Lumin X1 vs P1 vs T3

[sidvee]

I have the Hifi Rose RS250 and I can tell you this is true. I use multiple external dacs, never the internal DAC of the Rose which is meh. I have ABed the Rose with an Aurender N150. Aurender is clearly better sounding even in casual listening, though I am not sure if it's artificially processed smoothness or just better as a streamer. But the Rose has too many good features to give up. Album art on the project screen is a BIG plus for me, totally adds to the experience of the music.

I also found the Aurender N100H sounded superior to the Hifi Rose RS250. There was more resolution of details and airier presentation in the sound from the N100H whereas the Hifi Rose sounded veiled.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[kib_reddy]

Yes. The Aurender is airier. I was shocked to discover streamers make more of a difference to sound quality than modern DACs. I think most of the modern DACs sound pretty good and Streamers have become the bottle neck now. But I am not sure the Air we are hearing is natural or 'in the recording' Aurender seems to be 'polishing' the signal. I say this because, there were tracks where I felt the Rose sounded more natural and Aurenders sounds like it has this distracting MSG reverb added in. I tested both with my Fractle DAC over USB.

 

[chander]

Yes. The Aurender is airier. I was shocked to discover streamers make more of a difference to sound quality than modern DACs. I think most of the modern DACs sound pretty good and Streamers have become the bottle neck now. But I am not sure the Air we are hearing is natural or 'in the recording' Aurender seems to be 'polishing' the signal. I say this because, there were tracks where I felt the Rose sounded more natural and Aurenders sounds like it has this distracting MSG reverb added in. I tested both with my Fractle DAC over USB.

Offtopoic, but love that screen

 

[sidvee]

Yes. The Aurender is airier. I was shocked to discover streamers make more of a difference to sound quality than modern DACs. I think most of the modern DACs sound pretty good and Streamers have become the bottle neck now. But I am not sure the Air we are hearing is natural or 'in the recording' Aurender seems to be 'polishing' the signal. I say this because, there were tracks where I felt the Rose sounded more natural and Aurenders sounds like it has this distracting MSG reverb added in. I tested both with my Fractle DAC over USB.

I doubt if Aurender is adding anything. It is just more resolving, for instance details in a recording are more readily heard. The Rose is good but a lot of micro details in a recording are hidden. If anything, I think the rose is coloring the sound. Anyways just my opinion, I may be wrong.
Sorry for OT to the OP.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[kib_reddy]

Offtopoic, but love that screen

Absolutely gorgeous screen, even better is the hdmi out with album art. You can get your McIntosh meters fix also with that screen, looks very real. Very good user interface too on the app. If only it has Android TV/Chromecast it would be PERFECT.

 

[kib_reddy]

I doubt if Aurender is adding anything. It is just more resolving, for instance details in a recording are more readily heard. The Rose is good but a lot of micro details in a recording are hidden. If anything, I think the rose is coloring the sound. Anyways just my opinion, I may be wrong.
Sorry for OT to the OP.
Cheers,
Sid

HifiRose is a consumer grade product, which is fine, has an awesome interface and use case. But Aurender's architecture is next level. It has a very serious capacitor based soft shutdown power supply for electrical isolation (Rose uses a toroidal transformer), it writes all the streaming music into it hard disk before playback for isolation. Even the screen is a low noise OLED display. Was very impressed with the engineering when I did my research.