 Wat te denken van een Aurelix streamer die minder dan een terde van de Aries en alleen een half van de Aries LE zal het zijn Aurelix genoemd. Aurelix werd snel gekozen voor de Aries streaming bridge. Dat is niet een streamer in de klassieke zin, omdat het niet een D.A.-converter was. Het was nodig om met een externe D.A.-converter met SPDIF, DOSLink, AES, EBU of USB te zijn. Er zijn twee versies van de Aries, de volledige versie en de LE versie. De Aries Mini, op review hier, gebruikt dezelfde Tesla computerplatform en controlesoftware, maar is aangepakt op de low market. In plaats van 1749 voor de Aries en 1099 voor de LE, de Mini zal je terug 499 euro zetten. Voor dat geld is er ook een internal D.A.-converter, maar laagst de display, remote control, AES-EBU output, half de RAM en de unieke huising. Dus de vraag is of de Mini mis gebruikt de goede reputatie van het gebouw of is het een goede offering zelf? De betreide of zwarte plastische huising measures 135 x 135 x 30 mm. De top van de front houdt drie botten, die functies kunnen veranderen tussen volume en paus of de volgende track en paus. Alles andere is gecontroleerd door de iOS app. De rear holds een 15 volt DC input, een netwerk connector, twee USB 2-connections, optische en coactuele SPDIF en een stereo analoog uit een RCA. Het is allemaal heel simpel en klaar, maar het is ook belangrijk dat de USB's both accept storage devices like harddisk and thumb drives en USB audio profile to DA-converters. De Mini komt met een 15 volt switching power supply. Een panel onder de bottom is held in place by only two torque screws and when you open it, you can add a two and a half inch harddisk or SSD. A mounting bracket, a torque screwdriver and the necessary screws come with the unit. After installation the harddisk needs to be formatted so there is no point in copying music to it prior to mounting. After installation and formatting the harddisk will become accessible over the network as a share so you can copy the music to it. A standard way to control the Mini is by iPad and while an iPhone version is near completion there is no mention of other OS's. According to the manufacturer there are several other ways to control it. Open home compatible control software and UPnP AV compatible control software. For that you need to use a UPnP AV server like Minim server, Tronkey and for instance J-River DLAServer. That will most likely slow down operation voor de Auralic lighting DS control software is quite quick as where the UPnP AVslashDNLA often isn't. Apart from that the Mini also supports Soundcast and Apple's Airplay via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Installation is simple. Install the app on the iPad and just follow the steps on screen. You'll be asked what Auralic device you want to install. Get instructions on connecting the Mini and fill in the password for your Wi-Fi access. After that the install program will automatically check for updates. The last step is to tell the Mini where the music is after which it will start indexing your music collection. Depending on the size of your collection this can take considerable time during which you do need to keep the iPad app up and running. De number of tracks that can be indexed using the Lightning DS control software is not published but my 8500 plus albums 128.000 tracks gave no problem. En if you use UPnP there is no limit other than that of your server. In the app the setting menu lets you change the name choose the operating mode Lightning or UPnP switch to Airplay and Bluetooth choose for a wired wireless LAN several reconstruction filters digital out over SPDIF or USB DSD over PCM on or off and the functions of the buttons on the top front. There are many other settings of which I only mention languages where the choice is English, German or two languages that uses Chinese characters. The settings menu also gives access to the online user guide. As always, if you're not interested in tech skip to the timecode below. Apart from the hard disk dock the mini is not supposed to be opened by the consumer. But nothing stops a veteran I thought. Well, not. After getting the housing open it appeared that almost everything on the PCB is wrapped in metal as if rapper artist Kristo was involved. De metal covering is not to keep out prying eyes but to avoid interference. A second metal plate is mounted below the PCB. What I could see is a 5 volt voltage regulation with filters built with capacitors and inductors, very nice. The other thing that became visible is the tri-band 802.11ac wifi board. This is the latest standard and not often found on streamers. Aurelix doesn't make a secret of what's under the tin. A 1 gigahertz quad-core ARM Cortex A9 processor with 512 MB of RAM and 4 gigabyte of multi-level cell SSD for data storage. This is where the database of your music collection is stored. The A-conversion is taken care of by the Sabre ES1980K2M. This DAC is well respected but as I've said before the way it is implemented is very important too. Just using this chip doesn't guarantee quality. The build quality here is excellent. The only wires I see are to wifi antennas and the extensive shielding makes me hopeful. The mini eats about anything you can call music. AAC, AIF, ALAC, APE, DIF, DSF, FLAC, MP3, WAV, WV en WMA containing PCM in 44.1 kHz to 384 kHz en up to 32 bits or DSD at 64, 128 or 256 fold sampling rate. If you want to connect an external DA converter it will support DSD over PCM as well up to DSD 256 using the Coax SPDIF or USB outputs. Je optical connection is, due to its nature limited to 192 kHz PCM en dus DSD64. The app is very responsive even with my large catalogue. As always it does take some time to get used to but that goes for any controller app. Remarkable is that you cannot only sort your music on artist album composer in genre but also on release date, last modified date, last import date sampling rate en file type. Voor die die, zoals internet radio een grote collectie van categoriseerde internet radio stations zijn available. De categorie Local does indeed provide me with Dutch stations. Tidal is also supported en na mijn subscriptie was it quite easy to find the impressive farewell album Blackstar by David Bowie. To describe the sound of the beanie I have to let you in to trade secrets. Manufacturers make a distinction between normal people and audiophiles. There are even large manufacturers that have loudspeaker lines for both markets. It's not that they put all their qualities in the audiophile product while putting less effort in with products for normal people. It's more like car manufacturers making family cars and sports cars. Family cars are for travelling with all the family members in ease and comfort while sport cars are for performance and entertainment. The Airis Mini clearly is a sports car type. The sound using the analog outputs is analytic and spacious. It will set your auditory system to work. It sounds more high end than its competitors which makes it a less preferred choice for my 700 euro set 3. There a blue sound note 2 produces a more comfortable sound. But in the 3000 euro set 2 it's a better choice although it will scale in at the lower end. And then another high end property of the Mini comes to aid. Tweakability. Replace a standard power supply for my favorite linear power supply the sBoost the best of two worlds and you're up to almost middle set 2 quality. Connecting the cord Hugo DAC brought it in the upper regions of my set 2. By the way go to thehbproject.com slash em slash about for a full description of my reference set. Let's take a look at the competition. The Sonos Connect is an antiquated design that is limited in the number of tracks that can be indexed and sampling rates and does no DSD. The Raspberry Pi using the Hi-Fi Berry DAC Plus Pro with proper linear power supply doesn't have these limitations. It sounds better on normal CD quality files than the Sonos and offer higher sampling rates and DSD too. But you do need to be handy with computers and a soldering iron to make it work as I described in a separate video. See the link in the top right corner. If the sound quality is a priority the only ready to use products that came close to the Mini is the Blue Sound Node 2. It is limited in sample rate but who uses sampling rates higher than 192 kHz. It doesn't do DSD which might be a limitation to some. Just like the approximately 3500 CD capacity of the memory. Having said that it does have inputs that can be shared over the network. Has 6 presets and supports more streaming services including those that do MP3. See the top right corner for a link to the review of the Node. To use the metaphor again the Blue Sound Node 2 is a very good versatile family saloon. The Auralic Aries Mini doesn't support MP3 streaming services has no input to share over the network but has a very fast 802.11ac tri-band wifi does Airplay and Soundcast supports up to 384 kHz sampling and DSD 256 support DOP to send DSD to an external DA converter has external power supply that can be upgraded and like the Blue Sound Node it will support MQA as a free update as soon as it is released by MQA. It will be clear that the Auralic Aries Mini is a sports car here. It is the more audiophile product in start with a Mini only then over time improve with a better power supply and an external DA converter in that aura. People that hate computer equipment switched on to play music can have a hard disk or SSD built in for the cost of the hard disk only. Two and a half inch drives coming capacities up to 2 GB for only slightly more than 100 euros. SSDs with the same capacity come at prices from 160 euros upwards. 2 GB can hold about 4000 cds in Flac or A-Lac. The Aries Mini isn't the average Joe product. It's a true high end product at a non high end price that will please any connoisseur including myself. It makes me curious how much better the Aries sound. So let's put on my review list for the coming time. So if you want to remain informed subscribe to this channel follow my facebook or google plus page or my twitter account. You can also post questions there. You'll find the information below this video in youtube. If you like this video give it a thumbs up and tell your friends on the web about it. I am Hans Beekhuyzen for the HB channel. Thank you for watching and see you next time on the HBproject.com And whatever you do enjoy the music.