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Auralic Aries

Since getting my DAC I’ve been using Tidal via my laptop as my primary source, but the noise from the PC usb connection has gotten to be insufferable. So I’ve been looking at some dedicated streamers. The Aurender and Lumin gear seemed to be pretty much out of my budget, so I turned my eye to the Auralic Aries, Cambridge CXN, and Pro-ject Streambox. The onboard DAC and automatic upsampling on the Cambridge didn’t appeal to me, and I had I hard time seeing myself paying over $800 for Pro-ject’s suped up rPi, whereas I’ve read nothing but good things about Auralic. So today I won an auction for a pre-owned Aries with linear power supply for $695 including shipping. How’d I do? Seemed like a reasonable price to me...

Anyone know of any known issues to look out for on a pre-owned unit?

rfnoise
rfnoise OP
153 posts
 
Noisy?! Cripes, that’s what I’m trying to get away from.


mgrif104
327 posts
 
@ghdprentice 
Interesting.  I’m not going to suggest the Aries G2 is the equal of the W20SE, but I have one and had an Aurender N100H.  The G2 is/was quite a bit the better unit between those two (I sold the N100H) and I  know several who think it’s better than the N10.  As I haven’t heard the N10, I can’t say.  In any case, it doesn’t matter for the W20SE is clearly world class and I can imagine only possibly bettered by the Taiko extreme.

Best,
ghdprentice
6,354 posts
 
@mgrif104


I never directly compared the N100 with the Aries G2 on my large system (the Aurender N100 was on my headphone system, which is also very revealing). I inferred that it would win… it is very impressive for its cost. I was so impressed I didn’t think it was worth the trouble of swapping the Aurender into my main system. For a while I used both systems for evaluate components. In listening the N10 wins without any question in all aspects. Did you listen to the N10 before the power supply upgrade they did a couple years ago? I find power supplies really important. Also, the DAC you use. I had a Sim Moon 650D with the add on separate power supply… it really striped things naked and was dead quiet… so if you fed it a signal that was not pristine, you heard it. Ultimately the performance depends on the system the component is in. My systems are pretty revealing and a weakness is really obvious.
ghdprentice
6,354 posts
 
@rfnoisewell compared with a PC the Auralic is definitely a step up.
jond's avatar
jond
5,657 posts
 
No noise from my Aries Mini whatsoever.
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