HI!- I’d like to get my Core off my laptop and was thinking the simplest thing to do would be to buy a Nucleus. My question is since my 2 endpoints are Aries, aren’t the Aries and Nucleus both doing the same thing?
Nucleus is a core and the aries can only be a bridge device.
I understand, thanks. But I could run USB audio from the Nucleus directly to my DAC and skip the Auralic entirely. My question is other than taking the core off my laptop, would the Aries still help improve the sound?
Yes, I think you can bypass the auralic… whether the aries sounds better or not is something you’ll have to try
The nutjobs will tell you that running the core on the same machine as the USB endpoint is clearly inferior and how would you ever dare consider doing that? In reality, you’re unlikely to hear any difference. You already own the Aries, if you switch the core to a Nucleus you can test for yourself if you hear any difference using its USB output directly vs feeding it to one of the Aries units.
The main advantage of the Aries is you can put the Nucleus in another room to eliminate any potential noise from the system fan or mechanical HDD (if you choose to install one). Those are both pretty quiet, though, so probably not something you will really hear over actual playing music at any reasonable volume levels.
The advantage of the Nucleus over the laptop is that it’ll likely draw a lot less power to run 24x7.
If you decide you are happy with the USB output direct from the Nucleus, you can always repurpose the Aries to create an endpoint in another room…