Aurender W20 vs my hot-rodded PC server

Don’t worry I also got the original top.

So as soon as I am back home I will listen to compare booth, and... it is very possible that I will put back the original top ;-)
 
Mike said:
I'm not surprised...honestly.

IMO, no guy building a computer in his basement is going to surpass the R&D of what Aurender & Lumin are doing. I also think, if you don't have your own app, you're only half way there.
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jdandy said:
bmichels.......Forgive my bluntness but that piece of plywood screwed to the top of your Aurender W20 looks hideous. I doubt removing the extruded aluminum top cover designed by Aurender's engineers has any positive sonic benefit, not to mention you now have a flammable cover should anything ever go wrong with the batteries inside the W20. I suspect you have also negatively impacted the W20's heat dissipation and shielding. In my opinion the Aurender W20 is at a performance level that should not be altered by such nonsensical things as a piece of plywood replacing the original top cover. Suit yourself of course, but that's my take.
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OMG, normally I would not say anything as everyone has their reasons. In this case, Dan is only trying to help here, remove that cover before it gets decorated come Christmas - go back to OEM, you have a great component!
 
Adam,

With the servers you've tried, are you able to adjust the absolute polarity of each recording as needed?

By adjust, I mean that it will be automatic for that recording each time you play it after adjusting. Not referring to live streaming, but playing back from your existing collection.

The reason I ask is with that feature not being easily & repeatedly available on the early servers, I haven't kept up with what's happening as I should.
 
Well, now the Aurender W20 is installed at home above the Denafrips Terminator R2R DAC and under the BHSE amp & the EC445 Amp. I installed them on cones made of lava to decouple them from the furniture which is definitively not a dedicated HiFi rack. A new home made power filter/distributor is also used.
Ah... I also removed the strange W20's wooden top to replace it by the factory top ;-)


I ordered on loan 3 digital cables from the same company (Hificables.fr) so that next week I will be able to compare USB, EAS and Coax connections and decide which is best...

--> What best super TOL USB or AES cable can you recommend ?


Some High quality power cables are also coming soon to test (some home made and some from Hificables.fr).


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bmichels.......Thanks for the photos of your system and room. The system looks very nice, and the Aurender W20 looks good tucked into the rack with its top cover back in place. I am looking forward to reading about your digital cable comparison.
 
Yes much better, keep us posted on what you end up with for cables


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 

OK, I have completed my tests for best connexion between my Aurender W20 and my Denafrips Terminator R2R DAC.


- First I compared the 3 connections ( AES, Coax and USB) with 3 cables from the same manufacturer (HifiCables.fr) using the same topology/technology.



Against all odds, the USB was the winner ! sound stage was wider than with coax nor AES. This is un-expected since Aurender recommend AES rather than USB (the result can be very different with another Source/DAC combinaison)



- Then, since USB was apparently the best connection (for my set-up) I tested 3 different USB cables : the "Aucharm" a low cost very good Chineese cable (50$) that was highly recommended by a tube amp manufacturer friend of mine, the HifiCable's "Super Ultimate USB" (290 €), and a very expensive Synergetic research Galileo LE USB ( 2500 $) that use a separate transformer and other (marketing ??) gimics.



Again, the results were quite surprising: I found that the HifiCable lacked some musicality (it was precise, but something was missing reducing the possibility to "get lost into the music") while the 2 others provided a very engaging experience and... I had a very hard time to differentiate them. I guess that with a HP system the difference will have been obvious but with headphone the 50€ is super close to the 2500€ cable ! this may be due because a « headphone » system do not offer the « spatial » criteria that can make the difference between a good cable and a very good cable. So, I returned the 2500 € cable and... kept the 50 € cable.


So... I was quite disapointed by what was supposed to be a super-TOL USB cable... ! May be someone can suggest another Super-TOL USB cable that will really bring a substantial sound improvement over a good 50€ cable ?



- next step: I will test soon the "Curious cable" and also I will have made for me a specific Coax cable to give the SPDIF Coax connection a second chance against USB.


​
 
I have W 20 for 5 or 6 years, one of first delivered to Poland, with 4TB HDD.
During this time it worked as a sever / transport with La Fontaine as a DAC , then with Lampi DSD only DAC, then B7 and now with Pacific.
I tried many usb cables and found that unpowered usb cables make audible difference, of course the power must be switched off on the Aurender side ( now it can be done remotely by the support, before it was the option in Conductor app ).
Long story short I keep Polish boutique Apricity usb and a new Serbian Finaltouch Callisto usb, suggested by a fellow - audiophile from WBF.
I tried or owned Acoustic Revive, Jcat Ref , Entreq Konstantin with Minimus, Entreq Apollo, Synergistic ( I do not remember the model, with this blue light , maybe Galileo , the one you tried ) , Audioquest Diamond.
Here is the review of Apricity by 6moons, the cable is rather expensvie. Some friends - audiophiles from WBF are happy with less pricey Sablon usb cable.


http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews2/stavessence/1.html


As a second connection I use Aes/Ebu to La Fontaine , the cable is Fadel Art Ref II.

With PAC I recently tried a simple VDH The Name as a spdif cable, hard to beat the price quality ratio.
Even an expensvie new Hijiri HDG-R was no better to my ears, just different.

PS We have already at audioshark a new thread about Callisto usb cable :

http://www.audioshark.org/cables-20/fta-final-touch-audio-callisto-usb-cable-15335.html
 
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