Aurender

and why not Roon ready?

@fuzztone I’ve owned the Aurender N100 for 4 years and never had a problem with the conductor app.

“I’m sure that I have misrepresented things above, so please correct my understanding.”
Well, you certainly have! Let me try to clarify,

1. Coax and AES are the preferred outputs, but higher bandwidths require dual AES out, but I don’t have dual in on my DAC. - Only one model, W20SE in Aurender lineup sports Dual AES outputs and it was designed to mate with high end DAC’s that sports dual AES inputs like DCS.

2. Aurender’s top models claim to have great clocks, so why not pass this on to the DAC via I2s? - I2S is not a universally adopted digital protocol and there are known handshake issues between components featuring i2S from different manufacturers. If you study the pattern, the adopters of i2s protocol advocates using their own source (streamer) and DAC’s. For example, PS Audio, Rockna and AQUA HiFi. And Auralic promotes L-Link as best connection between their DAC and Streamer.

3. Top Aurenders accept external clocks and I assume this is used with a DAC that accepts external clocks, but why bother when I2s would take care of this? - See #2. Also read up on ‘Master Clock’ implementation in a high end digital system where both streamer and DAC greatly benefits from a master clock.

4. The argument against I2s is that there isn’t a standard, but this isn’t a problem in most implementations. - Please provide an example.

I am assuming you’re a ROON user. Nothing wrong with that but if I may ask why does everything needs to be Roon ready? Do you know what happens when there is no friendly competition? From what I have learned and read, ROON is not the best software when it comes to delivering audio?

You may wanna read up on Innuos ‘Sense’ users experience with ROON. Also there are reports that Taiko is soon to release their own app that is supposedly better than ROON. What does that say about ROON?

I am a lifetime subscriber of ROON and longtime user of Aurender. Atleast with Conductor app, I never have to wonder if I am getting the best audio quality. The conductors app has performed consistently and flawlessly over 10 plus years. Over the years, I have owned N100, N10, N20, ACS100 and my current DAC sports ROON Core + Renderer and external Master Clock.

The overwhelming reason is the sound quality. They sound simply fantastic and are built like audiophile equipment.
 

Often,  high end audio equipment manufacturers choose to implement only the technology that can produce the highest quality sound and is ubiquitous. The connectors they support can get the best sound out of the unit. If dual AES becomes ubiquitous I am sure they will add them.

I always choose a component based on the sound… I leave them to choose the ins and outs. Mid-fi and low end stuff is chosen on the basis of connectors, buttons and knobs.

I own a N100 and W20SE

Most of your questions are about I2s, well after exploring I2s extensively it's not such a big deal. USB is more than capable of providing exceptional musical reproduction and IMO betters SPDIF, depending on your DAC, of course.

I cannot recommend the N20 highly enough and Aurender doesn't use Roon because it has it's own Conductor App which is exceptional and doesn't have problems, although the Android version was upgraded a couple of weeks ago and we experienced some temporary glitches.

Aurender owners are generally extremely happy with their purchase except for the few clowns who post trash.