Sad. My Aries is a great product.
.sjb
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Wang wants to spend more time racing sportscars. We wish to sell our Auralic Ares G2 streamer and not certain what the end of the company does for the retail sales value. Likely, we shall try to find a U.S. shop that takes trades like TMRaudio.
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I am not in the camp that wants to sell my Aries 2.2 because Auralic is going away. Mine works great. It will likely keep working long after Auralic is a memory. Maybe in a few years but certainly not today. Who knows, maybe someone buys them and keeps the doors open. Too early to sell.
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Another nail In the coffin:
https://stereonet.com/news/auralic-ceases-trading-effective-immediately
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I was an Auralic owner early in my digital audio/streaming journey, but even then they were starting to get squeezed between the low end (whether increasingly functional PC/Mac solutions, low-cost Pi-based streamers, or mass market newcomers like WiiM), and high-end solutions like Linn (which is what I use for my active speaker systems). Developing and maintaining the complex software stack in a streamer requires either massive sales (WiiM) or nosebleed prices (Linn), not the least because you are competing for systems software talent with big tech, major mobile phone vendors, and aerospace/defense.
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Sad. I’ve owned a Vega S1 for fewer than 14 days. I’m going to return it. Feels like storing up problems for the future otherwise. Lumin D3 or Naim ND5 XS 2 are the alternatives I can afford, I reckon.
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I suggested elsewhere that Harman International—owner of Roon—could purchase Auralic’s IP (only $2 million according to stereonet.com) and keep the brand afloat. I predict someone will scoop it up.
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Definitely a shame.
One of my earliest streaming server experience was with an Auralic Aries Mini that I fitted out with an internal 2TB drive.
Thing was hardly larger than the drive itself but it worked flawlessly and introduced me to the world of streaming music.
You can still pick them up for well under $400 .
Damn their Vega DACs have been state of the art objective performers from the beginning. Wang is a seriously smart dude. Shame to see this brand go.
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I’ve loved my Auralic DACs and Streamers. I had the original Aries and Vega, the Aries Mini, and the Aries G2. They work well and they sound great. They started right as I got into hifi and it’d be crushing to see them exit the industry. But I agree with the other post. I believe the streamers and DACs will continue to work for a long time and I won’t be selling any time soon.
I actually posed a question a few years ago about hardware being always compatible with Roon even if a company goes out of business. The answer from Danny seemed to be yes. So I don’t expect it to stop working but there certainly won’t be any updates.
Maybe if it doesn’t sell Auralic can make it open source and allow the community to keep the software end alive.
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Auralic’s prices were skyrocketing well before the tariffs and while they made good products IMO they were highly overpriced.
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Interesting observation. Have you actually heard an Auralic product or are you just judging it based on the price? What is it that you like that out performs an Auralic product but costs less that you have actually heard?
I had two original Auralic Aries and one G1 . All had problems with internet connectivity and the G1 had power issues where I had to unplug it from the wall socket and plug back in occasionally.
An WiiM ultra stream at significantly cheaper usb /coax
out is just as good as a streamer with much less software glitches .
Eversolo too .Even ifi zen stream with a good power supply sounded just as good.
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It’s a sad time (we hope someone does pick it up)
I sold my Aries G2.2 not too long ago waiting for a used G3. Unsure now though. I really wanted to see if it was worth the money.
I’ve since bought a Matrix NT-1 and their switch that I run fiber to and I must say, for the little money (compared to a G3) in my system it’s better than the G2
I still want to try out a G3 some day. I do love Auralic products though
Aries Mini is still functioning well delivering Roon through WiFi. I still haven’t identified a better choice than the 802.11ac Tri-Band WiFi connection that is still working well after 9+ years. Most brands don’t put any effort into a solid WiFi connection, promoting wired for best practice. I use wired for my 3 other endpoints, but this has been very useful.
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That’s something I’ve always loved about my Auralic gear is that the Wi-Fi has always worked extremely well. So many products fail at being able to “just work”. If the Wi-Fi sucks it doesn’t matter how good it sounds, it ruins the experience.
That was never my experience with the original Auralic Aries. It had connectivity problems using the iphone app. I sold it years ago and had to explain to the buyer for a 1/2 hour all the tricks to get it to connect to the iphone. Turning off wifi on iphone and turning back on, restarting the iphone, deleting the iphone app and reinstalling ,etc. It didn’t matter what apple device you were using.
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Ah did you replace the WiFi card? They originally used a card from intel that went defective. They did an update to allow replacing the card with a different (updated) one. Replacing the card was pretty straightforward. I had similar issues but then replacing the card did the trick
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I did not .Did Auralic pay you for the replacement WiFi card ?