Internet players or "streaming media players" are currently the most practical and convenient way to listen to music. Even those who pay attention to sound quality have long realized that in this sense, streaming services are at least as good as CDs, and the number of online recordings can make any music lover happy. With that, what else do you want? Put a single source into your system, connect to the internet and enjoy!
But there are always some particularly attentive and bored people who will find the proposed solution seriously flawed, which are basically impossible obstacles! I have been surprised more than once by the situation I encountered. For example, when the recordings of my favorite streaming service bands were only published in post-remastered publications, the sound was very different from the cozy and warm sound of the first edition. We also have to face the fact that the desired album or even the artist is not in the online catalog at all.
In this case, you don't want to flash the web from a CD player - it completely ruins the minimalism and ease of use of the home system. Copying existing CD versions with the help of a computer and pouring them on a home server is a special and long-forgotten process that requires special "hardware", software and a lot of time consumption. In this case, only a device that incorporates all the necessary functions is the best solution, and luckily there are several suitable devices on the Hi-Fi market, such as the Aurender ACS100.
Aurender is one of the few companies that can successfully combine significantly incompatible devices in one product: file storage servers and high-end digital players. Over time, this technological marvel was achieved by separating these two functions.
At the moment of music playback, the server part that is a potential source of interference stops completely and goes to sleep. This happens even when playing music stored in the memory of Aurender itself: all data is pre-recorded in buffers placed on low-noise SSDs.
When the music is not playing, the server part can be used for any file operation, just like a normal home NAS. Several Aurender devices, including the ACS100, have CD gripper in addition to server and player functions. This option works the same - outside of other processes.
The manufacturer takes quality issues so seriously that the possibility of improper use of the device is ruled out. For example, the internal slot drive TEAC is only designed to read data from disk into device memory. It is impossible to listen to music directly from the disk, since in this playback case read errors can occur and the drive itself will become a source of various interferences. In a word – this is operationally perfectionist.
The ACS100 network player is the youngest of Aurender's three models capable of reading CDs. And it is the only device with this feature, in a compact package with a half-width front of the standard components. Not only does this size look cute, but it's also perfect for minimalist placements that can fit inside an IKEA rack if needed.
It is worth noting that, despite its modest dimensions, the server section is hardly affected by it: there are two slots on the back of the device for 2.5-inch SATA drives. If you don't arrange a mirrored RAID array, then with two drives (HDD or SSD), you can organize 8 TB of storage capacity – enough space even for storing audio files.
The width of the front panel has been reduced only because the traditional four control buttons are no longer the usual square, but a vertical line. In this case, the design was changed for practical reasons: the LCD display, which occupies most of the front panel, is used to indicate button functions, which may differ from the menu position you are in. In short, it cannot be any other form.
The material and structural quality of the cabinet is impeccable - the aesthetes find it pleasing to the eye, perfectionists very happy, engineers respectful. Everything is smooth, symmetrical, neat, without gaps, without distortions, without any other signs of "craft" and small-scale production. On this product, regardless of the value and level of the model, Aurender shows its trademark value.
The process of "grabbing tracks" discs is another point where you can have the most fun. Perhaps some readers remember the days when audiophiles and music lovers were looking for a Plextor or TEAC optical drive and setting up their home computer to read CDs in high quality. The CD reading procedure is the most important step: the hardware must be calibrated and the program must be configured very carefully to read correctly. Filling in tags and other metadata is a separate epic, especially when done without the internet.
Owners of devices like the Aurender ACS100, all these memories are useful only when these are a nightmare for enthusiasts-novices. Simply because the whole process now comes down to inserting the disc into the slot. After loading the disc, the device automatically recognizes its contents, downloads all the names, covers and other necessary information from the Internet, reads the disc and locates it to the appropriate folder in the music library.
The only thing you need to do manually is set up the initial settings. For example, specify the format in which to save the content: FLAC, AIFF or WAV, what to do if duplicates are detected, whether to eject the disk after copying, etc. But once these settings are done, the entire subsequent process is 100% automated.
After finishing working on the disc, the user can do anything with the received files: copy them to an external drive via USB or download them to any other device over the network. If the disc information downloaded by the device from the Internet is incomplete or incorrect, you can edit it manually: tags, covers, and other metadata can be easily changed using the proprietary ACS Manager application.
Keep in mind that the Aurender ACS100 has USB 3.0 ports on both the front and back, and the ability to copy files from external drives alone is unlimited. If your CD collection contains hundreds or even thousands of discs, you can fix this problem by using an external CD drive with an autoloader. These are manufactured by Acronova. The device, called Nimbie Autoloader, can charge a pack of up to 100 CDs, which will be automatically read one after the other.
Control is something Aurender developers have been dealing with for a long time. Therefore, it is advisable to use the iPad as the main tool for operation, since it is the most complete and functional version of the Aurender Conductor application created for this device. For Android devices, apps are also present but less functional, so there is no substitute for choosing a certain way of control.
The interface of the Aurender Conductor app for iPad gives the first glance the feeling of a spaceship cabin — there's a lot of information around, and it's completely unclear what to do with it. However, algorithms learn quickly, and seemingly redundant information becomes familiar and useful. Due to the most efficient use of the screen area, the developers have managed to minimize the number of additional windows and tabs.
So everything you need is right in front of your eyes, and additional information can be accessed with one or at most two (not three or four) actions. TIDAL and Qobuz services are integrated into the application, so there is no need to install them separately, and when compiling playlists, the entire media library of the streaming service and files stored on internal drives or other home servers can be used. The search tool has a lot of criteria, and it can also be applied to any available media library. In this way, users get some kind of single library of recorded music, and the same problem of missing the correct version is completely a thing of the past.
The only way to integrate the Aurender ACS100 into your audio system is via the USB Audio Class 2.0 interface. For this, a separate USB 2.0 port is installed on the rear panel, which is implemented on a standard USB-B connector of professional quality from the famous manufacturer Amphenol.
And it is this interface that is optimized for audio work, and for all other functions it is recommended to use a USB 3.0 port. The main thing here is not to confuse! The USB 2.0 interface provides the highest quality PCM audio streaming up to 32-bit/768 kHz and supports local DSDs up to 512 bits. By modern standards, these features are sufficient.
Without analog output, with a minimalist design philosophy, even a trivial SPDIF should not be a barrier to building a system. If you like the small form in Hi-Fi, I recommend paying attention to the Mytek Brooklyn component. With their help, you can build a very compact system that produces excellent sound both in headphones and speakers. If the point is not the size, but the number of components, it can also be achieved: many combined amplifiers and even some active speakers now have USB-B inputs.
There were no problems with the amplifiers and speakers in this system in terms of their readiness to produce the highest quality sound, but some technical points of the Aurender ACS100 still need to be clarified. After all, a standard home NAS can also output music to an external USB DAC, but the quality of this digital transmission can hardly be called audiophile.
In addition to selecting the best USB interface mode, disabling the server playback function and comes with lossless HiRes software, the Aurender ACS100 is equipped with additional filters to eliminate noise and interference from the power and Ethernet ports. The power circuit uses supercapacitors to eliminate voltage ripple during operation and act as an uninterruptible power supply in the event of a power failure, allowing the device to stop driving and shutting down in normal mode without data loss.
In this way, even if there is a sudden power surge during operation, the power supply can provide the most stable power to all circuits. The principle of multiple performance reserves that positively affects sound applies to the main hardware of the Aurender ACS100: a quad-core processor Intel N4200 and 8 GB of RAM eliminate the slightest time delay in audio files and streaming playback. In addition, the responsiveness of the system during navigation and processing of files, a powerful "hardware" has an extremely positive effect.
The degree to which digital transmission affects sound is both huge and subtle. When it works properly, other components are responsible for the characteristics and quality of the sound: DACs, amplifiers and acoustic equipment. Even the contribution of the wire to sound is easier to identify than understanding what digital transmission provides.
However, if the transmission hardware has a high level of time latency, produces harmful digital stream conversions and is not done cleanly enough, or if it is simply exposed to interference that causes higher levels of jitter, then we will hear these flaws very clearly, and the shift to higher quality digital transmission is considered a fundamental change and upgrade of the entire system. If you first use a regular computer or laptop as a transfer device and then listen to the same files with the Aurender ACS100, this is exactly what you can experience: the resolution is significantly improved, the sound picture becomes quite grand, and the live sound becomes more natural and realistic.
Markus Miller's bass guitar suddenly began to sound bouncy, clear, and vibrant, Anna Netrebko's vocals were clearly focused on the stage and began to sound more penetrating, and early Kraftwerk's analog synths combined with mechanical sounds and warm timbre impressed.
It is not easy to achieve another, equally significant improvement in quality by moving to another digital transmission method. A device that doubles the cost, capable of organizing the operation of the power supply in a more professional way and minimizing internal jitter, resulting in a noticeable but less impressive quality gain. The scenes are a little clearer, the timbre is a little more natural, and the "airiness" is a little more, but you probably won't experience the stunning effect of upgrading the system to the Aurender ACS100.
In summary, it makes sense to define the scope of application and future uses of the Aurender ACS100. Obviously, it is a very convenient tool for converting your digital CD photo music library into a file storage that keeps your favorite music forever.
At the same time, the ACS100 itself can be a source of music files for all home audio components. Together with other Aurender devices, it can be seamlessly integrated into a single ecosystem, and third-party network players and multi-room speakers will recognize the ACS100 as a regular media server.
The Aurender ACS100 digital transmission is equally successful. It not only provides lossless playback of pure digital audio streams and the highest resolution files, but also provides convenient tools for music playback and media library management. So, as a server for all home audio components, the Aurender ACS100 itself is likely to have a place in the main system. There is a small but very important consideration: over time functional division is the main principle of its operation.