These all had subtle but distinct effects that largely reflect their names, with Precise being the best with most of the music I tried, some however might prefer the relaxed demeanour of Smooth. I tried the four filter settings on the internal DAC Precise, Dynamic, Balance and Smooth. The sense of musical flow is always well preserved and it’s easy to get absorbed in the music, in fact the balance is such that you can forget about the technology and be carried away with the tunes with little difficulty. The onboard DAC is not as focussed and has softer edges but that makes it easy to live with and forgiving of less pristine recordings. The combination delivering masses of reverberation from the Lumen Drones self titled debut on ECM, this sounded crisp and shimmery and made a good fist of the power and tone available from the guitar, drums and Hardanger fiddle being played. Listening in anger started out with a USB connection to a Primare DAC30 and thence a Naim NAP300 DR power amp driving PMC Fact.8 speakers. It doesn’t sound as good as locally stored material but is more than adequate to establish whether something is worth investing in. The Aries Mini review sample was signed up to Qobuz so I played quite a bit of music from the French streaming service, the Roon like access experience is good, allowing you to search both your own library and that on Qobuz together. You can fix output via the app or use the onboard volume, as ever with this type of device the control on a preamp or integrated will be less deleterious to the signal. The latter is used to build up specific playlists and once you know how this is a quick and easy way to achieve what is not always an easy goal.Īside from the in and outputs on the box there are three buttons on the top that can be used in different ways depending on how you set it up, so they can do volume, play/pause etc but 99% of the time it’s easier to control the mini with its app. Even if you tap on the last track it will load the album into the playlist, a more selective tap will let you add just one track via a second menu. You get full artwork if you have been diligent with your tagging, and it plays whole albums if you tap on the first track. The Lightning DS app for Aries (iOS only) is however very nice indeed it has an attractive Roon like appearance and is easy to navigate with good reliability, I had a few drop outs where it needed restarting but nothing baffling, as can sometimes be the case. What probably distinguishes these two the most is the control app, I’ve not tried the Bluesound option but hear that it’s pretty solid. So unless you need Spotify in your life it’s a close call spec wise. There aren’t many alternatives on the market that offer this degree of flexibility and specification at the price, the Bluesound Node 2 (£430) has greater connectivity but isn’t DSD compatible, it does have access to more online music services albeit both devices can stream the better quality options, Tidal and Qobuz with appropriate subscriptions. You can use the Aries Mini with wireless devices over Bluetooth and Airplay and incorporate a number of them in a multiroom set up. For the £449 asking price the Mini is supplied with a basic wallwart power supply but a linear PSU is available for an extra £249, and if sound quality is important that is a worthwhile upgrade. It has USB and coaxial digital outputs but its internal Sabre DAC is ready to convert PCM up to 32/384 and DSD up to DSD256. The Aries Mini is a compact, Apple TV size, unit that can operate wired or wirelessly and incorporates a bay that accepts a two and a half inch hard drive for onboard storage. At nearly half the price the Aries LE is very similar but doesn’t have the femto clock or linear PSU. The top model, Aries, has dual femto clocks, offboard linear power supply, no DAC and Roon control software embedded, it costs £1,495. Auralic makes a range of Aries streamers of which this is the least expensive. The Mini is a streamer that can form the basis of a system that need only include a pair of powered speakers to get up and running. They are not as flexible as a computer but the good ones offer pretty much everything the music enthusiast needs, the Auralic Aries Mini is from this camp. Streamers on the other hand can be built with audio sensibilities and controlled by apps on a phone or tablet. The former approach is popular because many of us have laptops, but these are compromised by the electrically noisy nature of such devices. There are a few different ways to get music streaming into your life, you can hook up a laptop to a DAC or you can connect a hard drive and a streamer to your network.
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