Auralic is perhaps THE company that brought
high-end network audio to a sound quality
loving public with their first generation
Aries network audio player. It is now time
for its successor, the Aries G1.
I call the G1 the successor of the original
Aries for it is roughly in the same price
bracket. Auralic also had issued the Aries
Mini but that is, although great for the money,
lower in class. And in 2017 the Aries G2 was
introduced but at a price of over 4000 euros
it can’t be called the Aries successor.
The Aries G1 on review here shares the cabinet
design with the G2, the only optical difference
is the colour of the buttons on the front:
black on the G2 and silver on the G1. On a
closer look the G1 housing is bolted together
from several panels as where the G2 housing
is machined from one piece of aluminium. Nevertheless
the robustness of the G1 housing is extremely
high, which is great if you want very high
precision, for femto crystals can be rather
sensitive to vibrations.
The cabinet measures 340 mm x 320 mm x 80
mm. Dominant on the front is the 4 inch 300
pixels per inch high resolution color screen
that offers very high quality album art and
info. On the left side the standby button
and on the right side four buttons that function
as transport buttons while playing and menu
navigation when not playing.
The rear side is somewhat more crowded: Left
to right we see an antenna socket, the power
switch, fuse and IEC mains socket, the gigabit
network port, a USB A socket for connecting
up a storage medium, a USB A port for hooking
up a DAC, a TOSlink output, an SPDIF output
on RCA and an AES/EBU output on XLR. Completely
on the right the second antenna socket for
diversity reception. Two rubberised antennas
come with the unit.
The inside shows more of the quest for audio
quality. The unit is opened from the bottom,
so almost all components you see are mounted
against a heavy metal plate that is screwed
against the top of the housing. That metal
plate is as dead as a dodo, I suppose it is
damped in some way. The large printed circuit
board on the right takes care of the power.
Below right the mains input - remember the
unit is upside down. From there the mains
passes a filter and is then sent to two power
supplies with toroidal transformers: one for
the digital audio part and one for all other
logic circuits. The other main PCB holds the
Tesla streaming engine and the interfacing
like the XMOS interface chip and the encapsulated
module that holds the wifi and bluetooth radios.
Also notice the very sturdy metal that holds
the three PCB’s covering the front functions.
The build quality is unsurpassed in this price
range and even above. The Tesla G2 engine
- the same as used in the Aries G2 - is 50%
faster than that of the Aries first generation
due to a Quad-Core Cortex A9 chip . It also
has twice the system memory at 2GB and data
storage at 8GB. Furthermore there is a 1GB
memory cache for music. It can handle PCM
up to 384 kilohertz, 32 bit and DSD up to
DSD 256. Auralic also has developed their
own way of playing back MQA files but luckily
also offers a setting to have the DAC handle
MQA and just pass on the MQA files unaltered.
Also upsampling and a parametric equaliser
are incorporated. Whether you should use them
depends on your situation. If your DAC doesn’t
upsample as good as the Aries G1 can, let
the Aries do that job. The parametric equalizer
might be able to solve room mode problems.
I described this in a video using the parametric
equalizer in Roon. Link in the show notes.
The Aries G1 can be operated from the front
using the buttons on the front or using an
infrared remote control. The latter doesn’t
come with the Aries G1, you should program
the Aries G1 to recognise the IR codes from
a remote control you already own. Many amplifiers
and receivers come with remote controls that
can also control other equipment. So there
is no need for yet another remote control;
just choose a device setting - like DVD or
CD - on your remote and learn those codes
to the Aries G1. It is one of the options
in the system menu you find on the Aries G1
itself. Many settings can be done by an HTML
menu you can open in a browser by typing the
IP address designated to the G1 by your router
or by opening the Lighting DS app and going
to the settings. The IR learning can only
be done from the front panel. I like the smart
infrared function. It lets you automate your
stereo to some degree using a programmable
remote control like the Logitech Harmony remotes.
This is much appreciated by family members
that just want to press one button for music.
But the best way to operate the Aries G1 is
by iOS app, preferably on an iPad. The free
iOS app - there is no Android app - will build
up the catalog internally so scrolling and
searching is fast. Do realise that this takes
up quite some space on your iPad or iPhone,
especially when you have a a lot of music
and use large cover art. But then again, storage
on iOS devices isn’t that scarce anymore.
It all means that if you use both an iPhone
and an iPad, both have to build up their own
catalogue. That can take considerable time
but only the first time you are going to use
it. The Lightning DS app has matured of the
years and now is amongst the better apps like
Sonos - if you don’t care for sound quality
- and Bluesound. It supports Tidal and Qobus
full quality streaming services and Internet
Radio. Also Spotify Connect, Song Cast, Airplay
and Roon Ready protocols are supported. I
have used both the Lightning DS app and Roon.
It doesn’t come as a surprise that this
is a very good streamer and it is the best
I have reviewed so far. As you know I try
to maintain a price limit of 2000 euro but
in this case curiosity and your requests won,
the Aries G1 is 10% more expensive. But the
relaxed sound, fine yet powerful transients,
the tonality in the lows, the detailed texture
of any instrument; it’s is all extremely
enjoyable and realistic. I hadn’t thought
it would beat the SOtM sMS-200ultra NEO. But
it does at a nose length, a thick nose length.
The clearest difference is in the highs that
are even more refined. Also the low level
information is slightly better, offering even
better stereo imaging. Using the Mytek Brooklyn
DAC with Syntaxx power supply the best result
was achieved using the USB connection over
an AudioQuest Diamond USB cable. Using AES/EBU
over a Siltech AES/EBU cable brought it back
to the level of the SOtM used over USB. Whether
that is due to the properties of the Aries
G1 or the Mytek Brooklyn, I can’t say. And
don’t be mistaken, even then the quality
is very high. All listening is done in my
setup 1, see the show notes for a link to
a summary of the equipment.
The Auralic Aries G1 is a shockingly well
built device that functions and sounds excellent.
Noblesse Oblige as the French say and Auralic
lived up to that adagio completely. I mentioned
the SOtM sMS-200ultra NEO and if you want
to compare the two, take in account the following:
the Aries G1 has two linear power supplies
built in, the sMS-200ultra NEO comes with
a switch mode power supply but I use it with
an sBooster linear power supply. Furthermore
the Aries G1 not only has a USB output but
also AES/EBU and SPDIF on RCA and Toslink.
And it has a display plus it comes with an
app that is far more than the universal free
apps that could be used with the DLNA mode
of the SOtM. Take those things into account
and the price difference isn’t that big
at all. Choices, choices. If you are in for
a new streamer in this price range, I would
go for it. But many of you already have an
sMS-200ultra and would you replace that for
the Aries G1. Difficult. To be honest, I don’
no what to do. Time will tell and if you subscribe
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