Auralic Aries (Hardware) - Impressions and Information

[C Martin]

5 hours ago, Miracle1980 said:

I'm testing the Aries... So far I am impressed but I will give my final feedback later. 

Is there a way to shuffle random songs from the entire library? 

 

Well, kind of... if you press play with an empty queue it'll build a random playlist from your library with 999 tracks. 

[Miracle1980]

Other 2 questions...

 

- I'm using Minimserver on my server (windows) and my library is mainly in flac. Do you guys suggest to transcode flac to wav? I don't remember where i read that somebody was transcoding everything in wav 24bit. Any benefit in doing this?

 

- If i manage to configure minimserver to show/read the ''Dynamic Range'' tag into the files do you know if Lighting DS app will show this information or it's limited only to certain tags?

 

Thanks

[timbo]

On 12/05/2017 at 1:55 AM, Duke40 said:

No.

It would be great if it did though, have asked Auralic and was advised to make playlists with less than 1000 songs , then shuffle, which is not what I want.

I want to shuffle the entire library in Lighting DS, instead i have to resort to using Airplay from an iOS device using Tidal when i want to shuffle.

 

Yes I've moaned at Auralic for that as well, somit seems like they can't do it as 1,000 tracks is there maximum to hold in memory and shuffle perhaps?

[timbo]

Oh and while I'm here, does anyone notice a degradation in sound quality using the Mini and it's own internal DAC whilst streaming TO it via AirPlay as opposed to streaming FROM it? I was comparing normal res 16 bit files from Qobuz the other day streamed over AirPlay compared to played direct via the Mini and I must say the AirPlay was noticeably poorer qoulity sound? The reason I was doing this is because Infeel the Qobuz apps and particularly their desktop app are miles ahead of the Lightning app in usability - I wonder why the input from the Mini's own streaming API links to Qobuz would sound better than the AirPlay stream? Surely it all arrives unaltered to the built in DAC?

[Duke40]

52 minutes ago, timbo said:

 

Yes I've moaned at Auralic for that as well, somit seems like they can't do it as 1,000 tracks is there maximum to hold in memory and shuffle perhaps?

Yes, believe your right, it is related to memory (that is what I believe they said IIRC)

[Duke40]

59 minutes ago, timbo said:

Oh and while I'm here, does anyone notice a degradation in sound quality using the Mini and it's own internal DAC whilst streaming TO it via AirPlay as opposed to streaming FROM it? I was comparing normal res 16 bit files from Qobuz the other day streamed over AirPlay compared to played direct via the Mini and I must say the AirPlay was noticeably poorer qoulity sound? The reason I was doing this is because Infeel the Qobuz apps and particularly their desktop app are miles ahead of the Lightning app in usability - I wonder why the input from the Mini's own streaming API links to Qobuz would sound better than the AirPlay stream? Surely it all arrives unaltered to the built in DAC?

I also notice SQ degrades when i use airplay (Tidal iOS app) , instead of Lightning DS.

Believe this is maybe due to 2 things.

Lightning DS now use some memory as a cache, to store the songs, I actually turned off my isp modem ( no internet) and music still played for about 30 minutes from the Aries,  maybe the Aries is able to turn off some processes once it's cache is full, which leads to better performance.

Also airplay has 3 hops (router to iPhone, iPhone back to router, router to aries) when using airplay,  while just 1 hop (router to aries) for lightning DS, that may also influence SQ, just my thoughts.

[scan80269]

On 5/5/2017 at 4:55 AM, Doak said:

Would not use those words to describe it. 

The sound is altered some, smoothed out a bit. 

As with other things  - I'll take mine straight, thank you.

My friend appears to have very similar opinion as you regarding MQA as decoded by Auralic.

 

He did some critical listening of the Mozart violin concerto tracks downloaded from 2L:

* CD version

* MQA version

* 24/88.1K version (offline resampled from 24/96K download using Adobe Audition - all auditioned tracks had to be 44.1K based to avoid upsetting Vega DAC in Exact clock mode)

 

His comments:

The 88k track sounded most natural, followed by the CD track.  The MQA track was least refined.  Listen to the massed first and second violins playing the fast notes.  The 88k track sounded the clearest.  The CD track was close and the MQA track was fuzzy in these notes.

 

The MQA track's slight fuzziness was probably not due to MQA but caused by the upsampling in the Aries, which is most likely less precise than that in the Vega DAC.

 

[Miracle1980]

Is it normal that if I touch the Aries is always a bit warm, even during sleep status?  

[scan80269]

Just now, Miracle1980 said:

Is it normal that if I touch the Aries is always a bit warm, even during sleep status?  

Yes, totally normal.  In fact, the power does not really go down when Aries is put to sleep.  I've observed this with current measurements.  The Aries can even download and install firmware while in sleep mode!

 

[Morph]

 

[Morph]

Didn't realise that clicking the grey line brought up the article. So here we go folks.

My first thought..... hefty price point!

[pl_svn]

and as all I need is a quality Roon endpoint... sorry, Auralic but... bye-bye 

[Naka]

I am a Aries Femto user and all my questions are about future updates for the existing model... meaning: will the more advanced new model will benefit from features that this current version can take advantage of?

 

I am very happy with the cost / sound quality of my Aries... but the new looks way better.

[mikey8811]

I'll pass on this one - it's too rich for me.

 

There is a SoTM SMS-200 Ultra and a Sonore UltraRendu coming up - maybe at not such big ticket pricing.

 

 

 

[mjb]

1 hour ago, mikey8811 said:

I'll pass on this one - it's too rich for me.

 

Agreed, I'll pass too. A femto Aries is already as far as I need to go. 

[m5sime]

Nice new review of the Aries in HiFi World - http://www.audiot.co.uk/userfiles/image/Auralic Aries_HFW_Jun17 (1).pdf

 

Very positive!

[mikey8811]

Anyone try the latest Beta firmware?

 

My library just disappeared after restart and it's doing a rescan. It has been about 7 hours now and still going slowly on 3 x 3 Tb network drives

 

 

[Doak]

39 minutes ago, mikey8811 said:

Anyone try the latest Beta firmware?

 

My library just disappeared after restart and it's doing a rescan. It has been about 7 hours now and still going slowly on 3 x 3 Tb network drives

 

 

When this happens to me I reboot Aries and restart LDS. This has always "fixed" the problem. 

[2string1]

On 5/17/2017 at 3:54 PM, mjb said:

 

Agreed, I'll pass too. A femto Aries is already as far as I need to go. 

To rich for my blood.. I like my Aries. I can't imagine it sounding any better. The only reason to change would be for the look...

[mikey8811]

1 hour ago, Doak said:

When this happens to me I reboot Aries and restart LDS. This has always "fixed" the problem. 

Thanks. I wonder what causes it.

 

I restarted and it seems to scan quicker now. Still hasn't finished though.

[pl_svn]

8 minutes ago, mikey8811 said:

Thanks. I wonder what causes it.

 

fw 5.0 beta doesn't play it nice with (temporarily) missing NAS/HD

my NAS is set to sleep at night and I had to also turn my Aries off, else I was finding the library emptied the following day

 

reported since beta 2

[Jay Tee]

I've also noticed with the current betas that Aries says it can't find some of the files in my playlists (and skips over them). This happens after Lightning re-indexes my music with whatever new system has recently been introduced. Hope this gets fixed soon since it's inconvenient. Otherwise the current betas sound fine.

[atletico]

An issue with 5 beta 5 version is all the changes i do in Lightning web interface will not save.

I do some changes from the "default" settings like the filter setting  from smooth to precise.  After playing some tunes I check the web interface settings and every changes I have done are gone and back to default both in the streamer settings (like disable the volum control) and resampler / filter settings. Anyone else noticed this,

The overall sound from this beta 5 version is very nice,,,

[mjb]

If you're running beta software and have issues, don't forget to notify the developer - which is what beta testing is all about... In other words: expect bugs in beta's, but report them.

[Morph]

So it seems that we will see G1 and G3 products as well. Interesting.