Does Roon make my Auralic Aries G1 a mere Ethernet to USB converter?

Audio Gear Talk Auralic
1

I am a newbie to Roon.
This was my setup before Roon, working with LDS:

Router/switch>Ethernet>NetgearSwitch>Auralic Aries G1>USB>DAC

With Roon:

Router/WiFi>MacMini M1 Roon Core>WiFi>router/switch>Ethernet>NetgearSwitch>Auralic Aries G1>USB>DAC

The NetgearSwitch is just used to connect other equipment to the internet and LAN.

To say it upfront: it is working flawlessly and I am quite satisfied.

Just wondering: the Auralic being a rather feature heavy streamer on its own account, what does Roon make of it? A RAAT device? An endpoint? What does Roon Ready mean here? Is the buffer still used?

LDS before was, besides occasional stability issues, working well. The extra Roon features just blew me away and I think I will stay with it.

But is my Auralic now downgraded a lot?

Thanks for your answers,

Hans.

2

Well, you are not using the built-in streamer features, that’s correct.

I have the same issue with my Bryston BDA-3.14. But I think of it this way: the network interface is excellent, the DAC is excellent, and the analog output stage is excellent. I was happy to pay for just those. But in addition, I have an insurance policy: if Roon ever stops working for whatever reason, I can always fall back on the built-in streamer software and still be just fine.

If you think of your Auralic G1 that way, it might help! :slight_smile:

PS: Welcome to the Roon forum.

3

FWIW, Xuanqian has said that SQ between LDS and Roon is equivalant as of several FW updates ago.

4

Your Aries G1 gives you an excellent quality, good sounding Roon Endpoint. Nothing wrong with that.

5

It’s still a digital transport in any of those permutations. Your just missing out it’s internal music server capabilities to itself. It’s still using the G1 audio processing and internal DSP which all streamers have to some degree.

6

Thank you for your Answer, Thomas, very reassuring.

Hans.

7

Concerning the SQ: I am having no points although not thoroughly tested yet. Sound is good, both ways.
Thanks, Pete.

8

Thank you, Alan, Gives me peace of mind.
Hans.

9

I understand that better now, thank you Simon.

10

I also have a question regarding the “MQA decoder function” in Auralic LDS. When I use Auralic with LDS as a streamer it can do their own processing of MQA, but when I use my Aries with Roon the MQA processing is done by Roon. How can I disable the function in Roon and let Auralic do it? Is it possible or is it bypassed by Roon?

11

This is how I use my Aries G2 and I would argue even at that higher price point it’s worth it.

Some people here in the forum will say that any streamer is good enough and that you have in fact wasted your money. After trying the Allo USbridge Signature for a week I will say that my Auralic makes a significant and noticeable improvement in music reproduction to my ears. While I kind of wished it was true that any streamer would do (and sell my Auralic) in my experience it isn’t.

I’m not entirely sure about this but I do think the unfolding must be done by the software if you do not send it to a MQA DAC. So if Roon would pass on the signal it would need to be to something that was authorized as MQA hardware.

While I’m trying to avoid the MQA debate I will say that I have turned off MQA unfolding and try to listen to the non-MQA files. I have never really experienced any benefits that I could pinpoint blindly or otherwise. (Also tried for two weeks with high-end MQA certified DAC/Streamer with MQA vs. regular FLAC or DSD without any positive results for MQA.) Ok, so I kind of did enter a debate, but only on this topic few will find :wink: