The Aurender N50 is a three-box streamer and server and is at the pinnacle of digital audio technology.
The flagship digital gear we chose for AXPONA
The stars of our demo systems this year are the loudspeakers. One system features the new Klipsch La Scala AL6, with a pair of the new REL 212 Black Label subwoofers. The other system shows off the flagship Fyne Audio F1-12S. With transducers of this quality, we want digital sources that noiselessly deliver reference-grade audio. Here's what we've chosen.
Aurender N50
Few people object to the maker of their family car participating in F1 racing or producing an aspirational performance machine. The understanding is that by playing in this rarified world, a company learns much about materials and design; lessons that it uses to improve every product it makes. This is why the $38,500 Aurender N50 streamer is important even to customers shopping at a tenth of that budget.
Three solid boxes and not even a DAC onboard... imagine how much Aurender has learned from making this no-holds-barrred streamer and server. One chassis holds the audio streaming circuits, another the server, and the last the power supply for both. By separating and isolating all the noisiest parts, Aurender can hear the effect of the tiniest optimizations in the streaming circuits. You can bet these learnings will trickle down through the range and make upcoming models better than ever. Best of all, current models get better with every firmware update. It's reassuring to buy from a company that's playing at the ultra-high-end level, knowing it has tremendous resources at its disposal and is here for the long term.
Berkeley Audio specializes in DACs and the legendary Alpha Reference is better than ever.
Berkeley Audio Design Alpha Reference DAC Series 3P
Berkeley Audio Design is a DAC specialist. Michael Pflaumer of Berkeley Audio obsessively designs the very best DAC he can—price little to no object—and that becomes the company's reference product. Then he whittles away at it, losing as little as possible, to create the lower-tier product. (Luckily, most of the savings are in the chassis, resulting in closer performance than the price difference would suggest.) Right now, the reference product is the $34,000 Alpha Reference Series 3P, with the $11,995 Alpha based on the previous Reference. Coming soon is the Perfected Technology Alpha DAC Series 3P, which, at $16,995, is the younger sibling of the current Reference. Watch this space for more on the new product.
While $34,000 is a lot for a DAC, it's important to note that the Berkley Audio Alpha Reference is discussed in the same august company as DACs from dCS and Wadax, which are well into the six figures. With the newest model, Michael further explores the realization that there is no reasonable limit to a human's ability to hear time-domain errors. Improvements continue even into picosecond resolutions and below the noise-floor of measuring instruments. The result is that the silence of a Berkeley Audio DAC is just as breathtaking as the notes themselves. You have to hear it to fully understand.
The MU2 is built around Roon, so you don't need separate hardware to run Core.
Grimm Audio MU2 Media Player / Streamer / Preamplifier
We've written before about how the Grimm MU2 rapidly became the talk of Upscale, as two of our most experienced employees sold a number of high-end boxes to have a Grimm MU2 as their one-box digital source. Built around Roon, the MU2 is a Roon Core in itself, and combines a reference music streamer with a superb DAC and high-end analog preamp. Everything is custom and discrete, resulting in microdetail without any loss of musicality.
"It is a groundbreaking product in terms of sound quality and feature set," says John-Paul Lizars, Grimm's North America director of sales. John-Paul points out that the MU2 replaces up to five components: a Roon Core computer, NAS, streamer, DAC, and preamplifier. "The value is unprecedented given the audio performance versus cost."