and what RoonReady means? Will it actually run Roon? If yes to both, looks like the size/performance I'm looking for.

Roon Ready means that it will be recognized by Roon as an endpoint, so you can stream directly to it via Roon. It will not run Roon Core. Auralic does not decode MQA.... but that’s not such a bad thing. : )

[Formerly YB-2]

Originally Posted by orosie

Roon Ready means that it will be recognized by Roon as an endpoint, so you can stream directly to it via Roon. It will not run Roon Core. Auralic does not decode MQA.... but that’s not such a bad thing. : )

Agree about MQA, other than the fact that they might win "the licensing war" and we'll be stuck with MQA going forward. Then, again, at 71 I may be too old to really give a shit........

Why do they list MQA in their "Streaming File Format" list?

[nicoff]

Originally Posted by Formerly YB-2

...
Why do they list MQA in their "Streaming File Format" list?

To confuse people

[scirica]

Originally Posted by nicoff

To confuse people

[emoji23]

[orosie]

Originally Posted by nicoff

To confuse people

Pretty much.

Basically means that they can play MQA, just cant decode it.

[JMD]

Auralic was one of the original members of the MQA group and had a full software version they demonstrated at CES in 2016 however they were not willing to turn their hardware designs over to the group as been the case with Ayre, PSA and others. The Auralic demo only lasted that first day before a confrontation between the companies ensued. As a result they withdrew from the MQA group and about a year later released their software version as a part of Lightning DS though not calling it MQA. I have used the software on both the Aries and the Aries Mini and it in fact does do the complete unfold to whatever is listed in Tidal and to my ears sounds no different than MQA through the Lumin or the Bridge II. From what I can tell the promotional material for the streamers since they were released and at that time they were part of the MQA group.

[orosie]

Originally Posted by JMD

Auralic was one of the original members of the MQA group and had a full software version they demonstrated at CES in 2016 however they were not willing to turn their hardware designs over to the group as been the case with Ayre, PSA and others. The Auralic demo only lasted that first day before a confrontation between the companies ensued. As a result they withdrew from the MQA group and about a year later released their software version as a part of Lightning DS though not calling it MQA. I have used the software on both the Aries and the Aries Mini and it in fact does do the complete unfold to whatever is listed in Tidal and to my ears sounds no different than MQA through the Lumin or the Bridge II. From what I can tell the promotional material for the streamers since they were released and at that time they were part of the MQA group.

Exactly. They do something called “deblurring” which is done in software on their streamers. Their DACs have never rendered MQA.

[crwilli]

Originally Posted by orosie

Roon Ready means that it will be recognized by Roon as an endpoint, so you can stream directly to it via Roon. It will not run Roon Core. Auralic does not decode MQA.... but that’s not such a bad thing. : )

Quick build - You still need a PC to run ROON core.