Kai-Uwe

I had the same problem. First I had my Aries connected to the Vega via USB without any problem using it wireless. After changing my setup to AES without Vega I got distortions. Changing from wireless to wired solved the issue. I don't know, if the wireless connection is the issue because it actually sill uses wireless for control. An Audioplan Power Plant before the Aries did not solve it.

You are right, but I have expected to see this in the 2.0 version. They have a new, kind of library wizard in LDS. Maybe I did not see it because they had no SMB server or it was not yet added. Anyway we have to wait one month and see what is included.

This is the fact sheet that I have got.

Yes, I listened to it. It sounded good. But to be honest, in such an environment with hundreds of exhibitors demonstrating their devices you can get only a first impression. But you are right, it will be a good alternative for the limited sonos.

There will be a new, lower level,Aries hardware soon. At the HighEnd in Munich I have seen and listed to the new Aries mini. It looks like a bigger, white AppleTV and offers the same features as the Aries as well as an integrated DAC. It supports the same data formats and resolutions. But the clocks etc. are simpler than in the Aries.it costs about $ 400.

Today I visited AURLiC at the HighEnd in Munich. I have seen two new things: the Aries mini and the new Lightning DS 2.0 prototype. Actually I expected that we will get the 2.0 version now. But i have been told that it will become available in June. From what I have seen it makes sense to wait a few weeks. To be honest I was a little bit disappointed. The new search will be cool. It will cover the library, streaming and radio. There will be many more categories, e.g. data rate, last changed, first added, ... But I have not seen a way to map network drives for the library. Look and fell is still the same.

I come from the Oppo 105D too. For the price, the Oppo was not bad. But as a streamer it was a nightmare. The app is simply unusable. It does not only crash on the iPad. It also freezes the Oppo quite often. So I used it with DLNA JRiver/jRemote this worked well, except that the Oppo does not support gapless over DLNA. My next try was an audiophile PC. So I have setup an Intel NUC, made it t passive, bought a quite expensive liner PVU, installed and optimized an windows server and finally connected it to the Oppo. This was all okay, but inconvenient. JRiver/jRemote was good, but WiMP or Qobuz control was a compromise. The SQ was okay too. I was not completely satisfied. So I ordered an AURALiC Aries and connected it to the Oppo. They catapulted the SQ to a much higher level. The control worked as expected. I was completely happy with the Aries. The PC will go to eBay soon. Now the Oppo became the bottleneck. I replaced it by a Vega. Finally I must say that I am in heaven now with the Aries, Vega and Lightning DS. Sure this can be improved. For a better user experience software updates will come. An for SQ I most probably have to update my amp and speakers (Primare/Kef Reference /2)

My Lightning DS (V1.7) works stable and fast. I cannot complain. There features that I would like to see in the app, e.g. links to albums, composer, artist. Information about artists and albums from the internet, current song data when playing radio, ...

I actually hoped that we see Lightning DS V2.x soon. Firmware 2.2 is nice but the really interesting features of the 2.x firmware, e.g. SMB for NAS access, require Lightning DS V2.x

I did a couple of upgrades during the last few weeks. First of all I have tried to setup an audiophile PC and connect it to my Oppo 150D. It took a while and a lot of money for making the cheap NUC passive, give it a linear PSU, ... Compared with direct playback from the Oppo it was always worse. On the other hand paying gapless from the Oppo is a nightmare. It doe not work with DLNA and the Oppo crashes often, when you access these files directly. So I decided to buy a AURALiC Aries and connected it to the Oppo as DAC. This combination did everything I wanted, including WiMP (Tidal in US) and Qobuz and gapless playback, stable control and last but not least a better SQ compared to the PC and direct playback. Unfortunately I had the impression that the Oppo is the listing device in my chain now. That is always the same story. You upgrade one part and see that you now have a new construction area. So I ordered a AURALiC Vega and I was right. I did not even need to compare A-B. It became immediately obvious that the Vega plays in a completely different league. The improvement in SQ is impressive. More 3D more stable stage and positions. My conclusion is that the Oppo 105 is great when you want to have a device that can act as a BluRay, CD, SACD player, that can do DLNA streaming. But it is not a DAC with some extras. It is a player, streamer, multi channel DAC, video processor and a stereo DAC. So even if the DAC is good, can play DSD and high res over an asynch USB interface, it is limited. If you focus on the DAC there are better devices for the money.

Normally science works like this: You measure something, based on this you develop a theory, you publish it and then you and others measure again to support it or to find inconsistencies. In our case, the impact of USB cables on SQ we are still in the first phase. We measure with our ears, hear a difference, but our measuring instrument is not understood in detail (brain/ear combination), we try to use another instrument. Unfortunately this doesn't show what we have heard. Now we have three options: our ear/brain instrument gives wrong results, the other instruments are not good enough or we measure the wrong things. This is all science including the measurement with our ears/brain. Science and pure technical experiment setups are two different things.

Actually I am not convinced to spend more money for a PS Audio P10 than for the Aries and Vega together in order to get an exact mode link. Does exact mode really sound so much better? I'm not sure that I would hear the difference between auto and exact mode in a blind test. I would spend the money for content or maybe an additional tube amp to play with as an alternative. It's always the question how to get the most fun for your money. The solution is most probably not the exact mode with a PS Audio P10.

You just explained the difference between technology and science. A scientists knows that he just scratched the surface. A technologist can do great things with this knowledge.

I think that I do understand. What you tell about physics und chemistry is right. It helps us to build a lot of complex, advanced technology, just like Newton's physics was the basis to build steam machines. Today we know that his theories are only valid in well defined environments. This is also true for our modern physics. We must understand that we learn every day, our theories in physics are not static. We do not have models that are sound and explain all aspects. Einstein's and Heisenberg's theories are not compatible. When scientists, and most of them do, explain that their models have limits, only show a part of the truth and only work under well defined parameters, people would not doubt. But in our days we only accept simple answers, even if the questions are complex. And if this doesn't work we we don't believe the answers anymore.

Sure they made all these things possible. But these are technical systems that look complex but compared to e.g. the weather, ecosystems, economy they are sandboxes. I do not doubt that faster cars, computers or planes can be developed based on these models but but the number of relevant parameters in nature us much higher than in technical systems. Real scientists try to build models that explain the world. They know the limits and prerequisites . Most people do not. And that's why they doubt when a model doesn't fit. Why do we hear differences in cables that just transport digital data? Simply because the model that tell us that a cable just transports bits from a to b is too simple and ignores important parameters. But then 500 voodoo scientists tell us to buy platinum cables instead of gold cables that already sound much better than the silver or poor copper ones.