Auralic Aries Mini as "Endpoint": one experience

Audio Gear Talk Auralic
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Hifi Gear

I’d like to think of my overall 2 channel playback system as “mid-fi”. It’s clearly not high end. But at the same time it is a set of very carefully collected - on a budget - quality components, and should be able to resolved whether or not the Aries Mini (playing music from Roon) is any good. Going backwards from my ears to the sound source, we begin with the speakers…

Magneplanar 2.7 QR’s - Recently factory refurbished, then augmented with a large, quality custom crossover. They are on Myesound stands, that help appreciably by increasing rigidity. NOT your typical 2.7 :smile:

Nordost Blue Heaven LS speaker cables running back to the amp.

Aragon 8008 amp - not the newest version I’m afraid. But still no slouch at throwing a bit of current when required, at 400 wpc into 4 ohms.

Two REL T5’s - Set up as an alternate speaker pair to on the 8008, they take the high level signal from the 8008, yet draw almost no power from it, using it for and unaltered signal. That’s so the signal to the Magneplanar 2.7’s do not get run through sub woofer crossover. After receiving that low-current-drawing signal from the 8008, it acts as a typical powered sub woofer. Except - of course - it’s not really a sub woofer. It’s just a very musical woofer.

Kimber Kable Hero cable - connecting the pre-amp to the amp.

Aragon 24k, with external IPS power supply - a truly wonderful antique component. Constructed by Mondial - in their heyday - it’s a classic quality preamp design that could actually be afforded by the common man.
While I rarely turn the volume up more than ½ way (TOO loud), in a test the other day I paused the music Roon was playing, and turned the volume up all the way. Put my ear to the speaker. Silent. Absolute silence. Sweet. :slight_smile:

Kimber Kable PBJ - connecting all digital components to preamp.

Musical Fidelity MX-DAC - DSD playing successor/upgrade to their famous V90 DAC. I’m expecting even better performance with a newly arrived SBooster linear power supply. :slight_smile:

Aurelic Aries Mini – the topic of this blog – connected back to Roon over wired Ethernet, 100gbps. Connected to the MX-DAC (for now) by an AudioQuest Toslink cable for galvanic isolation.

NUC 4250U - Intel Core i5 8 Gb RAM running RoonServer on Windows 10 Home, with Fidelizer Pro. Wired Ethernet connection back to router.

Asus RT 68U – router. Pretty high performance router FWIW

QNAP TS 451 – NAS with around ½ TB SSD. The NUC regularly runs a process that reads every digital music file I have (all on the NAS), which causes them to be cached on the SSD. So when Roon pulls a music file off the NAS, it FLIES off.

iPad Mini 2 – Running Roon IOS app

Room acoustics a - square 20’ x 20’ room. Normally a bad thing, unless the square room has a 15’ vaulted ceiling – and the speakers produce line source sounds, as the maggies do. It’s a live end - dead end - room with normal walls behind the speakers, and a rough surface stone wall behind the listener. There are large sound diffusion panels on the front wall behind the speakers at the first reflection point. Were these not planar speakers, they would need to be on the side walls. But for rear firing speakers, they are positioned right where they need to be.

Power - the entire analog audio system (and DAC and CD player) are all on a dedicated AC circuit on my breaker box. Nothing else is on that line to add electrical noise. And every socket on that AC circuit has been upgraded to hospital grade sockets. And running a Sunyata Venom Defender to clean things up further.

There’s other stuff of course, lots of analog gear, and of course a CD player. But this is about Roon, right? So that stuff is somewhat immaterial, except to say I enjoy my LP’s more than any of my digital music. But that’s a different discussion…

With everything hooked up - connecting to my DAC over Toslink - now I need to find time for some critical listening.

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Testing Preparations

When I started thinking about testing, I had a BFO (aka Blinding Flash of the Obvious). Since both my CD player (used as a transport) and my Aries Mini both lead straight into my DAC, comparison A:B listening will be EASY. Since the CD player only outputs digital over coax, and since my DAC has two coax inputs, I’ll just need to make sure I have the Mini hooked to the DAC over coax.

I pulled out a number of CDs (plain old Red Book variety) and decided to re-rip them. I use Exact Audio Copy with AccurateRip for that. Normally if it reports a reasonable % confidence from it, I keep the rip. But today I re-ripped everything to make sure every track yielded a 100% confidence of accuracy. Needless to say, a number of the CD’s I pulled out had to be excluded from the test. But I got 100% confidence on all track from the following:

Midori: Live at Carnegie Hall
Eric Leinsdorf: Sheffield / Leinsdorf Sessions, Volume I
Kate Bush: The Whole Story
The Cheiftains: The Long Black Veil
Steely Dan: Aja
Patricia Barber: Cafe Blue
Santana: Abraxas

But just having clean rips was not enough. I then pulled out a few test CD’s I’ve got in my library, and played test tones - first over CD, then from Roon - and monitored a couple of different iPhone real time analysers. My primary objective was to ensure that playback volume was the same across a reasonable frequency between the two. And I was pleased to see that except for a decibel (or occasionally two) the volume remained consistent across playback mechanisms. That’s good, as I believe I’ve read that generally speaking, the same music played back at two different levels - assuming both are comfortable levels - the louder of the two is often viewed as better SQ. So it looks like I’ll be avoiding that.

This will not be the final test for me (I hope), since this will be the Mini emulating ApplePlay. I want to do this again when (fingers crossed) Auralic makes the Mini RoonReady.

Now I just need time for some critical listening…

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Thanks for the review @scolley. I’m sure those Maggies with the REL’s are quite impressive. I couldn’t be happier with my single T-5 paired with some Harbeth C7-ES3s.

Glad you are happy with the Mini. I was really looking forward to buying one but was put off in the differences between what they originally stated a few months ago and the price change/drop in android support at release.

I have a question about your NUC. Have you had any problems with it crashing on Windows 10? I had the same model and ended up returning it for a gigabyte version due to what looked to be a problem with the BIOS.

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Kevin, I suspect we are both in a happy place. Having great speakers (without being CRAZY speakers) that just need a bit of help on the bottom end. And - of course - we’re both subject to potential flames for having the temerity to even suggest that our speakers might need a BIT of help on the bottom end. :wink: Not sure about the Harbeths, but that BIT of help really is that for me. Got the crossover set at 50 Hz, and - though not quantitative per se - only turned up 8 clicks on the T-5’s 40 click scale. A little goes a long way with the T-5’s. But I have no doubt that you already know that.

Well that happiness is preliminary. To be tested further, but at first blush they sound great! But you gotta put that in context… I think my normal system sounds great. But make no mistake… I’m THRILLED that my preliminary listening does not subtract from the normal excellent sound that I’ve come to expect. At the Mini’s price point… frankly I’m shocked. In a GOOD way.

I guess I’m stuck between the delight that my hifi still sounds so good with the Mini in the loop, and the objective understanding that only A:B listening can determine its impact. That said… IMO the best thing that can ever be said about the Mini is that it takes away nothing. It’s NOT a value-add component. It’s only passing musical information along. The more invisible the footprint the better.

I did not post about it, but I had a brief listening session the other night. It was late, music was loud, and was after an evening of merry making. So I thought my observations were less than objective. :wink: However I did retain one written note, on the pad I was holdingat the time, “Listening to ‘The Chieftains’, ‘The Long Black Veil’, song ‘Dunmore Lassies’, and my back teeth are rattling!”

LOL - Going to have to go back and give that another listen. :slight_smile:

I’ve got to admit ZERO issues with the NUC. Granted it’s a dedicated machine, nothing installed but RoonServer, Fidelizer Pro, TeamViewer 10 to get into it from another PC, and the driver for my MX-DAC. And - of course - we have not compared memory and SSD’s used. But it just works for me. Lucky I guess. Sorry your mileage varied. Good luck with the replacement.

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8 posts were split to a new topic: Squeezebox and SqueezeLite Observations

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OK, to begin an update, I want to thank Carl for moving a number of posts from this thread to this thread.

I was delighted by the new version Roon build 88 supporting Squeezebox players, and thrilled to have my little Linux Squeezebox emulator running as an endpoint substitute for the Aries Mini. IMO it’s BETTER than the Mini, if you want DSD or higher than 16/44.1 support. Details in the linked thread. Granted if Auralic decides to make the Mini RoonReady, that differentiation will go away. After that any comparisons would be sonic, ease of use/setup, and economic vs. the feature advantage Squeezebox support has now.

Now the bad news… I sat down tonight for a serious listening session tonight. One comparing the Mini over coax to the DAC vs. my CD transport over coax to my DAC. And generally speaking - after a number of selections - I was hard pressed to hear a difference. But I wanted more music to convince myself - or not. And then the unexpected happened. My CD transport went belly up. Cannot read CD’s any more. At all.

Granted, this might be a transient problem. Maybe if it cools down it’ll work again. But for the purposes of this comparison, we both know that it is understood to be performance flawed. So any comparison would have to be regarded with suspicion IMO.

So now I’ve got to decide if I even want to invest in a new CD player, in this day and age. All my digital music is either sourced over the Internet, or ripped from a CD on the drive on a PC. I still buy CDs. I just don’t play them.

I guess that means - Sorry Folks - not sure if I’ll be continuing this comparison. Got to go see what a quality used CD player costs. I know I’m not shelling out a lot for a quality new one. No faith in the long term viability of the medium. Sorry.

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My CD player - that I was using as a transport - that bit the dust was an old Acurus ACD-11. Fortunately I was able to find the exact model for sale on Audiogon. Have won the bid for it, and will be picking it up the middle of this week. So should be able to continue testing later this week.

As a side note, I’m sure everyone has seen the fact that Aurelic has released a RoonReady upgrade to the Aries and the Aries LE, but not the Aries Mini. Hopefully that will be rectified in the future. In the interim, I’ll clearly be continuing my tests comparing the Mini over AirPlay to CDs.

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Just an update… If a sad one.

I picked up a cosmetically flawless replacement CD player today. Supposedly little used - even the original box was flawless. But playback of the problem CDs was worse than with my old CD player! So something’s not right here… CDs in question are either practically new, or maticulously/professionally rebuffed/repolished.

So sorry about the comparison delay. But have a little sleuthing to do.

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OK. This problem with old CD players not working is making me nuts. I don’t have the time/patience/money to have them fixed. So I ordered an Oppo BDP-103. Not too fancy. But for CD’s I’ll just be using it as a transport. And I don’t use CD’s much anyway - everything it ripped. AND it plays SACD’s. So should be able to start comparing again soon…

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Got the Oppo CD player. Both it, and the Aries Mini, have coax outputs. So I can hook them both up to my DAC, and continue a fair apples-to-apples comparison of Roon music over the Mini vs. the original CD. But I’m not. I don’t see the point anymore, because…

As everyone knows, Auralic recently upgraded the Aries line to being RoonReady EXCEPT they excluded the Mini. Frustrated at not being able to listen for the improvements RAAT might bring, I purchased a SonicOrbiter SE (SOSE). It’s nice, inexpensive little RoonReady network endpoint, with linear power supply and a USB connection. I should mention that I purchased a new USB cable, because when I hooked the SOSE - with the new cable - up to my wired network and my DAC, I started playing digital music from Roon that sounded better than ANY digital music has ever sounded on my system. Really. Hi-res content - in particular - sounds glorious. :smile:

So, with the Aries Mini being restricted to AirPlay emulation if I want to play tunes from Roon, I honestly don’t see the point of using it. When (if?) Auralic finally upgrades the Mini to being RoonReady, then it might be time to compare the Mini’s sound to the SonicOrbiter SE. I’ll make that decision when (if) Auralic makes that upgrade. But in the interim, I’m retiring the Aries Mini, and enjoying the awesome sound that Roon (and the SOSE) is producing now.

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Thanks for sharing your journey - really interesting and useful. Regarding SOSE, care to share your setup? I am interested in this litter bugger and may just be my entry to the Roon world. Cheers.

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Have you heard anything further about the Mini becoming RoonReady @scolley ? I was disturbed to read this recently in John Darko’s review of the SonicOrbiter when talking about available RoonReady devices:

The exception proving the rule is the already suitably equipped AURALiC Aries which starts life at US$999. The Aries Mini misses out, presumably because AURALiC don’t want sales of their entry-level streamer cannibalising those of their more deluxe offering. Fair enough.

It’s speculation by John, but I had presumed the delay with the Mini was a technical issue likely to be resolved shortly. If there is some commercial rationale for the delay I would be very disappointed in Auralic. For some reason they seem to think that they need to protect the “market share” of Lightning DS, a free program that generates no revenue for them. They seem to believe that HQ Player and Roon are somehow competitive with Lightning DS (even though no one substitutes these programs for one another). I hope they eventually realise that their true competitors include inexpensive multi-input devices, like the SonicOrbiter, and that being RoonReady and an HQP NAA are necessary selling points on which consumers are basing purchase decisions.

I just can’t see someone interested in the Aries Mini deciding to upgrade to the Aries or LE because it’s RoonReady. I would think it far more likely that they’d go to a SonicOrbiter or similar device. That’s what I’d reccomend.

I understand the original philosophy for the Aries was to “do it all”. I think they’ve lost sight of that.

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@andybob, there are a few posts on another forum I use, where users have contacted Auralic about the mini becoming RoonReady, and the replies were pretty much dodging the question.

This is of course pure hearsay and conjecture, but their hunches as to why echo Darko’s comment….

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Andybob, Steve above had more info than I’ve seen. However, I’m going to go ahead and break my silence on a point that I’ve feared for a long time, and that - as stated - we will never see the Mini as an EndPoint because it would canibilize other sales. Not sales of Lightning DS, but the sale of the higher end Aries line. In fact I suspect that Auralic’s even offering any RoonReady Aries now is a “pact with the devil”, in their eyes.

The full Roon experience IMO is a direct competitor to the entire Aries line using Lightning DS. Sure, there are some differences. But the biggest reason for getting an Aries - streaming digital music, and selecting it with a nice interface - is exactly what Roon does. And Roon appears to do it as well sonically, and better graphically. Why would Auralic want their products to help that product? They shouldn’t, unless it is a realization that they cannot stop Roon, and may as well make what shekels they can off the Roon phenonoma with the RoonReady upgrade. To that line of thought, keeping RoonReady off the mini makes perfect sense. People that are attracted to what they hope will be superior sonics will shy away from products like my Sonicore SonicOrbiter SE, and invest in what-they-hope-will-be a sonically superior non-Mini Aries product. Now here’s the opposing argument…

The pricing of the Mini is currently artificially high. If they drop the built-in Tidal subscription (presumably reducing cost to Auralic to sell the Mini), and price it closer to the SonicOrbiter SE (as the Mini was originally supposed to be priced), and make it RoonReady, THEN you’d have a competitive Roon EndPoint product. Heck, with Auralic’s reputation for superior sonics, such a Mini could become the go-to endpoint product. Sure, it would cannibalize some sales of the pricier Aries line, but it would also open Auralic sales up to a large set of people that would (could) never pay $1,000 USD (or $1,500+) for the higher end Aries.

My prognostication? Auralic will drag their feet on the Mini upgrade, trying to milk the market of any Roon user willing to pay the premium for the higher priced Aries line. When that market appears to be saturated, they’ll dust off the RoonReady upgrade for the Mini, and announce it with much hoopla and celebration, eager for the additional revenue it will bring.

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Ahh… I left out one major point.

Once Auralic milks the market of Roon users willing to pay the premium for the more expensive Aries, and makes the Mini RoonReady to pull in the portion of the RoonReady Endpoint market with less money to spend, they’ll also be tapping into a market that may very much be attracted to the DAC in the Mini. For those people, the ones that want a Roon EndPoint, AND prefer the Mini’s DAC to whatever they have (if anything) a RoonReady Mini could be an outstanding value vs. SonicOrbiter SE AND having to buy a DAC.

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I fear you are right and it’s sad. I would have thought that Auralic would maximise profit by upgrading their devices to take all popular inputs, the capacity to do that was a big factor in my purchase of the Aries. I thought it would be the last bridge I would need. I was also pleased to see the Mini when announced as a Roon endpoint and DAC combination. Even with the price increase I would have reccomended others check it out. Now Auralic has limited their Mini market to people who want an inbuilt DAC and don’t use Roon or HQP.

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I know the Auralic thing’s unconfirmed, but it crops up with other brands too - Devialet for sure, Naim are rumoured… there are others. What do manufacturers actually gain from a closed ecosystem? I sense I’m missing something.

When I look at devices with restrictions, I tend not to buy - learnt that the hard (expensive) way over the years, and not just in audio. To me, choice and customer focused features/updates are a draw.

From a manufacturers POV, even if they already have an established ecosystem, chances are not everyone will like it and not everyone will want to be restricted to it. Others might be looking at hardware that only supports certain things. By offering both they please everyone. In Auralics case, if someone’s in the market for a mini, they’re unlikely to pay the extra for a higher model for RoonReady, if they can get a similarly priced/specced device elsewhere. If they loved the manufacturers control ap or ecosystem anyway, they wouldn’t be considering Roon so it wouldn’t be a factor. Equally, if all they wanted was Roon, they’re unlikely to buy one at all if it wasn’t compatible.

I suppose once you get into multi-room, or lots of boxes, things are more complicated, but I still don’t see how you wouldn’t gain as many customers as you’d lose by offering choice.

Apart from brand ‘pride’ I can’t see the issue?

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I know the Auralic thing’s unconfirmed, but it crops up with other brands too - Devialet for sure, Naim are rumoured… there are others. What do manufacturers actually gain from a closed ecosystem? I sense I’m missing something.

Part of me thinks they do it to promote customer lock-in by using software to create a dependence on their products. That or they just refuse to acknowledge the deficiencies of their systems. To me it is a very shortsided view that may make the company a flavor of the month but sacrifices longterm and repeat business and the next thing comes along. While i don’t personally like Apple products i can recognize how good they are for many people and lets face it there is no one remotely comparable in this space that does both hardware and software at a very high level.

The other part of me realizes there are a lot of different types of people in this hobby and those who have the money and don’t even recognize (or care about) the limitations of closed box solutions have a lot more buying power as a group that people like us do. I agree with you 100% on not being locked into an ecosystem that limits both hardware and software. I won’t do it either but there must be people who will based on what is offered.

The good news, imo, is that i think our group is growing and the other is shrinking quickly. I really do think at some point soon many of these companies who are insistent on their ecosystem with be forced to adapt or will go under as the younger generations increase their buying power.

Apart from brand ‘pride’ I can’t see the issue?

Again i just think that it is hard to see that right now the larger market is the person who wants the simple solution because that is not the consumer you or i am.

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I think the problem for Auralic is that by the time they enable the Mini as a Roon endpoint there will be much better and cheaper products out there. In the meantime people (like me) who purchased the Mini with the expectation that it would fully support Roon will have abandoned the brand for another and be lost forever as an ongoing customer. I thought Auralic were a bit better than this but I guess I am naive to think they are any different to their competitors.

Lets face it, once you have used Roon there is no way you would choose to use Lightning DS.

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Jumbuck - IMO good point, and I doubt many here would disagree with you. I know I don’t. However, my intent was to set this thread up evaluating the Mini as an Endpoint, not it’s interface/jukebox functionality. I’m assuming we all agree Roon is superior for displaying/queuing/exploring music. However, it MAY still have high value as a Roon endpoint, if they actually make it RoonReady.

With my particular equipment, it appears that the value of “RoonReady” - which translates to the device using RAAT - is high, when using UBS as the transport between endpoint and DAC. I’m sure other people’s mileage will vary. But for me, there is no comparison between Airplay devices, and a network endpoint device that uses RAAT. It’s probably because I’ve got your basic well regarded $1K DAC that RAAT’s benefits are so clear (particularly over hi-res content) vs. Airplay, where the DAC does not drive the data exchange process. So for me - when using USB to the DAC - there’s little benefit to using the Mini vs. cheaper alternatives. However…

I’m not sure this case is closed. The previously mentioned benefits ONLY accrue to USB to DAC connections. S/PDIF and S/PDIF derivatives are a completely different story. In their case, they do NOT allow the DAC to control the timing of data exchange. So a burden of superior timing is placed on the network endpoint. In such case, it’s entirely possilble that the Mini is a superior Roon endpoint over a SonicOrbiter SE. I’m not suggesting that it is, but bringing it up as a possibility that should be tested. It’s possible that either of the two S/PDIF connections on the Mini are superior to the Toslink connection on the SOSE. This video would certainly indicate that it’s a high quality connection.

So where does that leave us? I KNOW that with a USB connection to my Musical Fidelity MX DAC limited by AirPlay limitations, there is no difference between the SOSE and the Mini. So for price alone, the SOSE wins. And when we compare the RoonReady mode of SOSE to Mini Airplay, the SOSE wins hands down. But do I know the USB connection to the RoonReady SOSE beats a good S/PDIF connection to the Mini? No. But until that connection to the Mini does not have the 16/44 limitations of ApplePlay - meaning I’m waiting on RoonReady status on the Mini - I’m not even going to waste my time on that comparison.

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