What have we here?
As part of a product line that includes multiple streamer/servers and a "lifestyle" DAC-integrated amp, the A10 is Aurender's first all-in-one model. Its single full-size case contains a network music player-server similar to the company's entry-level N100H caching music server, with the addition of what Aurender calls a "high-performance," MQA-certified DAC. The A10's all-in-one design and $5500 price should make it especially appealing to budget-conscious audiophiles. Those able to pay more will appreciate the superior power supplies, clocking systems, and noise isolation of Aurender's higher-end models, as well as their greater storage capacity, higher numbers of inputs, and other features.
Aurender is a South Korean company. John-Paul Lizars, the California-based industry veteran who heads the sales and marketing division of Aurender America, calls the A10 "the CD player of the 21st century . . . that distills a complex process to the essence of simplicity." That's a claim worth examining.
The A10's DAC, designed by John Kim and Justin Jang, uses the Asahi Kasei Microdevices Corporation's AKM 4490 32-bit, 2-channel chip, employed in a fully discrete and balanced dual-mono configuration. (The DAC's linear power supplies are also configured as dual-mono.) The chip has five 32-bit digital filters, and accepts data up to 768kHz PCM and 11.2MHz DSD. Due to the A10's implementation of the DoP protocol, however, at present it can process only DSD64 and DSD128 (5.6448MHz). It also decodes MQA files.
Storage is limited to a 4TB hard disk drive (a 5TB Seagate drive option is in the testing phase), while cached playback is via a 120GB solid-state drive. This two-drive system—in which music stored on the HDD is cached for playback on the SSD—is claimed to completely eliminate electrical and acoustic noise produced by spinning disks, moving heads, and motors.
An HDD icon appears on the Aurender's large, adjustable display as a new track is being cached to SSD. During this period, which doesn't last very long, ultimate sound quality is sacrificed. When the track has been transferred, the HD then goes to sleep to minimize wear, and the sound level returns to optimal.
One of the A10's many features is its ability to use its S/PDIF (TosLink) input to interface with a CD or DVD player, as well as a TV or multi-zone system such as Sonos. In such situations, the A10's variable output enables it to function as a preamplifier in an all-digital system. In addition, the A10's USB 2.0 output lets you send signals to an outboard DAC. The A10 can also play music stored on NAS drives via its Aurender Media Manager (AMM) software and the all-important Aurender Conductor app.
Both an iPad and wireless router are essential to operate the A10. Even before the Aurender is plugged in, users are instructed to download Conductor from Apple's App Store. (The Aurender App for Android is based on the iPad app but apparently has limited functionality.) After the A10 is connected to the Internet via Ethernet and the correct information is entered in the settings, the app should communicate seamlessly with the A10.
While some of the A10's basic functions can be controlled via buttons on its front panel or with its supplied remote control, all settings, playback, and storage functions are managed using Conductor, including music from Tidal and Internet radio.
If memory serves me, the handsome brown-and-yellow color scheme of the Conductor app has remained consistent since the days of the S10. When selections are played, album-cover art, the bit depth and sampling rate, and the file format (eg, FLAC or WAV) are displayed. In addition to Play, Pause, and Stop, you can Repeat a single track or an entire playlist. You can also play single tracks without automatically playing the tracks that follow. However, once you cue up a playlist, convincing the A10 to wait for your command to play music is a tricky business. Every time I chose my playlist or list of cached tracks, the first of those tracks, Yello's "Electrified II," would start booming away without my consent. Gah! This was not the shock my nervous system needed when I was all geared up psychically for hearing something very different.
Rather than tediously list everything the A10 and Conductor can do, I refer you to the A10's far too slim online manual and New Features in Conductor App webpage. While a huge amount of essential support information is available online, that section of Aurender's website was "under construction" during the review period, and what was available was outdated. Navigation was difficult, nomenclature inconsistent, and the product line included discontinued models.
So when problems or questions arise, Aurender's remarkably responsive US technical-support person, the Seattle-based Jesse Locken, encourages users to contact him and Aurender's staff in Korea via the app's Help feature. Locken usually replied quickly with a link to the appropriate support pages, which otherwise are difficult to find. If something needs fixing, owners are asked to leave their units on so that someone in Korea can check them out remotely, via the Internet, and fix the problem.
The last page of Aurender's 15-page Quick Start Guide warns users to follow a two-step turn-off procedure before they disconnect from AC power, lest they unmount or corrupt the internal SSD drive, thus "crippling or rendering the unit inoperative." Try telling that to the reviewer who inadvertently pulled out the A10's power cord while performing multiple listening tests and cable swaps.
When I did that, my heart skipped more than one beat as the disconnected A10 powered down, went very, very quiet, and finally, after what seemed an eternity, announced that it was rebuilding its HDD. But it had completed only a small percentage of that rebuild when it seemed to freeze up again.
Oh, no, thought I. Please may I not become the reviewer who broke the A10's back. Thank goodness, after another be-still-my-beating-heart wait, the A10's display proclaimed that all was okay. HDD rebuilt. Eternal damnation averted.
Setup and Listening, Round One
Aurender's Jesse Locken doesn't live far away, and he dropped by to help me set up the A10. My four-shelf rack was already filled with multiple dCS components and power products—the only space for the A10 was atop the dCS Scarlatti clock. After connecting the router and Pass monoblocks to the A10, we powered up the latter and inserted, one by one, three USB 3.0 sticks filled with high-resolution tracks into the A10's USB port, and used the Conductor app to transfer their contents to the A10's HDD. Tracks whose sound I knew well we arranged in a playlist I named "JVS Test."
After letting the A10 warm up a bit—it was already broken in—Locken checked that everything was functioning as it should, and quickly noticed that the A10's HDD icon was not turning on during file transfer from HDD to SSD. Without it, we couldn't tell when the unit was delivering optimal sound. Before leaving, he promised to check with Aurender HQ in Korea and get back to me.
When I gave the A10 my first solo listen days later, after the cables had settled in, the A10 didn't sound very good. Speculating that its performance was compromised because I'd placed it atop the dCS Scarlatti, I turned the Scarlatti off.That made a major difference.
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COMMENTS
"However, the A10's misapplication of the MQA reconstruction filter to non-MQA files stored on its internal drive means we must withhold a full recommendation for the A10 until this problem has been corrected."
This to me smells, to hobble anything that's non MQA.
Good on ya JA for not withholding it.
Cheers George
And a nice example of the importance of objective analysis when it comes to making sure things are working as expected.
....for warning us never to touch this thing with a 10 foot bargepole, let alone buy it.
First try it didn't work properly.
Second try it's interfered with by external equipment and still doesn't work entirely as advertised.
And also it is infected with the curse of MQA:
"due to how the A10 processes MQA, filter choices were no longer an appropriate option for this product. Therefore Aurender had removed the option to select the optional digital and analog filters from the Aurender Conductor app"
Value: I've got a Cambridge Audio near equivalent.
It costs less than a thousand dollars (though it does lack an internal hard disk, which I could buy for around 100 dollars or so and connect externally), sits directly on top of an operational two-piece dCS stack to which it is connected via its 'internal DAC bypass function', has a choice of three filters should you wish to use the internal DAC, works perfectly, and 'sounds' perfect simply because with their DACs bypassed these type of boxes don't have a 'sound quality'. And thankfully it doesn't have MQA.
Also I too thank JA (and JVS) for their honest comments.
(Note I have no connection with Cambridge Audio or dCS other than as an occasional customer.)
You stopped me "dead in my tracks" when you said: "bargepole"!
This proves you're a Brit, where else are people owning Bargepoles or living on Narrowboats ? ( I immediately looked-up on eBay to see their cost and availability ).
Hmm, but then, perhaps Philosophical bargepoles are part of everyday life for "all" Brits ( since the beginning of the Canal era going back to the Romans).
Do Audiophiles, in the UK, have "bargepoles" as part of their "kit"?, can you recommend one ?
I hope you don't mind me having a bit of observational fun with all this. After-all, this is the historic origin of my life culture and I've loved all the quickness of England since my too brief stay in Norfolk Broads ( 1980s ).
can you help me with understanding the "10 foot" part, it seems a bit long to take into a Hifi Specialist Shop. ( maybe they collapse like a camera tripod leg ).
I probably should mention that I'm relocating to Venice Florida and will have something floating on the Intercostal Waterway, sooooooo, bargepoles could be useful for all manner of.... ( even shopping for Hifi )
21st Century Tony in Michigan
ps YouTube has a wonderful weekly series : CruisingTheCut
That I've never actually seen a bargepole. I assume they are similar to a 'boathook' but lacking the hook :):)
As for canals, they are only used by 'enthusiasts' now but I believe they are mostly kept open by the 'state' because it's good for the tourist trade and because 'English Heritage' has to spend the taxpayers money on something more than just Stonehenge and the probably imaginary King Arthur to justify its existence.
BTW: I was thinking some more about speakers. You might have a look at Spendor, assuming they are available in the US. They are 'traditional' rather like the classic Tannoys, and are very highly thought of by those who don't want 'emphasis' in any one area. They are mostly derived from BBC designs (the long-term but now retired designer was a BBC sound engineer for many years) but are 'modernised' to eliminate the rather limited requirements (mostly 'near perfection' for the male speaking voice) the BBC liked at the time.
If I was buying new speakers they would be near the top of my 'must audition' list.
Hello from a chilly ( very chilly ) night of building a shelf.
I once owned some LS3/5a from Spendor, I was Importing the "Best Selling" little Rogers version. The Linn Kann also sold quite well. I kinda loved the ProAc Tablette.
Spendor make their own transducers as well as everything else they build. I have to give them "Fullish 5 Stars" for it as well as the other few i.e. Sennheiser, Genelec, Focal , DynAudio annnnnnnd hmmmm, who else ?
Thanks for reminding me.
Tony in Michigan
"The A10's all-in-one design and $5500 price should make it especially appealing to budget-conscious audiophiles."
What alternate universe do you live in?
"I salivate at the idea of spending $5500 on a complete system, let alone a malfunctioning *budget* media player..."
This has to be a facetious comment? I hope.
Even at $2k I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, unless it could play standard PCM without being molested with MQA filtering to make it (maybe on purpose) sound worse.
Cheers George
Maybe the unit was malfunctioning? I see nothing in the Manufacturers Comments area from Aurender. JVS and JA can update regarding this, hopefully.
All manufacturers receive pre-prints of our reviews, complete with John Atkinson's measurements. At that time, which is the first time that they are made aware of our assessments, they are given the opportunity to submit comments for publication. If those comments do not appear in the print / digital editions - they are not reproduced online - then they were either not submitted, or not submitted in time for publication. More about this I do not know, because those comments are submitted to John Atkinson, not to the authors of reviews.
Much thanks for the elaboration. In this case, it's an interesting data point that will no doubt raise the eyebrow of MQA skeptics (of which I am one) since this appears to be a manufacturer with their finger tipping the scale.
Maybe the unit was malfunctioning? I see nothing in the Manufacturers Comments area from Aurender. JVS and JA can update regarding this, hopefully.
Aurender declined to submit a comment for publication.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Aurender also has a software licensing issue they need to solve by the end of the redemption period, December 31.
Jason, I know you're not exactly a member of the 1% who think nothing of dropping $5500 on something like a music server, but that really isn't a price point you'd associate with "budget-minded audiophiles".
If you're the kind of person who picks and chooses between Mercedes, Lexus, Tesla, BMW and Audi when buying your 2nd car, then I suppose $5500 for a music server is the kind of thing you'd look at. But "the rest of us" don't have that luxury.
I've always said that "Today's $5000 wonder is tomorrow's $3000 white elephant." Products like this Aurender music player which reviewer tout as being a budget item at $5500 will be on Audiomart in 18 months with sellers hoping to get $3000 for it. Not gonna happen.
I think it would be interesting for Stereophile to research the budget level its readers have. Clearly there are many for whom products at this price point, and higher, are where they go. But what percentage of your readers are there?
Clearly y'all have been in business long enough to know that reviewing products like this is sufficiently entertaining for your readership that people keep subscribing, but really. Is this just entertainment for those who lust for things they can't possibly afford? The great majority of those I see buying outboarded DACs and the like rarely would consider dropping more than $500 for such a thing, let alone $5000 or more.
Sure there's a readership who are keenly interested in products like the Aurender, but it's a bit of a slap in the face for the vast majority to call this something for "budget-minded audiophiles".
I thank you for your feedback. I acknowledge, upon reading your comments, that "budget-minded" was a poor choice of words for a $5500 all-in-one DAC/music server with built-in volume control that, while hardly inexpensive, costs significantly less than many stand-alone premium music servers. I have now made a mental note to choose my language more carefully when it comes to discussions of price and value.
For the record, I drive a '94 Toyota Corolla DX that I bought used in 1995. My husband drives a 2006 Lexus that he bought used after conducting scrupulous research via Consumer Reports. (Well, mostly scrupulous. He seems to have missed the fact that it only takes premium gas.) Ms. Daisy Mae Doven is often seen at the wheel of both cars, but she is always reminded that, top dog though she may be, she is not Driving Ms. Daisy.
Nothing wrong with breaking a few things (like hard drives) or getting tangled up in cables. You are just "making fine tuning adjustments" to quote the Roadkill boys. Because after all you are going to be Roadkill or roadkill.
Good job on completing the review. I had one in my office to test. It didn't get through my first reference album Pet Sounds. No point for me to go any further.
Happy New Year from the most dangerous man in audio.
Stephen
Afte reading this review it wouldn't even get out of my local hifi shop, let alone to my 'office' or my home.
Not at ANY price, let alone 5,500 Dollars (which as it happens I can afford).
We have shootouts and testing in my office. Just pull back the conference table and listen. Pass away those 115 to 118 summer days in The Valley of the Sun.
and educated as well as bumping 50ish, with disposable incomes.
It takes serious money to participate in Audio.
As far as JVS and his old car collection, is this an attempt to emulate Jay Leno?
Geez, Jason prompts me to think that we need some Cadillac Adverts featuring Elton John, maybe even having Ellen DeGeneres driving and doing some sort of interview, something like James Corden has done.
Tony in Michigan
ps. those Toyota cars are likely to last you lads for the rest of your lives, the Corolla is the biggest reason for General Motors difficulties during the 1990's and 2000's. Keep them maintained and you'll see 300,000 + miles from each of them.
Did you guys have a "come to Dr. Deming" moment, or was it a long process of figuring out why Japan's automakers (who all followed a total quality mgmt system and its culture) had better results? I understand if NDA bars you from saying anything.
Also, to an earlier comment, Boston Acoustics used to make their own drivers too and I'm still rockin' a fully functional pair of T-1030's that I've owned since new. It's a shame that they couldn't continue as independant company, I was able to replace all my woofers in ~2006 before they were sold thankfully.
GM invested in Automation ( in the 1980s, spending 80 Billion $ ), thinking that robots were better than people. The Japanese were non-automated.
It wasn't until Steve Ratner fired our defective managements ( in 2008 ) that GM finally turned around and started winning J.D.Power awards.
Management was the problem and the solution, Japanese have superb managers .
I'll give you a 'taste' of Japanese Management : Scrap is repaired by the Plant managers. ( imagine a Plant Manager, Works Manager or a Plant Superintendent coming out to the Shop Floor to repair a Scraped Engine Block ! ) You'd see that kind of thing in the Japan that built those 1992 Honda Accords or those 1995 Toyota Camrys .
An even more significant factor in Japanese Car success is their 'Philosophy' for their Automotive Products having a "Durable-Good" life of 16 Years ( American Auto Industry 'Standard' is the 1950s designed 11 Year service life ). American Auto Industry is built around re-cycling car materials every eleven years.
So, if Jason's little Toyota was a early 1990s Ford, it would've been re-cycled at least twice by now. Of course I'm meaning : Sold twice as NEW, re-financed twice, insured new twice, etc.....
Well, Toyota is one of us now.
Tony in Michigan
I've only owned 2 American cars - a '76 Chevy Malibu Classic that I liked but sold to buy a 1980 Mazda RX-7 when I was 17 (you can imagine which was more fun to drive at that age) and an '83 Ford Mustang 5.0 w/ 4 speed manual (car after RX-7) which was the biggest POS I've ever owned by a wide margin. I swore off Ford after that car - the only car mfg (Ford/Lincoln/Mercury) from whom I'll never buy another car.
Any car mfg that wants my business nowadays has to offer a manual transmission in the car I want (I just don't like automatics, even modern ones), which mostly limits me to non-US cars... and no, tubes and vinyl ain't my primary or generally preferred source(s) lol.
Stick Shifts. Yesssssssss !!!!
You might be a 6 Cyl. BMW type guy. ( maybe a older one where everything is driver controlled ).
The 1990s Accords could also delight Neanderthals like us.
Shifting engages the mind and requires the driver to actually drive the car ( I think intelligently ).
You'd better find one of those greats and plan on keeping it because we're about to transition to Electric-Driverless transportation devices ( which I'll be using, in the form of Taxi Cabs ).
You are right about the "POS" cars we made ( all of us ), it paved the way for the Japanese.
Tony in Michigan
Intelligent? No.
Anyone who believes this box will sound any better than a 300 dollar PC with a low cost DAC attached has got to be a bit dumb.
And the same goes for all this 'high end' cables, Paul Pan power supplies, anything from Synergistic Research and their ilk, PC caused jitter, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum are dumb too.
Bits ARE just bits, there is no timing information in a file so the timing can't be wrong thus PC induced jitter can't exist, USB uses NRZI coding so 50% of the bits you detect with your 'accurate reference voltage' won't have 'leading edges' to detect, etc.
'Sound quality' starts at the DAC. Nothing in front of it matters.
The people who fall for all that garbage and the 'reviews' that talk about it all HAVE to be dumb as they are wilfully rejecting the maths and science that got them into their privileged position in favour of witchcraft.
It's why hifi is laughed at by GENUINE scientists and engineers.
There are folks that are 'Believers' , I'm not one of em.
As an Electrical Engineer I could prove that Wire is a hoax. That is until I had some Brisson stuff in my hands and tried to prove that it's garbage, I also had my peerage working on proving that wire doesn't move the Audiophile needle.
MH-750 took us down, all of us, phew.
Of course we were working with my highest level audio gear.
The point is, I think, everything has an effect on High performance audio gear & high performance gear is affected by everything.
Building a super high performance Audio system is an expensive hit or miss proposition. I went thru thousands of dollars worth of manufacturers products trying to build a Line of Products to represent. ( many products in a Company's line were duds )
Oh well...
...this conversation has been going for 4 decades now ( or more ). I suspect that we all are trying to defend what we've already learned and promote what we hope for.
I'd like to hope for Audiophile performance from the iPhone and to then migrate to WiFi Active Loudspeakers. I'll be happy to leave all my "Hair Shirt Audiophile" tendencies far behind me.
21st Century Tony in Michigan
ps. LG just announced it's partnership with MQA, for a presumed application in the Video marketplace. Phew, here it comes! Now, all MQA needs is the Movie Industry.
...for all practical purposes or a filter, which actually means it is inherently faulty..
And I've never seen a 'physics' equation with price in it.
The makers of these snake oil cables don't even know how they 'work' so it's just 'mumbo-jumbo'. Many so-called 'USB' cabls aren't USB cables at all as they don't meet the specification, as demonstrated by their not being allowed to put the USB logo on the connectors.
You can put it all down to some French guy many years ago who wrote a deliberately nonsense article about the 'sound' of cables.
As for LG, they have had this MQA 'partnership' for some time. To date their first (and only) product with MQA is an expensive and unsuccessful in the marketplace Android phone.
And they did MQA incorrectly so it doesn't actually work. Almost a year later they have not bothered to fix it.
I believe that was a second updated firmware "fixed" unit. Which didn't fix it.
Cheers George
Who in their right mind would refer to a $5500 piece of gear that is only really good for casual listening as
"The A10's all-in-one design and $5500 price should make it especially appealing to budget-conscious audiophiles.
This is an insult to those of us who read this mag for informative commentary. It sometimes makes me feel like you have lost your perspective on what gear is affordable to most of us. Remember we don't get all the high end perk junk that manufacturers send to you for inclusion in your reviews.
.....to anyone at all after this review :):):)
can't resist, can you.
:):):)
indeed.
If you were editing this, would you let this review go to print?, why?
Tony in Michigan
I like a steady income every bit as much as the editor and staff of Stereophile do ):):)
Any commercial magazine in any field depends far more on advertising revenue than it does from sales. But of course they have to demonstrate sales (on a website 'clicks') or they won't get the advertising revenue.
So:
They must try not to offend any one manufacturer or the industry in general.
There are two ways to achieve this. One is not to report at all on stuff found to be 'bad' when it is reviewed. This is the most common method. They 'excuse' this practice by saying we don't want to read about bad stuff, choosing to ignore that putting a potential purchase on our 'avoid' list is every bit as useful as putting something on our 'must audition' list.
The other is to say everything is wonderful, which sooner or later gets the magazine a reputation of being nothing more than an industry 'shill' so circulation (or 'clicks') and thus advertising revenue goes down.
Jason and the editor have chosen a more honest course for this box. Even so, it is obvious than Jason is, in his replies, making up silly 'excuses' for the problems he found, both originally and still having some problems after the first 'fix' did not fully solve all the problems.
I genuinely believe no sane person will buy this box if he has read the review.
Even more so as Jason said, in effect, that this 5,500 Dollar box is ok for casual listening but probably won't satisfy the more 'dedicated' listener.
One is not to report at all on stuff found to be 'bad' when it is reviewed. This is the most common method. They 'excuse' this practice by saying we don't want to read about bad stuff, choosing to ignore that putting a potential purchase on our 'avoid' list is every bit as useful as putting something on our 'must audition' list.
While this was how Stereo Review operated when the late Larry Klein was technical editor - he admitted this at an AES Conference in 1990, in a seminar on audio magazine reviewing - at Stereophile we publish a review of every product we are sent for review, regardless of how it performs. We also report on every problem we encounter - see the "Letters" pages in the same issue as this review.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
...after 70 years. ( about dam time )
It's now : Sound & Vision
Editor is Rob Sabin, previously from the Absolute Sound Mag.
Learn all about the rapidly evolving HDMI 2.1 "Standards" and all things TV. ( I haven't owned a Tv since the 1980s )
Inform yourself by watching "Pixels & Bits" where Sabin & Gutenberg "Spotlight" interesting things we all might as well 'try' to understand.
I, for one, won't be touching TV with a "10 foot Bargepole".
Tony in Michigan
Via our excellent 'free to air' 1080i digital broadcasts which have about 100 channels. And that's a very early morning UK fishing programme. On a 15 year old flat TV which supposedly converts everything to 720p, and the sound of which goes through my hifi system.
(BTW: I replied to your 'loves' post but once again it doesn't appear as a 'reply')
Zoffinger on YouTube.
A fascinating fishing series by Marty Zoffinger that combines a financial train wreck, kayak fishing around Tampa Florida, two dogs, losing a house to foreclosure and then living on a derelict ChrisCraft boat.
The Series begins in 2009 and keeps picking up steam and viewers. It's strictly one man project by an "able bodied" man who migrated from New York to Tampa Bay Florida.
Marty takes you into his life and into his kayak fishing adventures, all low buck, all cobbled up cheap stuff, all wonderful fun. Geez, I can do this kinda stuff.
Zoffinger takes you with him, along with 125,000 thousand others.
It's a hell-of-an-everyman-adventure !
This is about the best dam present I could give anyone, a realizable dream.
Tony in Michigan
ps. I just got a full Cancer clearance so I too will be on that Florida Intercostal in my Hobie kayak. The other option was : Oakwood Cemetery
And in addition to 'Stereo Review' admitting it both the UK 'HiFi News and Record Review' and 'HiFi World' have admitted doing it too.
So that's three out of the four you and I have 'checked' so far.
on the 'Chopin-Liszt' day afta xmas. ( the happiest day of the year )
Dear Sir,
Some of us ( the socials ) kinda live by the Say'n : "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" . ( my mom preached this )
conversely
We analyticals kinda live by the concept : "say'n things accurately is being nice, there's no other way"!
But then again, the quickest way to hurt someone's feelings is to tell them the Truth !!! ( my mom preached this too )
I suppose we'll always need Editors to soften the sharp edges of an ugly truth, won't we ?
Reviewing is a difficult thing.
My desert island gear loves are :
Sennheiser HD series headphones ( any from 580 to 800 )
Electrocompaniet Electronics
ProAc Tablettes
Magnaplaner MG2
Bruce Brisson MH750 Speaker Cables
iMac w/iTunes for the front end.
retired ;
all Koetsu phono carts,
any VPI record player,
21st Century Tony in Michigan!
That only applies to wives, girlfriends and similar. We don't have to live with hifi magazine editors nor they with us :):)
My hifi 'loves'
I don't use headphones but did buy some 50 Dollar Sony ones out of curiousity. They sound fine but seem hard to drive, only my Chord Mojo out of the assorted boxes I've got will drive them properly.
The rest:
Chord Mojo. When attached to my hifi it's indistinguishable from the 20,000 Dollar dCS Rossini so is vastly better than any of the other DACs I've owned or heard. And it only costs 500 Dollars. Sadly it's not really practical in a 'home' system as its three inputs have no switching but work on a 'priority' basis so you have to disconnect higher priority ones you aren't using at the time. And it gets extremely hot if you use it and charge it simultaneously. Chord say that's fine but I'm not convinced.
I don't have an opinion on Electrocompaniet, Pro Ac, or Magneplanar. stuff.
Any cable costing more than around 20 Dollars is a rip-off as a cable is either 'perfect' or some kind of filter. Mostly I use Belkin or ones with a fake Japanese-sounding name which are the 'top' ones from our Radio Shack equivalent.
Macs are fine in themselves but they are rather expensive and lack a good choice of software for almost everything. iTunes is terrible.
We agree on Koetsu but pricewise I drew the line at a 'Black' which is still in my now rarely used SL1200. The stylus is still fine as neither the Koetsu nor the SL1200 have ever seen much use.
VPI are among the best and sell quite well in the UK. But I don't have one and won't ever be buying another turntable.
The German 'Avantgarde' horn speakers.
Ongaku Ongaku Ongaku!!!! The real one, not the phony British copy.
I agree, there's nothing like a Horn.
Those Germanic Avantgardes seem wonderful in their incredibly effortless Power.
But, size tips the scale in favor of the LS3/5a. Small, polite, capable, family friendly.
Klipsch would demo their "Klipschorn Corner Speakers" with a 3 Watt Tube Amp. ( in the 1950s ).
I took a pair of Rosewood Klipschorns in trade for a pair of Meridian M10s ( also in Rosewood ). ( back in 1984ish )
Tony in Michigan
So they will sound powerful.
A wealthy acquaintance has zero knowledge or experience of hifi, he buys on price. He has an Ongaku and a pair of the largest Avantgarde horns.
It all sounds pleasant enough but he doesn't realise that with the powered bass units (which go quite high) the Ongaku is rendered somewhat pointless.
If he had any experience or judgement he would have matched the Ongaku with a pair of the biggest Tannoys.
(Both the LS3/5A and most Klipsch speakers seem to encourage extreme views.)
it's a beautiful SET design which I'd imagine will be delightful sounding, especially with Horns.
But, "imagine" is as close as I'll ever get as I'm told they cost $121,000.
I just had a look at AVcompanytours visit to Audio Note's factory somewhere in England. Phew is all I can say!
Audio Note make a Cie loudspeaker ( based on a Snell design ) which they sell for mucho dinero. ( $100,000 I think )
This is "Duke" territory, certainly not "Lord" or below.
That Peter Qvortrup tells an interesting story, dresses modestly, invests profits back in the Company and seems to have a cozy little working group of lads. They remind me of J.Purdy & Sons
A funny thing is how all these super high priced electronic outfits insist on putting their designs on the floor ( as if they can't afford a proper cabinet or beautiful plinth ). I'll be hiding the electronics from sight and controlling with an iPad .
Tony in Michigan
....except he shouldn't be using Kondo's 'Ongaku' name for one of his amps.
My plan was to first listen to the A10 by itself for an extended period of time. Once I was clear on how it sounded as an all-in-one unit, I would compare its DAC section's sound to the Brooklyn's
Is not a good choice for comparison as it passes everything, MQA or not, through the MQA filters, thus degrading the sound.
And as Aurender has deleted its usual filter choices from the A10 it may be doing the same thing.
If it is you will be choosing from two deliberately degraded DACS.
Is not a good choice for comparison as it passes everything, MQA or not, through the MQA filters, thus degrading the sound.
If you look at the measurements that accompanied our review - see www.stereophile.com/content/mytek-hifi-brooklyn-da-processor%C2%96headphone-amplifier-measurements - you can select other filters, not just the MQA filter.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
I'm not saying you are wrong, and I'm certainly not claiming that I'm infallible. So here goes:
I'm not personally familiar with the Mytek Brooklyn DAC and I don't know how many switchable filters it has because their website doesn't say.
The measured response on the website I got my information from refers to the Brooklyn's "standard" filter, (whatever that it supposed to mean). The site's measurements show the "standard" filter and MQA filter 1 as being identical.
I looked at your measurements and I see you show impulse responses, which you recently said are "illegal".
Of course they are, as they violate Nyquist/Shannon so the pre-ringing displayed is merely a 'false' artifact caused by impulse testing violating the Nyquist/Shannon theorem.
So I'm stuck.
Cheers.
I'm not personally familiar with the Mytek Brooklyn DAC and I don't know how many switchable filters it has because their website doesn't say.
The filters and how they differ from one another are discussed in the Stereophile review I linked to earlier.
. . . The site's measurements show the "standard" filter and MQA filter 1 as being identical.
But as the Stereophile review showed, there are other filters apart from these two.
I looked at your measurements and I see you show impulse responses, which you recently said are "illegal". Of course they are, as they violate Nyquist/Shannon so the pre-ringing displayed is merely a 'false' artifact caused by impulse testing violating the Nyquist/Shannon theorem.
With respect, you are reading too much into the term "illegal" with respect to these impulse response measurements. The single-sample-high signal I created and use is diagnostic when determining what kind of digital reconstruction filter is used. The "ringing" actually maps the filter's coefficients, so you can immediately tell from the measured impulse response whether the filter is linear-phase or minimum-phase, whether the stop-band rolloff will be steep or slow.
The impulse response measurements in our review of the Mytek Brooklyn reveal that your statement that "it passes everything, MQA or not, through the MQA filters, thus degrading the sound" is incorrect.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
And I must accept that it has switchable filters as you have actually used one of these things.
But how am I (or anyone else) to know WHAT to believe? The source I quoted said one thing, another source which I now can't remember, stated 'positively' that everything goes though the MQA renderer process, and another, though merely an 'enthusiast' in the tiny field of hifi, is one of the most professionally respected 'digital' engineers on the planet (who in addition to his other abilities, was one of the small IBM team who made fast fourier transforms actually possible), says testing 'digital' filters with impulses is totally pointless as it is merely testing algorithms known to be approximations and which DON'T allow for impulses, with test inputs that don't actually happen in 'digital' audio.
And as I don't intend to comment further on this subject, because the Brooklyn is merely an 'aside' from the A10 topic, I will say this:
Pre-ringing is impossible as it violates causality. So it can only be an artifact of our measurement methods. And deliberately using such an artefact to measure anything about digital filters when they are not designed to cope with such inputs is a nonsense. There are far more accurate ways to measure filters, even though they take longer. And something is either valid or it isn't. There aren't 'degrees' of invalidity.
It doesn't matter. Nobody would be here at all, nor read your magazine, if you stayed away from 'controversial' subjects. Your magazine/website are far more than just a 'buyers guide'.
Pre-ringing is impossible as it violates causality.
Apologies for sounding like I am beating a dead horse, but it is not impossible when you have control over time, which you do in a time-sampled format. I described how a linear-phase, sinc-function filter reconstructs the analog signal in an article soon after I joined Stereophile in 1986 and repeated it in my 2011 Richard Heyser Memorial lecture to the Audio Engineering Society. Scroll down the page to the color waveform diagram.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Though I admit I don't understand all of it so will pursue it further until I do.
And as for the comments on your linked article most of them are so off topic that "they aren't even wrong" to coin somebody else's phrase :):)
I see you refer to Keith Howard's "listening to sound quality". I have long held that it is not 'legitimate' to do this as we don't know how the final release would sound if played in the studio (or wherever they decided) on the studio's (or record label's) equipment
On this I have just been using Tidal (on a 10 day free trial) to listen to some MQA and non-MQA pieces using my recently 'upgraded' to MQA DAC.
On most I can't tell much difference, if any, but on some, notably some Tom Petty pieces, I prefer MQA. But they sound 'exaggerated' compared to the non-MQA ones. Although I prefer them I have no way of telling if they are genuinely more 'realistic' or just plain exaggerated.
Not sure who's shown greater gross negligence and stupidity : JVS or Stereophile online commenters.
Unplugging the A10 while it's on? Who does that to ANY computer? And then complaining that it took a touch too long to reboot & rescue itself? Aurender themselves sets it up for JVS, but he's still flummoxed. There's buttons to access to online guide and another in the app to conjure remote dedicated support : but JVS is still flummoxed. JVS : did you make any effort? Are you completely computer illiterate?
Should we believe anything JVS says after that display of gross incompetence. JA himself has an Aurender N10 as a reference piece. Not too hard to operate for him, is it? Michael Lavorgna does a review of the Aurender N100H (which is half of an A10) : gives it "Greatest Bits". Obviously wasn't too difficult for him. In fact : "Thankfully, the Aurender app is to my mind one of the better apps out there..." he says in his review. Why does JVS have such a hard time? And if so, why does JA allow him to continue with the review....?
Oh yeah, and then JVS : let's hook up an Mytek, which is better, but wait : maybe it sounds too warm. Which is it? If he can't decide on that, why should we believe ANYTHING he says about the sound of the A10, which he damns with faint praise saying it's ok for "background music". Really - are you so dumb you think it's just a pricey Sonos?
JA get's his panties in bunch over the MQA upsampling - even though Stereophile thinks MQA is great - oh and by the way - his measurements say the A10 seems great - even with the MQA upsampling PCM the time and frequency performance is great. And now : lo & behold : MQA can be defeated in the conductor app with a new update. Shouldn't you have waited for that?
Stereophile really needs to print a formal written apology to Aurender. EVERY other review of the A10 has been a rave. Every other review of every other Aurender piece has been very strong from Stereophile. But now they hand the A10 to review to someone grossly incompetent to review it & on top of that make a huge deal out of a technicality that was quickly resolved.
And of course, then Stereophile's usual mongrel calcavade of idiot and troll commenters delight, not knowing or understanding ANYTHING. YES : a top flight computer audio transport is every much as important as a top flight CD transports - and has many of the same technical problems (and many more) to tackle, and therefore deserves to be thousands of dollars - and when it also includes a top flight DAC as well - offering near reference class quality for $5500 - YES - it's a GREAT deal. If you don't understand that, shut up and go back to your (soon to fail / skip) CD players.
JVS / Stereophile : STOP being apologists for the price of these things. Just DELETE those comments. Very good things are EXPENSIVE - full stop. Don't like it? Buy something else cheaper - or better yet - just shut the hell up and get another hobby.
I'm REALLY disappointed in Stereophile. It's been a while since I've trusted it's writing on things digital - much less computer audio. From a gross hodgepodge of "recommended components" in digital with no rhyme or reason price or otherwise - to handing digital products to digital haters like Michael Fremer to review : every review "sounds ok for digital : but not as good as my continuum colibrium turntable." Digital seems to be a threat to his very existence - let's hand him a digital piece to review. WTF?
BUT : this "review" / hatchet job, was really the LAST straw. Stereophile : get your shit together. Digital / computer audio needs to be reviewed only by your staff who is qualified to review it. And when some stupid technical snafu arises, you OWE it to both the manufacturer AND readers to more reasonably resolve them. That is your OBLIGATION as PROFESSIONAL journalists.
And to handful of sad & ignorant Stereophile online commentators : shame on you as well : you're complicit in the mendacity and mediocrity as well!
Aurender software (conductor app) used to be good, now it’s very buggy, and rapidly losing ground to Roon. As a small example, consider the following:
1. In the past you could add favorite songs to the queue, and then save those queued songs as a playlist to Tidal. That functionality no longer works (at least for me).
2. In the past, in Favorites the alphabet was listed along the right side of the screen. To jump to that letter, you could just touch it. That functionality is now gone. You now must scroll through all the songs. On an iPad mini with 1,700 Favorite songs that can take a very long time.
3. In the past selecting “Songs”, and “Favorites”, one could easily scroll from beginning to end. Now only 50 songs load, and you must then touch “Load More”, reaaallly slow. With 1,700 songs you must go through this process 34 times!!
a. Now after you finally scroll through dozens and dozens of screens to get to the desired Favorite song, and then you select an action (say play now). You lose your place in Favorites and then need to re-load all the songs AGAIN (see above 34 different screens to get to the letter Z).
4. In the past, when you loaded Favorites into the queue, the songs maintained the solid (selected) star. Now some of the songs lose their solid star. So if you are listening to a song in the queue and decide it is no longer a Favorite, you can no longer deselect it, as it already shows it is deselected, though in fact, it isn’t.
5. In the past, under “Songs”, “Favorites”, one could easily touch a star to deselect it and thereby remove it from Favorites. Now the song just gets added to the queue.
6. I understand Wadax makes a nice server (Atlantis) that is both MQA compatible and a Roon Core. Now that Covid is over, time to find an audio show to take a listen and replace this very buggy Aurender. Isn’t convenience the point of streaming after all?
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