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Jermale Kunstler
so i recently got an Auralic Aries and have it setup to play music from my NAS in another room connected via CAT5/6 cable and I noticed the iOS app on my iPad freezes a lot and seems to be kind of slow/buggy. Has anyone else experienced this?
Is there something I am not doing (outside the instructions from Auralic) or should be doing to make it a smoother working playback experience? I keep reading about having to setup Mimiserver or other server player software in order to use the Aries with my NAS (QNAP and wdmycloud BTW) but I have found it works best so far if i leave the stock settings on the app the way they are and it is basically plug and play.
I understand the ios App is the only way to control the Aries (i have an ipad but no iphone) does anyone know if they have a web interface or other desktop app to be released anytime soon? seems quite limiting to force app controlled playback to one device for such a high end player.
Also thinking of returning my DAC2DX and looking at some higher end DACs. I think I asked this on another thread but what else is out there that is under the 10K mark USD but has more I/O and as good if not better performance than the benchmark DAC2dx?
Regardless you should not find the Lightning DS application slow or sluggish, I have no problem using it either on an iPad 2 or an iPad Mini. Nor should it freeze. That would seem to indicate an issue with the iPad you are using. What do you find slow or causing your iPad to freeze? Scrolling through albums, selecting an album, searching?
Once the Aries has been configured with the Lightning DS application, you can control music playback with a variety of software. You could use the Lumin or Linn Kinsky applications on your iPad, or you could use the Kinsky software on a PC or Mac. Perhaps you should try one of those to see if you get better performance?
$10k should buy you one heck of a DAC. I think you could search this forum, or many of the online sites and find as many recommendations as there are days in a month. I have a MSB Analog DAC, expensive, but it sounds great, the cost would consume much of that $10k. Others love the Auralic Vega DAC, the Chord Hugo, products from Lampizator, the Ayre QB9, the PS Audio Directstream, etc...
I did the same today, the relatively new feature of going into Wireless Access Point mode when on a new network and not having to locate an ethernet cable is great. I popped it into the new system, configured it for the new wireless network and was up in running in less than 5.
Hi all - thanks for the feedback and I appreciate the helpful tips. To answer your questions - - I have an iPad mini retina and my wireless network is dual band 2.4/5 with AC supplied by fios quantum 150/150 (in theory) through my Asus AC68U as primary and downstream via ethernet cable is the fios supplied router (wifi off) and airport base station. My NAS setup is a QNAP and a WD MyCloud (the latter works pretty flawlessly with no issues on any devices (including aries) but the QNAP is not as PnP as the WD mycloud and most likely is not quite as consistent due to the fact that I am new to NAS in general and there are so many services and settings within the device that I have not gotten around to fully configuring it. my aries ia hardwired to my asus an so is my nas.
Regardless, I think that it is possible given the plethora of ethernet connected and a few wireless devices all sharing a network without a managed switch and some "i still rent, therefore my ethernet is ghetto" cable runs in various places that the Aries may take a bit more time to load my library or switch between libraries/streaming etc.
I have found that when using playback from one library and without switching modes so to speak it is pretty flawless in operation. Not to mention it sounds great too supplying both my benchmark dac2x or parasound halo 2.1 via wyrewold starlight usb cable. One thing I believe I may have figured out is that I have many tracks that show up in my library (it is admittedly badly organized) and not tagged (?) in anyway so I do not know what file type I might be attempting playback of unless I remember what it is, That can cause the benchmark to give me a "no go" signal and perhaps some files the Aries has issues with distributing in one mode or another.
Another thing I figured out is that in uPNP mode and this was not glaringly clear to me in the instructions (probably just didnt catch it) that only my library is available from network attached devices and it has to be manually switched over the openhome ds in order to utilize tidal, airplay etc. once I realized that things were going a bit smoother.
i do find that when switching services (streaming vs file playback) it can take a few seconds and does sometimes require restart on the ipad app due to freeze but it is not a common occurrence and considering the job it is doing I would say better than expected compared to other media players I have used.
I think I could benefit greatly and the aries would be much happier (as well as the rest of my setup) if I had a more organized folder setup in my various libraries and had things a bit cleaner so to speak in terms of DSD vs FLAC etc. that is a priority on my "to do list" that I just have not been able to spend much time on. One reason I picked the aries is while demoing it I liked the ease of use factor and multitude of options in terms of what can be played back.
While I do wish it was not limited to the iOS application for the capabilities limited to lightning DS I am also realizing (thanks to folks in this thread and around the site BTW) that once set up it is fairly easy to control somewhat during normal playback from itunes or other music supported player. I have historically not liked iTunes due to restrictions on file playback and other reasons after years of experience in that ecosystem but I have not yet found a universal media playing application that is easy enough to use without a boat load of configurations for the average non technical/stupidly busy with work all the time type of person like myself. and rather stupid when it comes to mastering various technologies that I am currently using and expecting to work out of the box when I hit play
I don't want anyone to think for a second that I would give the device a negative review as it has been a great addition to my setup that filled a "hole" which was bothering me for quite some time. That hole being a network player where I do not have to grab my computer or by physically conencted to my setup while playing hi res music from NAS or other source on my two channel setup. THe only device I had before to accomplish this (with somewhat limited file playback) was my UD7007 which by far outplays anything I have hooked up to my system when it comes to a hard disk or supported file type but the GUI is a bit of a PITA and it is not really geared for playback of network files in my opinion.
I am not a common user of forums at least not until recently and I really have had a great experience at AVS and I find this site to be equally as helpful and users just as happy to help out people that could use it like myself. Point being, if i am breaking forum etiquette so to speak please let me know as although I read the guidelines and try to post appropriately I am sure there may be things I miss. for example if the "hyperbole of" my "title is a tad strong" i would be happy to change it - I was not under the impression it would be viewed as a review or anything close to it but as a constant user of online forums and other sources like this site which hold a wealth of information once you spend a little time digging, I can certainly appreciate that it could paint a rather negative impression by title, and interpreted that way by some passerby who are evaluating their next hi fi purchase.
Long story short i am still figuring it out in terms of how best get the music from hard drives/streamers to speakers in the most efficient and pleasant way possible which has been a bit trickier than I remember in the two channel arena when all your sources are digital.....not that i miss my avr as i haven't even plugged the thing in for days (once or twice for a movie with the wife). It has been since college (over ten years) since I had a two channel setup with no AVR as the central control so to speak and while the times have changed and technology too, overall it is certainly improved to say the least. although I still think I had it "good" with my old marantz integrated amp infinity alpha 50 towers in college when everyone else was moving to surround sound for their music (my setup was deemed superior even for movies!)
Sorry for the length of the post but I hope that clears this thread up a bit and please feel free to let me know if I should clean up the title or anyone has any tips about how to get my setup more easily available to the aries or in my music libraries in general as I know it is not optimal.
It's possible that Auralic haven't being paying that much attention to it, as most if not all Aries users will be using the OpenHome Media mode and therefore have less incentive to correct any problems with the UPnP mode.
Some owners of the Aries use uPnP mode so they can stream to their Aries from JRIVER. The latest firmware release for the Aries fixed an issue in the prior release that broke uPnP mode from working with JRIVER.
Hello TP and welcome! Very interesting details on your system. And yes, using OpenHome is the preferred mode, unless you have some compelling need to use uPnP. I see mention of the fact of using iTunes with the Aries, is that correct? If yes, I assume you are leveraging Airplay on the Aries?
To another comment you made. Organization of music files and meta data. Yes, as many others will attest to, this becomes much more important once one moves out of the iTunes universe ( as iTunes handles much of this seamlessly for the formats it supports, however some of that meta data is not portable to other music server ).
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