Aurender X100 Music server

I had been tremendously impressed by it and believed it was, at that point, among the most effective non-opticaI digital options that I'd hitherto seen.

I used to be interested to find out the most recent offering from Aurender lately at the Whittlebury Show, astonishingly in the Audio Note room. It's half the width of the S10, and contains the same feel and look to it.

From which music is played, both versions have a 120GB solid state drive. Only before a track is queued, it's transferred to the solid state drive from your hard disk, so there aren't any moving disks whilst music will be replayed - clearly a good prerequisite for quiet operation.

Another important difference to the S10 is that output signal into a DAC is only via USB.

Having been through these experiments, I'd favor an output signal of a music player to be not USB and S/PDIF.

When doing the listening evaluations,

I'd an Esoteric K05 CD player, which can be now a DCS Debussy DAC, a first-class performing digital, along with my reference -to-analogue convertor to the one in the K05 but somehow satisfying to listen to. The Esoteric DAC section including and is somewhat more relaxed - somewhat academic can be sounded by the DCS .

Yet when teamed up with the Aurender X-100, some unsatisfactory results were given by the Esoteric and it was just after I swapped it the Aurender began to glow sonically.

So the violating party was the USB input signal of the Esoteric K-05 not the Aurender and!

Connected to your own network it is going to recognise any connected NAS drives therefore the internal hard disk does not have to be the limitation for storage.

An internal switch mode supply can be used to provide electricity to non- this and sound parts is included in a compartment that was shielded to minimise the chance of interference.

Along with all this, the Aurender has a dependable and solidly-written iPad/iPhone program which at the touch of a finger plays with a CD that is chosen.

The program is a pleasure to work with, and lets you selected resolution, classification, in addition to seeking alphabetically. It will take each disk to rip as well as the online database appeared in order to deal with most of the CDs I threw at it.

Some of the CDs that were more exotic drew a blank as well as the tracks must be input manually. As the lone way to change the contents of the Aurender in this manner necessitates using a PC on the network this is somewhat fiddly.

Transferring my digital group took a day, as network transport is not a lot faster than via USB hard disk. There really are several buttons on the very front of the Aurender to pause and replay a track, fast forward, but essentially the unit is unable to be used without an iPad.

SOUND QUALITY

Beginning using a high resolution LSO 'Live' recording of Brahms' Second Serenade conducting, the sound is rich, thorough, sumptuous and thoroughly engaging. There's a blackness to the quiet, a quietness. I've seldom heard this record seem better and will comprehend the raison-d'etre of the chain more clearly now. Extremely quick transients, dynamics that is striking.

Over to a hi res recording I made the Holywell in Oxford., on 24/96 of the Allegri Quartet This makes among the finest versions I've heard of the record. The instrumental tone is rich and smooth, quite believable and all-natural. The DCS is as uncomfortable as when playing nicely-recorded live concerts, since space is captured by it so nicely. There's not actual porosity to the midrange as well as an absence of jitter or any distortion that I've heard through gear that is lesser. This player is definitely a tasteful alternative for playing back hires stuff.

Now to some CDs that are ripped and for me The Beaux Arts Piano Trio encapsulate all that a great ensemble wants: inspiration, style, and oodles of musical understanding.

About the Aurender, there's allure, attractiveness, and I'm carried on my journey that is Austrian, but am left using a niggling doubt. The demo does not quite have the same reality that is crystalline as played on the Esoteric K05.

The Aurender X-100 represents a great means to fix the issues of an electronic music player. It's been planned and executed. It's up there with the very best music players that I've auditioned. For hires stuff, it believes to be in its component, and shines. The caliber of a CD doesn't exactly match the attribute of exactly the same disk played straight in the Esoteric K05. It's close, around 90% of the quality, which for many folks is a little cost to cover the huge escalation in benefit created.

Yet for people who have see-through systems that are enough to hear the little differences between hard disc and direct play from a top quality CD player, and have been in pursuit of the final nano-element, the Aurender might not be all-matters to all-individuals.

Aurender X100 Music server photo