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Sound. The Aurender was the best computer-based solution I've ever tested at home with the exception of the Audionec SDV3 which isn’t comparable on price. The S10 delivered far more involving playback than other dedicated solutions I previously experimented with like Olive’s 4HD, Wyred4Sound’s Music Server, Linn’s Akurate DS or the Squeezebox Touch. For once the price hierarchy actually tracked the results (not always the case). Not having an AES/EBU input with any of my three DACs—Esoteric K-03, Totaldac A1 Reference, Audio GD Ref 5—I could not explore what seems to be the S10’d acknowledged best connection. Consider this a possible limitation of my following assessments. Critical listening tests hence were restricted to coax, Toslink and USB.

Using my K-03’s internal DAC made it easy to compare its CD transport as my present personal reference for digital against the Aurender S10's feed. That both were quite close was a welcome surprise. Nevertheless either ‘transport’ had its own sonic identity - the Esoteric sounded a bit more vivid, the Aurender more laid back. There also was a brighter tonal balance for the K-03 as integrated player whilst the Aurender sounded a bit mellower. All things considered these differences were subtle and additionally influenced by the digital cable. In fact changing the latter caused significant alterations to the overall tonal balance.

What’s more, each digital output was slightly differed from the next. Toslink never convinced and sounded rather dark and sluggish into both the K-03 and Audio GD converters. That was no real surprise since optical rarely was any prior source of enjoyment in my system. USB was far better even if less efficient than coaxial. The K-03’s coax input was particularly accurate whilst the Totaldac A1 couldn’t deliver the same precise three-dimensional image or incredible energy.

Switching coaxial cables I could approach the integrated player mode of my Esoteric but on 16/44.1 files I still noticed less articulated bass with the Aurender and a small loss in dynamics and depth. Was this due to higher jitter created with the externalized S/PDIF transmission? Slightly different results with different cables suggested this could have been a possible explanation. The Esoteric K-03 SACD player is one of the very best transports I have used, better even than Audioaéro’s La Source at least in my system. For less than €6.000 the Aurender S10’s performance now was thus simply outstanding and with high-resolution files (24/96 or 24/192) it exceeded Esoteric’s own Redbook performance.

I finally had brief opportunity to test the AES/EBU output commonly considered as having the highest jitter rejection. I conducted a short test with an Audiomat DAC and O2A AES/EBU wire but the comparison between AES/EBU and S/PDIF turned out to be surprisingly insignificant. Other Aurender users have reported different results to where I think it's actually quite useless to compare different outputs with dissimilar cables. To me the Aurender seemed more responsive to the intrinsic quality of whatever digital cable I ran than the output itself (except for Toslink which was a clear downward step.)

The choice of power cord became another differentiation factor. For me the best options were an Audio Art Power One SE or Cardas Clear. The Korean server was greatly impacted by AC phase and sounded rather different in either power polarity far beyond what I initially expected. This is an important factor to take into account. Until now my very humble Squeezebox Touch setup had proven a very stubborn challenger to other computer-based solutions I tried. Whilst rarely the best performer, the delta of difference tended to be too small considering the far greater offset in price.
Commercial demo with Aurender server
Against the Aurender S10 the Logitech finally exposed its own limits very quickly as a smaller soundstage, less detail and lower dynamics but all that within amazing depth. Supreme irony was that my Squeezebox setup never worked better than when connected to the K-03 converter. The latter’s coax input seems to be of ultra-high quality and the small Logitech streamer surprised me once more. Even so the performance gap between Aurender and Squeezebox Touch was significant particularly given how over a 2-year period of previous comparisons against overpriced digital sources it had always prevailed as the final voice of reason. To finally be bested in no uncertain terms meant that Aurender’s plug & play performance really was outstanding.