Aurender N200


Hi

I was hoping to get feedback on the Aurender N200.   I have a Bluesound Vault 2i that honestly has been great but I am looking for a significant bump up in sound. Will be using with a LAB 12 DAC which accepts USB class 2 output and has coax also.  I really like this DAC , although I do have the opportunity to trade up within a year so that's to be seen if I do that.  I find myself mostly streaming and want a great sounding stand alone streamer that won't be outclassed if I upgrade the DAC.   Any opinions of this unit would be appreciated 

Thanks 

128x128oddiofyl

Exactly,  maybe their experience was indifferent for what ever reason but there are a lot of lateral moves in this hobby that can be very flavor of the month club impulse buys.  
 

This obviously was a major upgrade but with 80% of my content streamed or stored on a drive or PC this made sense for me.  It is amazing what it can do, I haven’t even scratched the surface yet.  It is so intelligent,  it is unreal how smart this box is.   It monitors every parameter of its operation 

Many have said the Android version is bad but I went in and allowed permission for it to always run in the background and that made it much more stable. 
 

A must have for me was a screen with Album art and other metadata.   Transport keys are nice to have also.    SPDIF was high on the want list too. 

This has been an interesting thread on streamers. I understand from Bliss’s comment on page 1 that Aurender is great at streaming but optimized also for storage for those that have files.

That’s not me. No files to play. Simply Tidal or Qobuz streaming for now. My question: is there any streamer under $2k that will outperform a LUMIN U1 mini for this purpose? Assume dac will probably be an Aqua La Scala mkii, under the thinking rule of thumb that put 75% of digital budget into dac, 25% to streamer, give or take

@oddiofyl I’m glad you resolved your issue! Seeing your DAC’s specs, it seems it only is capable of converting up to 192Khz, so adjusting that setting makes sense.

Regarding some not being able to discern streamer quality, I usually boil it down to the fact that those people’s systems are not resolving enough (like putting a $9K phono cartridge on a $1000 turntable / tonearm), they aren’t the critical listeners, or the upgrade in sonics isn’t worthwhile. But for those with a highly resolving system who are looking to make the best out of it, a high performance digital source should make a significant impact. 

@blisshifi 

Regarding some not being able to discern streamer quality, I usually boil it down to the fact that those people’s systems are not resolving enough (like putting a $9K phono cartridge on a $1000 turntable / tonearm), they aren’t the critical listeners, or the upgrade in sonics isn’t worthwhile. But for those with a highly resolving system who are looking to make the best out of it, a high performance digital source should make a significant impact.

This explanation is thoughtful and well reasoned in my opinion. With a resolving audio system, how could one not notice improvement with a better source component?

Charles

I thought my switching DSD off and limiting 384k sample was my problem but no....

Those settings revert back to default at power off 

TOTAL PILOT ERROR !!!   I was trying to compare USB via Coax with them both plugged in and it was confusing the DAC .   Removed the USB and problem gone.  Plays anything up to 24/192k like it should.   Duh...