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See this and this. – Chris

From the AURALiC Facebook page, dated October 14: Right after the RMAF and here is the answer which everybody is asking for: The official USB playback function will be available right before the U.S Thanksgiving holiday. Beta version will probably by the end of this month to testers.

That's my conclusion, as well. Also, the cable between the linear power supply and the ARIES appears that it could be shielded, which was certainly not the case with the wall-wart power supply included with the ARIES LE. – Chris

No, I've only used the ARIES via Wi-Fi. – Chris

Yeah, I know; sorry! – Chris

Certainly. I first want to note that both versions of the ARIES passed PS Audio's BitPerfect test in both 96/24 and 192/24, which means the DirectStream verified that a known bitstream launched from my UPnP/OpenHome server (MinimServer) was received unaltered by the DAC. Since, in this case, bits really is bits, I'd expect there to be no difference in the output caused by an unintended modification of the data stream. Additionally, since the DS doesn't base its clock in any way on the incoming bitstream to avoid externally injected jitter, I wouldn't expect the superior FemtoClocks in the ARIES to have an effect on the SQ. However, ... ... when I listened to my selected test passage (The Old Man, from Batik's The Old Man and the Sea), swapping the USB cable from one ARIES to the other, the sound via the non-LE unit was obviously and surprisingly more detailed and present. I repeated this test several times, in varying orders, to validate my impression to myself. Keep in mind I had low expectations, given what I (think I) know about the operation of my DAC, so the fact I heard any clear, repeatable difference at all was unexpected. Like most things audiophile, YMMV. Oh, I should mention that I'm driving the ARIES wirelessly, so there's no noise from a CAT6 cable in the mix. – Chris

This is likely going to be tough to generalize, since the SQ of a particular interface is as dependent on the input side of your specific DAC as it is on the output side of the ARIES. For me, I initially used TOSLINK to avoid any issues with a copper interface but switched to USB so I could play DSD128. I didn't notice any obvious differences between the two with my PS Audio DirectStream. There were noticeable differences between the ARIES LE and the ARIES, both of which I was able to try. Frankly, I hadn't expected to hear much, if any, difference, given the way the DirectStream works, so I was a bit surprised—particularly since I was, I think, subconsciously trying to hear no difference so I could save the extra $600. Perhaps the difference in SQ had to do with lower electromagnetic noise generation from the higher-end model. But this is off-topic. – Chris

I won't speculate on whether AURALiC went with a plastic case because it's less expensive than a metal one, but to have used a metal case would have required the antennas to be externally mounted. I prefer the look of the ARIES as it is to a design with antennas poking out. To your point about shielding, though, perhaps AURALiC could have internally caged the electronics to protect against both incoming and outgoing EMR.

I've played DSD128, though perhaps not for hours at a time, artifact-free through my ARIES via a NETGEAR Nighthawk R7000. Data rate (DSD128 massaged to DoP via MinimServer) is 352.8K x 24 = 8.467Mbps. I always have more bandwidth than that available, apparently, since I've not yet had any audible issues.