Best Sounding Output

nc42acc

nc42acc

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What do you think is the best sounding output from the Aurender products? I have a N10 and have only ever used USB.
 
The N10 has a high quality clock for SPDIF outputs and AES/XLR, the USB output is not using that clock, which output sounds best also depends on the input of the connected DAC. in my set with dCS Rossini DAC the USB connection sounds best, AES/XLR a close second. (but result might be different with another XLR cable)
 
I'll second the USB output as being best, but it's by a very small margin - probably within the limits of being repeatable. I say it's best because asynchronous USB doesn't have to bother with a high precision clock in the player itself - the timing comes from the DAC. So if your DAC has a good clock, there's nothing to worry about.

I actually do use the coax output on my N100SC as the primary output, but only because the USB input on the connected processor isn't terribly reliable. That has nothing to do with the Aurender, of course. But the end product is still very good using coax instead of USB. Perhaps there's a more significant difference higher up the line, but I'm personally not likely to pay the price of entry to find out.
 
These are interesting observations.

Some hi-fi reviewers call out USB as having a "glare" to its sound and being the weak point of server - to - DAC connections, inferior to AES/XLR.

My A10 only has USB so I cant compare, but with the sound quality I have with the T+A DAC I much suspect the difference to be very marginal.

S
 
All USB connections, to my ears, have that "glare". If your DAC has an AES input, with a world clock, its the way to go.
 
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