New Aurender N10

[ekovalsky]

I took delivery of this unit on Wednesday evening and have only had a little time with it so far. But I am already most impressed! After a week or two with more serious listening I will post a proper review focusing on sound quality.

Here are some early impressions, mostly related to operation and value, for any who might be considering this unit:

• It is exceptionally well packaged with (in my case) perfect quality control.
• The unit is beautifully built and quite substantial. While it a Linux-based computing device, from every angle it looks like a high end audio component with no resemblance of a typical computer or HTPC; the full size chassis happens to be a nearly identical match of my existing TacT equipment too.
• Network setup is completely painless - no messing with IP addresses, routers, etc. Just plug it in to an ethernet connection, download the iPad or Android app to a wireless device on the same subnet, and done. Setup of file sharing on the N10 was also incredibly easy; on some of my other network devices (WDLive for video, LG NAS, and PC) a lot of tweaking was needed to get file sharing working.
• Hardware and software integration is superb. The Conductor app is incredibly fast and responsive. In practice the app seems pretty straightforward to use, but coming from iPeng8 with a Slim Devices Transporter it will take some adjustment for me.
• Sound quality on everything from 128kbps MP3 to 24bit/192kHz is excellent. I have only uploaded a few gigabytes of music, making sure all tags are correct, and mostly high res downloads so far. Even right after first plugging in it, the N10 seemed at least as good as my highly modified Slim Devices Transporter, which is obsolete thanks to Logitech but still a very fine sounding streamer; it was the paradigm of the high end music streamers we have now.

I've posted details of my somewhat atypical system elsewhere on Audioshark, but briefly I am using the AES/EBU output of the N10 directly into a TacT RCS2.2X which acts as a master volume control and PCM distribution hub to four TacT S2150 amps, each of which runs a crossover/correction/targetcurve filter and is connected directly to a driver group; I am not using any passive crossovers whatsoever. The RCS2.2X up samples to and passes 24bit/192kHz. All the TacT gear was fully modified by Aberdeen/Mauimods and it is very, very good to the point that I have no desire to upgrade it - although Devialet might be on the radar in the years to come. Power cords are all Michael Wolff carbon ribbon, digital links are Acoustic Zen. Speakers are Nola Grand Reference which is a two piece-per-side system with dipole midrange/tweeter line array. I have the crossovers set at 50Hz, 330Hz, and 3300Hz using slopes of 24dB/octave except for 3300Hz which is a more steep 36dB/octave because of the Raven ribbons tweeters.

The N10 is quite expensive compared to the lower range Aurender models. But it is a relative bargain compared to its S10 and W20. It is not unreasonably priced considering it uses exclusively linear power supplies (unlike its S10 predecessor and even the top of the line W20), custom audio and mainboards, the superb internal and external design/construction, and the very well implemented proprietary hardware/software solution. Those linear power supplies I consider quite important, not so much for how the unit itself operates but how much switching noise gets returned back to the power grid supplying other equipment. I have all my components plugged into a PS Audio P10 so it gets a very clean 120v supply, but I am not sure how much filtering there is between the various outlets - probably not much.

For much more cost than the N10, the W20 only seems to offer the external word clock. I'm sure that is great for some with dCs and similar gear, but neither my TacT gear nor most other equipment can utilize it. I had a full dCs stack many years ago and sold it; it is not missed. While the W20 uses battery power for the audio output, this is likely only beneficial since this section has a switching rather than linear power supply.

I did look into building a "high end" fanless PC media server, along the lines of the C.A.P.S. v4 Pipeline. It can easily run $2500-3000 based on part selection, plus my time to build and troubleshoot, and still won't have the proprietary hardware/software integration like Aurender. I may still build one at some point, mainly to experiment with Acourate/Convolver, but nothing I make would be able to compete with the Aurender either in sound quality or simplicity of use.

I will have some suggestions on how to improve the Conductor app and firmware, which I will describe in more detail in the subsequent detailed review. Briefly, I'd like to see an iPhone app or firmware change that would let the device be 'seen' by iPeng8; option to display cover art on one of the AMOLEDs; one one-click file play mode (without making a playlist) while in Conductor.

Here is my equipment, I am having a custom stand made which should be ready in a week. I bought a new iPad Air 2 with iPort charge cover/stand; it is locked in landscape mode and basically is the remote control for Aurender and my Elan G! home automation/security system.

Last but not least, thank you Mike for the A+ customer service and lightning quick delivery

 

[Mike]

Looks awesome Eric! Big congrats!!

 

[bpw]

It sounds as though you're having a lot of fun! Sold an N10 this week, and a customer brought back my demo unit last night and plans to pull the trigger soon.

 

[ekovalsky]

bpw - your earlier posts/photos turned me onto the Aurender line and n10 in particular, so thank you.




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[Dizzie]

ekovalsky,

Good to see you here, still TacTing after all these years. I remember you from the TacT users group. I had a 2.2X and 3x150s. Two were programmed as crossovers and the third was for the subs. All room correction was done in the 2.2X. All components were modded by "Mad Anthony" at Aberdeen. That was a long time ago.

I have an N10 question. I see it has 4TB of storage but how does that storage get loaded? I am looking for a one-box unit that both rips, stores, and plays back. I know the N10 does not fit that description but I am curious about the 4TB of storage.

 

[bpw]

ekovalsky,

Good to see you here, still TacTing after all these years. I remember you from the TacT users group. I had a 2.2X and 3x150s. Two were programmed as crossovers and the third was for the subs. All room correction was done in the 2.2X. All components were modded by "Mad Anthony" at Aberdeen. That was a long time ago.

I have an N10 question. I see it has 4TB of storage but how does that storage get loaded? I am looking for a one-box unit that both rips, stores, and plays back. I know the N10 does not fit that description but I am curious about the 4TB of storage.

Dizzie,
Music can be put on an Aurender using the file manager program on your desktop or laptop computer. On Windows the two hard drives show up as Music1 and Music2, identified internally as hdd1 and hdd2.

As a service provided with customer purchases I provide free ripping of their CD collections and/or migrating their iTunes music. You can also do it yourself using software such as JRiver, dBpoweramp, etc.

 

[Mike]

ekovalsky,

Good to see you here, still TacTing after all these years. I remember you from the TacT users group. I had a 2.2X and 3x150s. Two were programmed as crossovers and the third was for the subs. All room correction was done in the 2.2X. All components were modded by "Mad Anthony" at Aberdeen. That was a long time ago.

I have an N10 question. I see it has 4TB of storage but how does that storage get loaded? I am looking for a one-box unit that both rips, stores, and plays back. I know the N10 does not fit that description but I am curious about the 4TB of storage.

I copy the music to my N10 over the network --> from my NAS (via my MacBook Pro) to the N10. It isn't the fastest in the world, but set it and forget it to copy.

 

[j3brow]

ekovalsky,

Good to see you here, still TacTing after all these years. I remember you from the TacT users group. I had a 2.2X and 3x150s. Two were programmed as crossovers and the third was for the subs. All room correction was done in the 2.2X. All components were modded by "Mad Anthony" at Aberdeen. That was a long time ago.

I have an N10 question. I see it has 4TB of storage but how does that storage get loaded? I am looking for a one-box unit that both rips, stores, and plays back. I know the N10 does not fit that description but I am curious about the 4TB of storage.

The 4TB is internal HDD. There is an internal SSD for OS and playback.

The internal storage cannot be increased past 4TB due to the LPS. The X100 and W20 go up to 12TB with the SMPS.

Of course the N10 is a network player so it can handle any size music collection.

I love my X100. I may move into a N10 or W20 in the future.



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[ekovalsky]

Hi Dizzie,

Like bpw said the two internal drives show up as a network share. So basically you rip and tag using a computer then copy the files to the Aurender. I use FLAC but believe the Aurender supports all common formats.

Having an all-in-one box has appeal but I think ripping and tagging is most efficiently done using a real computer that has a keyboard, mouse/trackpad, and screen and of course an optical drive (which is now absent on many laptops including my 15" retina Macbook Pro). I rip discs on a PC, use kid3 on OS X for batch tagging, then upload to Aurender once I confirm the files are good, consistently named, and all relevant ID3 fields and album artwork are correct.

Since the two internal disks are independent, i.e. not configured as a RAID array, one could use them both for file storage = 4TB capacity, or one for file storage and other for (manual) internal mirror backup = 2TB capacity with redundancy. l personally keep my FLAC files backed up to an external drive as well as a NAS, so do not need redundancy inside the Aurender itself. And while maybe not as high as other models, 4TB is a huge amount of storage for just music; even with many high resolution files and a fairly large collection of CDs, more than 1000+, I won't get anywhere near capacity. In my case, ~ 1000 16/44.1 redbook CDs ripped as FLAC will only take up 300-400GB, leaving well over 3TB for high resolution files. And since it will interface with any network share, the total storage is essentially unlimited.

The internal 250Gb SSD is used exclusively as a cache for playback and presumably the operating system and its associated files, and is not accessible as a network share.

 

[ekovalsky]

By the way some there are nice deals to be had on the S10 with the N10 now hitting the market. I saw on on Agon this morning for $3700... The N10 clearly has many upgrades - photos of the internals are quite different in favor of the N10 - but if the N10 is beyond one's budget the S10 was very favorably reviewed and I'm sure sounds very nearly as good. Externally it looks almost identical except for the rear panel input/output layout.

 

[bpw]

The internal storage cannot be increased past 4TB due to the LPS. The X100 and W20 go up to 12TB with the SMPS.

Actually the limitation is in all likelihood due to the fact that 2.5" drives are currently only available up to 2TB in size. The X100 and W20 use 3.5" drives.

 

[Dizzie]

Thanks for the information gentlemen. Duly noted.

 

[j3brow]

Actually the limitation is in all likelihood due to the fact that 2.5" drives are currently only available up to 2TB in size. The X100 and W20 use 3.5" drives.

Chicken or egg, huh? Maybe they chose 2.5" drives because of LPS. Dunno. Either way, aurender support told me N10 is limited to 4Tb because of the power supply.


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[ekovalsky]

Power requirements for 2.5" drives are typically about half that of 3.5" drives. So in using opting for a LPS instead of SMPS, Aurender might have introduced this limitation. But I do think it was a very wise design decision to eliminate all SMPS from this penultimate unit. While the drives themselves will operate equally well with either, SMPS introduces noise into everything else including the more important power supplies inside the N10, and even other equipment connected to the same AC line unless the outlets are individually filtered. And of course the 2.5" drive capacities will continue to grow. While 2Tb is largest right now, 3Tb and 4Tb are not too far off based on historic trends in storage.

My N10 has about 100 hours on it now and it keeps getting better and better. I have a decent number of good 24/96 and 24/192 files (both digital masters and vinyl rips) and they sound just incredible. Well recorded standard redbook FLACs sound fantastic too. Crappy recordings still sound crappy of course, no tubes or analog tone controls in my system to sweeten the sound!

The TacT gear accepts the Surender output at 24bit/192kHz over AES/EBU, and upsamples lesser PCM streams to that inside the RCS2.2X. That is maintained all the way to the final step in the chain e.g. PCM>PWM conversion. I think the very precise master clock in the Aurender is making the most difference, compared to the Transporter I was using.

I really like the Conductor app and Aurender seems very dedicated to improving/updating it on a regular basis, which is wonderful. That said, I do wish they would release a stripped down iPhone app or allow the Aurender to be used with iPeng8... I really liked the latter with the Transporter and miss it.

 

[dminches]

Power requirements for 2.5" drives are typically about half that of 3.5" drives. So in using opting for a LPS instead of SMPS, Aurender might have introduced this limitation. But I do think it was a very wise design decision to eliminate all SMPS from this penultimate unit. While the drives themselves will operate equally well with either, SMPS introduces noise into everything else including the more important power supplies inside the N10, and even other equipment connected to the same AC line unless the outlets are individually filtered. And of course the 2.5" drive capacities will continue to grow. While 2Tb is largest right now, 3Tb and 4Tb are not too far off based on historic trends in storage.

I guess theoretically one could put in a 3.5" drive and power it externally. I know others have done this for CAPS builds.

 

[bpw]

I guess theoretically one could put in a 3.5" drive and power it externally. I know others have done this for CAPS builds.

Yes, but it wouldn't fit in the case and there may likely be shielding and vibration issues.

 

[dminches]

Yes, but it wouldn't fit in the case and there may likely be shielding and vibration issues.

Do the Aurenders treat an external drive the same way as an internal drive with respect to the need for AMM?

 

[bpw]

Do the Aurenders treat an external drive the same way as an internal drive with respect to the need for AMM?

No, AMM is only needed to scan external storage. The system software automatically scans internal drives and through the Conductor app can be requested to scan new files or do a full scan.

 

[dminches]

No, AMM is only needed to scan external storage. The system software automatically scans internal drives and through the Conductor app can be requested to scan new files or do a full scan.

Thanks. I wasn't sure if it treated a NAS and a USB external the same way. Sounds like it does.

 

[Elberoth]

I belive there was not enough space left. They decided to put not one, not two, but three separate power transformers inside. The 2,5" 'laptop drives' were the only option. 2TB drives are probably the biggest 2,5" drives you can get right now. We may see 3TB next year, but don't expect miracles.