Auralic Aries Mini

What to think of an Auralic streamer that costs less than a third of the Aries en only half of the Aries LE. Will it be Auralic enough? Auralic became known rapidly for their Aries streaming bridge. That’s not a streamer in the classic sense since it didn’t contain a d/a-convert. It needed to be connected to an external d/a-converter using SPDIF, TOSlink, AES/EBU or USB. There are two versions of the Aries, the full version and the LE version. The Aries Mini, on review here, uses the same Tesla computer platform and control software but is aimed at a lower market. In stead of € 1,749 for the Aries and € 1,099 for the LE, the Mini will set you back € 499. For that money it also contains an internal d/a-converter, but lacks a display, remote control, AES/EBU output, half the RAM and the unique housing. So the question is whether the Mini misuses the good reputation of it’s siblings or is a good offering by itself? The mat white or black plastic housing measures 135 by 135 by 30 mm. The top of the front holds three buttons, which functions can be changed between volume and pause or next/previous track and pause. Everything else is controlled by iOS app. The rear holds a 15 volt DC input, a network connector, two USB 2 connections, optical and coaxial SPDIF and stereo analogue out on RCA. All very simple and clear, but it is worth mentioning that the USB’s both accept storage devices like hard disks and thumb drives and USB Audio Profile 2 d/a-converters. The Mini comes with a 15 volts switching power supply. A panel on the bottom is held in place by only two Torx screws and when you open it and you can add a 2.5 inch harddisk or SSD. A mounting bracket, a Torx screwdriver and the necessary screws come with the unit. After installation the harddisk needs to be formatted, so there is no point in copying music to it prior to mounting. After installation and formatting, the hard disk wil be accessible over the network as a share so you can copy music to it. The standard way to control the Mini is by iPad and while an iPhone version is near completion, there is no mention of other os’ses. According to the manufacturer there are several other ways to control it: OpenHome compatible control software and uPnP AV compatible control software. For that you need to use a uPnP AV server like Minimserver, Twonky and for instance JRiver DLNA server. That will most likely slow down operation, for the Auralic Lightning DS control software is quite quick as where uPnP AV/DLNA often isn’t. Apart from that the Mini also supports Songcast and Apple’s Airplay via Bluetooth or Wifi. Installation is simple, install the app on the iPad and just follow the steps on screen. You’ll be asked what Auralic device you want to install, get instructions on connecting the Mini and fill in the password for your Wifi access. After that the install program will automatically check for updates. The last step is to tell the Mini where the music is after which it will start indexing your music collection. Depending on the size of your collection this can take considerable time, during which you do need to keep the iPad app up and running. The number of tracks that can be indexed using the Lightning DS control software is not published but my 8500 plus albums - 128,000 tracks - gave no problem. And if you use uPnP, there is no limit other than that of your server. In the app the settings menu lets you change the name, choose operating mode - lightning or uPnP - switch on Airplay and Bluetooth, choose for wired or wireless LAN, several reconstruction filters, digital out over SPDIF or USB, DSD over PCM on or off and the functions of the buttons on the top front. There are many other settings of which I only mention languages, where the choice is English, German and two languages that use Chinese characters. The settings menu also gives access to the on-line user’s guide. As always, if you’re not interested in tech, skip to the timecode below. Apart from the hard disk dock the Mini is not supposed to be opened by the consumer. But nothing stops a veteran, I thought. Well, not. After getting the housing open, it appeared that almost everything on the pcb is wrapped in metal as if wrap artist Christo was involved. The metal covering is not to keep out prying eyes but to avoid interference. A second metal plate is mounted below the PCB. What I could see is a five fold voltage regulation with filters built with capacitors and inductors. Very nice. The other thing that became visible is the tri-band 802.11ac Wifi board. This is the latest standard and not often found on streamers. Auralic doesn’t make a secret of what’s under the tin: a 1 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex A9 processor with 512 MB of RAM and 4 GB multi level cell SSD for data storage. This is where the database of your music collection is stored. The d/a-conversion is taken care of by a Sabre ES9018K2M. This DAC is a well respected design but, as I have said before, the way it is implemented is very important too. Just using this chip doesn’t guarantee quality. The build quality here is excellent, the only wires I see are two wifi antennas and the extensive shielding makes me hopeful. The Mini ‘eats’ about anything you cancall music: AAC, AIF, ALAC, APE, DIF, DSF, FLAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, WV and WMA containing PCM in 44.1 Khz to 384 kHz and up to 32 bits or DSD at 64, 128 or 256 fold sampling rate. If you want to connect an external d/a-converter, it will support DSD over PCM as well up to DSD256 when using the coax SPDIF output or USB. The optical connection is - due to its nature - limited to 192 kHz PCM and thus to DSD64. The app is very responsive, even with my large catalogue. As always it does some time to get used to, but that goes for any controller app. Remarkable is that you cannot only sort your music on artist, album, composer and genre, but also on release date, last modify date, last import date, sampling rate and file type. For those that like internet radio, a large collection of categorized internet radio stations are available. The category local does indeed provide me with Dutch stations.Tidal is also supported and after entering my subscription it was quite easy to find the impressive farewell album Backstair by David Bowie. To describe the sound of the Mini, I have to let you in with one of the trade’s secrets: manufacturers make a distinction between ‘normal people’ and audiophiles. There are even large manufacturers that have speaker lines for both markets. It’s not that they put all their qualities in the audiophile products while putting less effort in with products for normal people. It’s more like car manufacturers make family cars and sports cars. Family cars are for traveling with all family members in ease and comfort while sports cars are for performance and entertainment. The Aries Mini clearly is the sports car type. The sound using the analogue outputs is analytic and spacious, it will set your auditory system to work. It sounds more ‘high-end’ than its competitors which makes it a less preferred choice for my € 700 Set 3. There a Bluesound Node 2 produces a more comfortable sound. But in the € 3,000 Set 2 is it the better choice, although it will scale in at the lower end . And then another ‘high-end’ property of the Mini comes to aid: tweak ability. Replace the standard power supply for my favorite linear power supply, the SBooster Best of Two Worlds and you’re up to almost middle Set 2 quality. Connecting the Chord Hugo DAC brought it in the upper regions of my Set 2. By the way, go to theHBproject.com/en/about for a full description of my reference sets. Let’s take a look at the competition. The Sonos Connect is an antiquated design that is limited in number of tracks that can be indexed and sampling rates and does no DSD. The Raspberry Pi using the HifiBerry DAC+ Pro with proper linear power supply doesn’t have these limitations. It sounds better on normal cd-quality files than the Sonos and offers higher sampling rates and DSD too. But you do need to be handy with computers and a soldering iron to make it work as I described in a separate video - see the link in the top right corner. If sound quality is priority, the only ready to use product that comes close to the Mini is the Bluesound Node 2. It is limited in sampling rate - but who uses sampling rates higher than 192 kHz? It doesn’t do DSD - which might be a limitation to some, just like the approximately 3.500 cd capacity of the memory. Having said that, it does have inputs that can be shared over the network, has six presets and supports more streaming services, including those that do MP3. See the top right corner for a link to the review of the Node. To use the metaphor again: the Bluesound Node 2 is a very good, versatile family saloon. The Auralic Aries Mini doen’t support MP3 streaming services, has no input to share over the network but has very fast 802.11ac tri-band wifi, does Airplay and Songcast, supports up to 384 kHz sampling and DSD256, supports DoP to send DSD to an external d/a-converter, has an external power supply that can be upgraded. And, like the Bluesound Node, it will support MQA as a free update as soon as it is released by MQA It will be clear that the Auralic Aries Mini is the sports car here. It is the more audiophile product at an affordable price. You can start with the Mini only and over time improve it with a better power supply and external d/a-converter - in that order. People that hate computer equipment switched on to play music, can have a hard disk or SSD built in for the cost of the hard disk only. 2.5 inch drives come in capacities up to 2 TB for only slightly more than € 100. SSD’s with that capacity come at prices from € 660 upwards. 2 TB can hold about 4.000 cd’s in FLAC or ALAC. The Aries Mini isn’t the average Joe product, it’s a true high-end product at a non-high-end price that will please any connaisseur, including myself. It makes me curious how much better the Aries sounds so that’s put on my review list for the coming time. So if you want to remain informed, subscribe to this channel, follow my Facebook or Google+ page or my Twitter account. You can also post questions there. You’ll find the information below this video in Youtube. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up and tell your friends on the web about it. I am Hans Beekhuyzen for the HB Channel, thank you for watching and see you the next show or on theHBProject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.