Auralic Aries Wireless Streaming Bridge

Here we have a good quality Wireless Streaming Bridge from AURALiC. The Aries is the connection between your stored music files or online streaming services and your current digital to analogue converter / hi-fi system. It is in good fully working condition noting a few small blemishes – please refer to our photographs. It will be professionally packaged along with remote control unit, reprinted quick start guide, power supply unit, mains cable, PSU cable plus as always you get our standard three month warranty.
AURALiC Say….
The ARIES serves as a “bridge” between music files on network storage or high quality online streaming services and the consumers’ DAC – enabling DACs for the first time to stream high-resolution music quickly and wirelessly in virtually any sampling rate, including DSD, Double-Rate DSD and DXD.
The inputs of ARIES include Dual-Band high-speed Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet and USB 2.0 port. The outputs are USB audio host buffered by AURALiC’s patented ActiveUSB™ technology; low jitter digital audio outputs: AES/EBU, Coaxial and TOSLINK. The USB audio host can deliver PCM from 44.1 to 384 kHz at 16-, 24- and 32-bit resolutions as well as DSD, Double-Rate DSD for compatible USB DAC. The other digital outputs are limited to 192 kHz at 24-bit in maximum according to S/PDIF standard.
ARIES is bundled with AURALiC’s Lightning DS App. The App has the capability to fully control ARIES to browse your music libraries on your network-attached storage (NAS), to stream high quality music content from service providers like Qobuz and WiMP, to control the playback and to select the hardware settings such as output channel and Wi-Fi network, etc. The App also supports Songcast, a music distribution service that allows users to map computer’s sound to any Lightning-equipped system and to map sound between different Lightning systems in the house and streaming sound though Apple AirPlay.
ARIES is powered by AURALiC’s proprietary Tesla hardware platform that includes a Quad-Core ARM Coretex-A9 processor running at 1GHz, 1GB DDR3 onboard memory and 4GB internal storage. The Tesla platform has a calculation ability of 25,000 MIPS, more than enough to decode a vast spectrum of audio formats, including AAC, AIFF, ALAC, APE, DIFF, DSF, FLAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, WV and WMA.
AURALiC has chosen this platform for a long term supporting consideration, the feature planned include DSD upsampling, room acoustic treatment and other acoustic DSP function.
By using OpenHome structure which is adopted by UK based streaming solution manufacturer Linn, ARIES as well as all other Lightning based products support several advanced functions such as on-device playlist that allow control software to turn off during play and complete supporting of multi-room, multiple control points functions that are not part of the legacy standards of the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA).
The ARIES with two individual Femto clocks for both USB audio host and digital outputs: the clock used for digital outputs are in charge of generate master clock of digital signal to ensure lowest jitter performance for all digital outputs. Accordingly to our measurement, the USB controller’s master clock can also effect sound quality as it effect USB interrupt timing when joint use with real time system, to maximum sound quality, ARIES also equipped with another Femto clock for USB controller.
Excepting for low noise internal power supply design, ARIES also comes with an external low noise linear power supply unit. This PSU is based on AURALiC Purer‐Power™ technology with advanced AC filter and very low noise circuit design. The actual measurement shows only 10 μV cross 20 Hz – 20 kHz range.
Features & Specifications:
Music Sources:
Local uPnP/DLNA music library content
Qobuz WiMP and TIDAL online streaming
vTuner Internet Radio
AirPlay and Songcast
USB drive playback
RoonReady
Supported File Types: AAC, AIFF, ALAC, APE, DIFF, DSF, FLAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, WV and WMA
Sampling Rates: PCM in 44.1 kHz – 384 kHz at 16 – 32-bits; DSD64, DSD128, DSD256
Control Software:
AURALiC Lightning DS
AURALiC RC-1 remote control
OpenHome compatible control software
uPnP AV compatible control software
Media Server Compatibility: Built-in Lightning Server; Compatible with Minimserver, Twonky, Asset UPnP
On-Device Display: 3” 256 x 64px OLED
Input: RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet; Dual-Band Wi-Fi connection; USB 2.0 High-Speed for external disk
Output: USB 2.0 High-Speed for compatible DAC; AES/EBU, Coaxial, TOSlink
Power Consumption: 15 W (max); < 2 W
Dimensions: 250 (W) x 200 (D) x 70 (H) mm
Weight: 0.8 kg

For a review from Hi-Fi+ magazine please click HERE