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Auralic Aries w NOS DAC

Hi folks,

I'm intrigued by the new Auralic Aries server/streamer device. I love the idea of streaming lossless digital content from Tidal, etc direct to my Red Wine Audio DAC, and I love its ability to pull music from a hard drive over wifi as well. But here's the thing: I have the NOS version of the Red Wine DAC and zero need/interest in upgrading to the high-res version, and the Auralic Aries seems very focused on enabling 192k DSD content. I get that, I admire it, but it's not relevant for me. Would the Aries be total overkill with the Red Wine NOS DAC? If so, does anyone know of a cheaper option with similar functionality and great sound quality? I know that Sonos basically offers this functionality, but I'm looking for true audiophile sound quality.

Thanks as always.
lousyreeds1
arh
366 posts
 
I use a Lenova laptop and stream from Spotify premium and Classicsonlinehd. I tried Tidal but they are missing a lot of classical albums. Classicsonlinehd has only classical albums but streams up to 24/192. I saw the Auralic at CES but the sound quality will still mainly be determined by your dac. If you like your dac I would not spend the money on the Auralic.
Alan
jl35
2,244 posts
 
I am also looking at the Auralic Aries to connect to DAC in my Aesthetix Romulus. I thought that having a good DAC made the Aries a good buy, not wanting to buy a streamer with it's own built in DAC.
hchilcoat
78 posts
 
I just received an Aries and have been playing mostly Ripped CDs since I don't have much of a Hi-Rez collection yet except for a few demos. And Tidal is CD resolution and the Aries plays Tidal wonderfully. So not sure if overkill but for me the sound quality exceeds playing CD through a transport. I think it is worth the investment.
eastein
82 posts
 
I purchases an Aries for sonos like functionality to replace a Mac Mini. It smoked the mini and elevated the sound quality of my nos DAC. I remain surprised by how much better it sounds in my system than the mini it replaced. Definitely worth auditioning.
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