Aurender A1000 Network Player Review

Introduction

Time really flies. The last time I featured an Aurender product was in 2015 when I did a review for the N10 music streamer - a truly outstanding product. The A1000 featured here is a lot more friendly to the wallet, costing S$5,000 or US$ 3,500.  

As a quick recap, Aurender products are slightly different from the competition. Your music is stored locally - either by copying your files to the unit’s internal storage, or plugging in a thumb drive or hard drive to the USB port. Control and operation is via their in-house developed Conductor software. For best performance, music files are copied on-the-fly into an internal flash memory cache prior to playback. This means that you can’t simply stream your music from a UPnP audio server although you can play these files through a “folder view” mode. Most Aurender models are Roon ready while the A1000’s certification is in the works.

Aurender offers different levels of functionality from all-in-one units like the AP20 (just add speakers) to the two-box flagship N30SA that has separate boxes for streaming and storage. The A1000 is an all-in-one source, featuring analog outputs, multiple inputs and a preamplifier function. In a nod to video duties, this is the first Aurender product to include a HDMI ARC input, which makes it perfect for handling two-channel home theater duties.  

Technical Details

 

The A1000 is the new entry-level model for Aurender, slotting in below the A200. Curiously, the A1000 offers a few features missing from the pricier A200. Apart from the HDMI ARC input, the A1000 also offers dual-mono DAC chips, Bluetooth, a coaxial output, a USB input and a 12V trigger. However, the A200 justifies its price premium with a superior TCXO clock, double 2.5” drive slots, a double-isolated LAN port and a supercapacitor-based UPS. 

The A1000 measures 13.8x14x3.8 inches (W/D/H) and weighs 8.3 kg. As expected from an Aurender product, the unit is constructed from solid aluminium. A 6.9 inch IPS colour LCD panel displays the necessary information. A rotary knob controls volume while a series of buttons control the most essential operations. You can also use the supplied Bluetooth remote control or the Conductor app which runs on both iOS and Android devices.

On the inside, power is supplied through three toroidal transformers - one for the CPU board and the remaining two for each audio channel. Processing is handled by a quad-core 2GHz ARM Coretex-A55 processor. Internal storage is not supplied by default. Instead, a small tray on the rear slides out to accept a 2.5 inch solid-state or hard drive. The tray is secured by two thumb screws and you can have your drive installed in a few minutes without any tools - impressive! There is great attention to detail on the immaculately finished casework, solid aluminium knobs and even the cork-lined footers. You get great pride of ownership for an entry-level product.

The Aurender connects to your network via a 100/1000 ethernet port. There is no built-in wifi. Digital inputs consist of a coaxial, Toslink, USB-B and a HDMI ARC socket. A coaxial and USB-A socket digital output allows connection to an external DAC. The A1000 also has a Bluetooth receiver module (with AptX-HD support),

The DAC section is based on the AK4490REQ chip from Asahi Kasei, used here in mono mode. This supports decoding of PCM data up to 32 bits and 768 KHz sampling rates, as well as DSD streams up to DSD512. The A1000’s analog output is single-ended only. Cheaper products offer balanced outputs and much fancier DAC chips, so this was a bit of a surprise. Expensive DAC chips don’t guarantee good sound though, so I would prefer to judge the A1000 on its sonic merits. The Aurender does not offer any analog inputs, and the volume control operates in the digital domain, which will impact fidelity at low volume settings. 

Operation    

Setup was easy. I installed the Conductor App on my Android phone and followed the on-screen instructions. Aurender’s local dealer, X-audio supplied a 1 TB SSD to install, and I copied my test files to this via my PC. It is also possible to stream music via Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect, Airplay and Google Cast. The Conductor App is more suited for large-screen tablets, but I found it reliable and stable on my phone too. 

In operation, the bright display shows you the album art and track information, including the sampling rate. Rotating the knob changes the volume setting, and feels solid and smooth in use. The App provides a high degree of customisation, including fade in/out when changing tracks and a “critical listening mode” which claims to improve sound quality by shutting down all non-essential background computer activity and the front panel screen/buttons. The Conductor App is easy and intuitive to use. As far as streamers go, it is one of the better interfaces out there. 

One notable niggle - the HDMI ARC input often showed that there was no signal lock, even though there was sound. Sometimes, the wrong sampling rates were indicated and the volume behaviour was erratic. This is probably a software issue and owners of the A1000 should disable the preamp function or CEC control until this is fixed. All other inputs and functions worked without any issue.  

Sound Quality 

Conventional and outdated “wisdom” suggests that digital sources (especially streaming) sound brittle and lacking in body. However, music flows through the Aurender with a highly polished and confident tone. Bass is full, and there is no harshness that plagues the A1000. I was impressed with the coherent sound, quietness and the overall lack of glare. To use a well-worn cliche, the presentation is analog-like, with a smooth and rich flow. There is a full midbass and laidback midrange that made long listening sessions non-fatiguing. Although there is decent treble extension and sparkle, there is a slight restraint in the reproduction of air which made live recordings in particular sound less lively. This gives the Aurender a subtly dark and creamy tone. 

The Aurender does soundstaging and imaging like a champ. It offers a precise portrayal of sonic images, with decent width and depth. Separation of instruments and vocals is good, with a very neat presentation even during heavy mixes. Resolution is also above average. Subtle and fine detail in familiar recordings were reproduced competently. The warmth is not overdone and music retains a fair degree of “bite” and texture. An important note, this is with critical listening mode enabled - otherwise the performance level takes a significant hit.

I was pleased with the quality of the Bluetooth input too. I obtained very high-quality sound from my Google Pixel 7 Pro phone. There was also minimal lag, with videos playing with no discernible lip-sync issues.  

I connected a fully tricked-out Geschelli Labs J2S DAC to the Aurender via its USB output. My J2S DAC uses the top of the line AKM4499 DAC chip and is outfitted with a flagship linear power supply and Sparkos SS3602 opamps. The Aurender’s internal DAC sounded quieter, cleaner and more resolving by a significant margin. It is comforting to know that the Aurender’s DAC section is of suitably high quality and will be good enough for most users. Nevertheless, you can explore upgrading the DAC but be prepared for a significant financial investment to obtain meaningful improvements.  

Conclusion

The A1000 offers an excellent all-in-one streaming solution. Despite being an entry-level product, it performs well enough to satisfy most discerning audiophiles. My only reservation would be the glitches noticed on the HDMI ARC input. Hopefully Aurender is able to fix that via a firmware upgrade soon. Best Buy 

This review unit was kindly provided to me by X Audio, the local dealer for Aurender.

Aurender A1000 Network Player - S$5,000 or US$ 3,500

X Audio

Apex@Henderson

201 Henderson Road, #06-13

Singapore 159545

http://xaudio.sg

 

Aurender N10 Music Streamer

Introduction

Aurender of Korea is definitely at the forefront of development of high quality music streamers. The S10 was groundbreaking in many ways, and each Aurender model released since has upped the ante for it's competitors. Aurender's approach has been quite unique. It is one of the few manufacturers to use an in-house designed motherboard. You also won't find any onboard DAC - Aurender prefers to concentrate it's effort on streaming performance.  

Description

The N10 slots in just below the flagship W20. For us mere mortals, the N10 carries a significantly lower price tag. You lose some of the W20's features like the battery power supply, external word clock connection and dual-wire AES outputs.

Physically, the N10 shares the same indestructible build quality as it's siblings - that means copious amount of aluminum in those thick and solid panels. While the N10 is slim and quite compact at 430 mm x 83 mm x 353 mm, it tips the scale at a bruising 12 kg.

The internal power supply is a dual linear type.  

Internal storage is specified at 4 TB across two hard drives. A third drive, a 240 GB SSD is used to cache the music for playback. This reduces the need for the spinning hard drives to power up, and cuts down on unnecessary electrical, acoustic and mechanical noise.

A wide range of digital outputs are provided, with a dedicated USB Audio Class 2.0 output, and four SPDIF outputs (BNC, AES / EBU, coaxial and toslink). A gigabyte ethernet network port and two USB 2.0 ports are provided for network connectivity and backup / expansion purposes. The N10 is not wi-fi equipped.

The dedicated USB Audio output is shielded to prevent external noise interference and boasts an ultra low noise power circuit. You can even disable the +5V power supply if this is not required by your DAC.

Jitter is minimised by an FPGA based all-digital Phase-Locked Loop System and oven-controlled crystal oscillator.

For non-DSD capable DAC users, the N10 is also able to perform real-time DSD to PCM conversion.

In the unlikely event you have problems, you can even contact Aurender technical support for troubleshooting over the internet via Conductor (see below).

Help is only a button away.

Setup and Operation

Setting up the N10 is relatively straightforward for anyone with basic computer knowledge. A comprehensive quick start guide is provided, and should have you transferring your music files and playing your music in under 30 minutes (30 minutes would do the trick to transfer a few GBs of files for testing purposes. Huge libraries would take much longer, most of the time being taken to transfer data to the Aurender's internal hard drives). This assumes that your have a home network and wireless router all properly setup.

After downloading Aurender's Conductor App, you are good to start on the setup proper. Note that Conductor is only available for the iPad. An Android beta version is available, but with limited functionality.

Using either a Mac or a PC, you are able to access the internal drives of the N10, and transferring music files is a simple drag and drop operation. You can also play content directly from a USB thumbdrive or harddrive, or copy the data into the internal drives. The latter requires you to match the file directory structure precisely with the internal drives, and I believe that most users would simply use a computer to transfer the data.

It is also possible to connect the N10 to read data from a NAS. This can be done via a rudimentary navigation of the NAS file folders, or more elegantly using Aurender Media Manager ("AMM"), a Mac only program that scans the contents of either a NAS or external drive, and creates a database (giving full navigation / search via metadata tags, and with album art etc). Note that AMM can only scan and create a database for one external drive only).

Using the Conductor App is a joy - top marks for user experience. I especially liked the ability to sort albums by sampling rate or format (e.g. DSD).

Customisable settings for the Aurender

The AMOLED display has 3 settings - displaying a level meter (in either blue or yellow), or track data. It can also be switched off.

Sound Quality

The N10 was paired with my Totaldac D1-Dual DAC, connected via USB. Cabling included the JCAT Reference USB cable, and a Furutech FP-Alpha 3 power cord (terminated with Furutech FI-11 plugs). A generic Cat 6 LAN cable hooked up the N10 to my home network. I had no problems with either PCM or DSD playback.

As the N10 I received was fairly new, serious evaluation started after some two weeks of burn-in time. Slotting the N10 into my system (replacing my Auralic Aries LE powered by a Plixir DC power supply), the Aurender quickly established itself as the superior unit. The N10 had astounding bass authority, with considerable heft and a deeply extended, yet tuneful response. There was a certain richness to the N10's tone, with a liquidity and inner glow that was almost tube-like (for want of a better description). Nobody would accuse the N10 of sounding cold and harsh.

The N10 delivered good lateral rendering of the soundstage and decent depth, with very fine placement of instruments and vocalists. Resolution was very good, although the tonal balance of the N10 sacrificed a slight amount of detail for smoothness. 

Things got really interesting when I switched over from the USB output to AES / EBU (cabling courtesy of a modestly priced, but over-performing DH Labs D-110 cable). This proved to be a more ideal match with my Totaldac, delivering additional speed, more bite and a more extended high frequency response with a modest trade-off in bass extension, and midrange fullness. Although, imaging and staging were not as precise, there was more air, harmonics and life around instruments and the human voice. I happily did the rest of my listening via the AES / EBU connection. Normally, this would require you to give up DSD playback, but the real-time DSD to PCM conversion feature saves the day. 

By now, the N10 was pushing all the right buttons for me - dynamics, resolution, speed, , great imaging / staging, good tone, and most importantly - a great time listening to my music collection. In my system, this produced the more realistic rendering of instruments and vocals, with the right weight, attack and decay from the piano, and ideal balance between bite and refinement of the violin.

I switched out the N10 for both a Melco HA-N1A (an audiophile NAS that can connect directly to a DAC via USB - review in the works) and my Auralic Aries. The Melco sounded more polite and with less presence, authority and definition. The Aries had more attack, but overall less refinement and transparency. The improvement in performance brought by the N10 was quite substantial - and well worth the money in my opinion.

Conclusion

The Aurender N10 is easily the best streamer I have heard to date. Cynics who think that computer audio is inferior, cold, flat and lifeless, should really give the N10 a listen.

I will not try to make excuses for the N10's price tag. It is pricey gear, and even more so if you factor in the cost of a partnering DAC of commensurate quality. However, for top flight systems, it is money well spent. For more modest systems, Aurender has much more affordable models. This just leaves me with one frightening thought - how good is the flagship W20 ?

Highly Recommended

The review unit was kindly provided by X Audio, distributor for Aurender in Singapore.

List Price : S$ 12,000  

X Audio Pte Ltd
1 Jalan Anak Bukit
#01-01S Bukit Timah Plaza
Singapore 588996
http://www.xaudio.com.sg