@budburma Sure, happy to chat. I have some time later this morning. I have some good stuff to share on clocking that may help you make your decision.
Another one (server) bites the dust! Aurender N10 vs. N200
Well, my Musicvault that has served me SO well for a long, long time has begun to serve up errors. My needs and desires for a new server/streamer seem to be met by Aurender's N series and I'm curious if anyone can comment on the sonic differences between the N10 and the N200 for serving and streaming....They're both in my budget.
Mostly, it looks like the N200 has better power isolation and the N10 has a better clock. I imagine that doesn't tell the whole story, though.
Can you serve up some sensible subjective sonic experiences (please and thank you)?
Showing 6 responses by blisshifi
@budburma I am an authorized Aurender dealer and can tell you that despite the N10 having a higher retail price, the N200 is sonically superior. Aurender admits they surprised themselves with the performance demonstrated by this unit. Some people will even admit that the N200 will come close to the N20, but I can still hear an audible improvement in the N20 over the N200. You are somewhat right in your thinking - the N10 “might” have a better clock, and it does support AES, where you would be limited to coax with the N200. But the implementation of the N200 in terms of power supply robustness, isolation, and overall circuit design is a step above. The differences result in a lower noise floor, improved detail and separation, along with slightly more body/tonal density with added texture. The N10 is all but declared discontinued at this point, so I highly recommend going with the N200. |
@budburma If you bought the KWA from CY, then yes, that would have been mine. He used it only very lightly as he was evaluating amp roulette style. Given your tastes, I would certainly recommend the N200 over the N10. Happy to discuss options if you want to PM me. Also happy to answer any questions on the KWA since it was in possession for a number of years. Speaking of which, CY also purchased an N200 from me a few weeks ago. He was able to compare it to his Modwright-modded Cambridge CXN V2 and was sold within a minute or so of listening to the quality of the N200 streamer going into the CXN’s DAC. |
@budburma Two other things to consinder with the N10. 1. It is a seven-year old model, vs the N200 which is only a year old. There has been a significant jump in streaming and serving technology hardware design in the last two years alone. 2. The internal drives of an N10 used for storage are leveraging spinning drives. Despite the unit caching music for playback, the spinning disks possibly still introduce noise/jitter into the equation. The N200 requires users to purchase drives and install them, but quality solid state drives can be had for approximately $100/TB. |
@budburma Congrats! Which Antipodes did you land on? From what I recall, they tend to do well using the AES output more than anything else, so consider that if you are not already using it. Most modern music servers will benefit greatly from quality cabling. Feel free to PM me for details, happy to share some info. That said, if improvement from the Antipodes is not immediately available, don’t feel like you should settle. There may be better solutions for the same price, though $5K+ for a streamer/server solution is typically where the magic starts to happen. |